He writes "mad gusts tugging on the wire". This line allows Owen to show how violently the wind was blowing, causing the wire to move. It allows us to appreciate how cold the men must have been, due to this violent wind. I can see that this is personification because the wire isn't literally tugging the wire. The effect is only created by the wind blowing the wire. In this verse, I can also see onomatopoeia. He uses the word "rumbles" to describe the effects of the artillery. This word allows us to hear the noise that they would be able to hear and feel in the trench. "Gunnery rumbles, far off, like a dull rumour of some other war". In this simile, Owen compares the noise that he can hear from the battlefield, to the sounds he would he able to here from a very distant war. This shows that he sees no reason for the sounds to be present, as they would make no difference if they were from a battle that they were not involved in. The Verse ends in a rhetorical question, "What are we doing here". This shows that even they don't know the purpose of the war, or why they are there.
In Verse Three, we learn that dawn arrives but still the men aren't optimistic. They start to feel like the war is going to last forever and they are going to be stuck in these awful conditions. They are becoming soaked but still the weather seems to look worse, and as if it is about to attack them. At this part in the poem, the weather seems to be the real enemy. The line, "But nothing happens" helps to show that they are becoming frustrated, as they have to stand out in the awful weather when there seems to be no battle to fight. There is one main technique that is mostly used in this Verse. This is personification. One example of this is when Owen writes "the poignant misery of dawn begins to grow". This line gives the impression that the dawn is causing the men to feel even more down and cause them misery. Personification is show because the dawn is not physically growing, but the men develop the feeling that it is.
