Themes
English Lit: AQA GCSE Poetry - Power & Conflict, topic 4.1.3
Bleak Imagery
Owen uses bleak imagery to highlight the misery of the soldiers in war. Here are some examples:
“The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow”
“War lasts, rain soaks and clouds sag stormy”
Pointlessness of War
The pointlessness of war is emphasised throughout the poem. The speaker seems to have lost sight of what he is fighting for. Owen uses these techniques to emphasise the boredom:
Repetition
- Repetition of “but nothing happens” throughout the poem gives the readers a sense of the boredom caused by waiting.
- It hints at the pointlessness of war.
Rhetorical questions
- Rhetorical questions suggest the pointlessness of war.
- They make the reader question why we allow soldiers to be exposed to such suffering:
- “What are we doing here?”
- “Is it that we are dying?”
Loss of Humanity: Metaphors
Owen uses different metaphors to suggest that the men lose their humanity and dignity in war. This depiction is the antithesis (opposite) to images of heroism soldiers would have seen before the war. The metaphors are:
“Slowly, our ghosts drag home”
- This metaphor suggests that war has sucked all the life out of the soldiers.
- It also reminds readers that they are on the brink of death.
“All their eyes are ice”
- This metaphor describes the extreme effects of the weather.
- It implies the soldiers have lost their humanity and are close to breaking point.
Test yourself on Themes
Which of these are examples of bleak imagery, emphasising the misery of war?
Which of these is not an example of bleak imagery from Exposure?
What's this quote an example of?
“What are we doing here?”Which of these are possible interpretations of the metaphor “slowly, our ghosts drag home”?