Do you think nature is more powerful in “Exposure” or “Storm on the Island”?
“Exposure” is a poem focusing on the hardships of World War I soldiers in the trenches whereas “Storm on the Island” is about a fierce storm attacking an island. Although Owen and Heaney concentrate on different topics and time periods, both poets capture how nature can be an enemy and how normal civilians can be turned into soldiers fighting against nature. These similarities could already show how timeless and undefeatable nature’s power is.
Unlike “Storm on the Island” which is structured as one long stanza, “Exposure” consists of 8 regular sized stanzas with 5 lines in each, possibly suggesting that because of the regular structure in “Exposure”, humans have been able to control nature better than in Heaney’s poem, where enjambment has been used to create a sense of panic: “You can listen to the thing you fear
Forgetting that it pummels your house too.” Enjambment can often leave a reader out of breath, and by using it, Heaney shows how these victims of the storm have no time to think, they just have to act. The enjambment and caesura used also make the poem seem more impulsive and emotional – reflecting on the narrator’s thoughts and actions. The non-stop barrage of information could also represent a gust of wind attacking these people’s houses. The present participle verb “forgetting” shows how the storm has manipulated the people’s emotions, and that nature has the power to overwhelm their senses. This is only emphasised by the verb “pummels” which personifies the wind and implies that the humans have become helpless – as if they have no chance of fighting back, despite being “prepared” at the beginning of the poem. The contrast of emotions at the beginning of the poem and in the middle shows how no amount of preparation could help these people overpower the storm in the war against nature. The second person pronoun used emphasises the effect of the storm on the community. At the start of the poem, first person plural pronoun is used, however, within this quote, it has changed to second person - as if the narrator has no one else to talk to but the reader. This highlights the isolation that the storm has caused - breaking up communities and separating them as individuals until they have no one left. The use of no human characters within this poem emphasises this further. The second person pronoun could suggest that the narrator is trying to say that unlike human wars, nature can affect everyone - presenting the attitude that nature will always be more powerful than humans. “You” also gives the poem a conversational tone and this implies that storms are regular on the island and that the people are used to the chaos described; hence why the poem is called “Storm on the Island” without an article before “Storm” - as if this storm is omnipresent and the war against nature will always continue.
Although Owen has structured his poem in a different way, he has shown how the war against nature is constant too. Within each verse, Owen has structured it so that line 1 is a powerful, blunt statement: “Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us…” The verb “ache” suggests that the soldiers are feeling a constant pain that’s different to what you would expect from a bullet wound. Perhaps this is because the soldiers were constantly having to stay alert and this has drained them or it may be because the soldiers are wondering what their purpose is for fighting against the Central Powers. Owen suggests that by their brains aching, the soldiers have been thinking too much, rather than acting, a contrast to what soldiers are known for doing. The personification of nature in this line makes me believe that it is partially nature’s fault that these soldiers are feeling conflicted. Comparing this to Heaney’s poem, in which the people do not have time to think because of nature’s fierce attack (vs having too much time to think in “Exposure”), nature could be seen as more powerful in “Exposure”, as it has been able to get inside the soldiers’ brains and make them question orders. This is emphasised by the verb “knive” which allows the reader to visualise the wind as an armed enemy. “Knive” sounds as if the wind is taking its time whilst killing the soldiers – ironic, as in Owen’s poem, nature is doing more killing than the enemy soldiers. This personification presents the attitude that human war is futile, similar to Heaney’s personification of the wind. The adjective “merciless” implies that the wind is punishing the soldiers for fighting in the war and that nature is as dangerous as the enemy. The ellipsis could show the weariness of the soldiers that they couldn’t even finish the line, or it could show their constant waiting and paranoia that something was going to happen. The ellipsis allows tension to build slowly until line 5: “But nothing happens.” I think Owen has developed this tension and then used an anti-climax to represent the harsh weather: the verse’s structure makes it sound like a quick gust of wind; very powerful and will cause destruction, but will then disappear relatively quickly, much like the structural devices used in “Storm on the Island”. “Exposure”’s structure could also be interpreted as the weather being a never-ending cycle that these soldiers cannot escape. This is the type of weather Owen was facing in the trenches so by structuring his verses this way, it helps the reader to envision his situation better. Moreover, the separated stanzas make the pace of the poem slower than in “Storm on the Island”, possibly to represent how slow time seemed to pass in the trenches, or how stealthily nature seemed to creep up on the soldiers, unlike in Heaney’s poem where it seems like a sudden, aggressive attack.