Regeneration - Pat Barker
How the War is Explored:
The war in 'Regeneration' is explored 'back home'. Rather than portraying the war in terms of fighting on the frontline in the battlefields of France, Barker demonstrates the effects on the soldiers 'back home', both physically and mentally. The soldiers are those who have been injured, shell-shocked, or had a breakdown and are being treated with the intention of sending those who are able, back to France or at least resuming some kind of war duties.
The war is explored, essentially in terms of the psychological effects of those who fought it. The physical traumas and horrific injuries suffered are widely known. However the mental traumas are probably less known and not fully understand. It is from this perspective Barker writes. The book poses as an alternative to the novels written from the perspective and experiences of the soldier who is fighting on the frontline. I Regeneration we learn of these experiences from those who were there but learn them in such a way that we are allowed to understand the real and devastating effects they can have on individuals.
Barker manages to provoke the vivid and agonising pain of the First World War through her characters and portrayals of how their lives and they themselves have come to change as people as a result of their involvement in the war. This is seen most clearly in patients such as Sassoon, Burns and Prior as well as Dr. Rivers. Through these characters she challenges the assumptions about the relationship between doctors and their patients - some patients describe Rivers as a father figure, between men and women - Prior finds comfort in a woman who learns nothing about his devastating experiences, and yet there are subtle suggestions in the book that he may in fact be homosexual and between the classes - Prior is a young and working class officer, promoted to a higher rank, which was especially unusual for the First World War where nearly all high ranking officers were middle or upper class. The First World War is sometimes described as the gentleman's war. All those giving orders and directing combat were high ranking officers who often did not set foot on the battlefield. Soldiers were encouraged to fight with honour and behave as gentlemen. These often resulted in more psychological torment. Men back home e.g. Yealland, the unsympathetic, practically abusive doctor clearly had no understanding at all of the soldiers' experiences, tormenting those who did not want to go back, who had mental breakdown and suffered with extreme guilt complexes because of the enormous pressure they were under. It was difficult for women, for the men too old to fight and the boys to young but so much wanting to fight, to understand exactly what the war meant and what it was like because they hadn't experienced. This is why I find Barker's book so powerful, because she captures the traumas and the devastating effects of fighting without so much as one chapter being set in France. Though it may seem detached to some, the book encapsulates the effects of the war but back at home, making them all the more painful and real, because the most painful part of these effects is coping with them whilst trying to adjust to life and people back home.
How the War is Explored:
The war in 'Regeneration' is explored 'back home'. Rather than portraying the war in terms of fighting on the frontline in the battlefields of France, Barker demonstrates the effects on the soldiers 'back home', both physically and mentally. The soldiers are those who have been injured, shell-shocked, or had a breakdown and are being treated with the intention of sending those who are able, back to France or at least resuming some kind of war duties.
The war is explored, essentially in terms of the psychological effects of those who fought it. The physical traumas and horrific injuries suffered are widely known. However the mental traumas are probably less known and not fully understand. It is from this perspective Barker writes. The book poses as an alternative to the novels written from the perspective and experiences of the soldier who is fighting on the frontline. I Regeneration we learn of these experiences from those who were there but learn them in such a way that we are allowed to understand the real and devastating effects they can have on individuals.
Barker manages to provoke the vivid and agonising pain of the First World War through her characters and portrayals of how their lives and they themselves have come to change as people as a result of their involvement in the war. This is seen most clearly in patients such as Sassoon, Burns and Prior as well as Dr. Rivers. Through these characters she challenges the assumptions about the relationship between doctors and their patients - some patients describe Rivers as a father figure, between men and women - Prior finds comfort in a woman who learns nothing about his devastating experiences, and yet there are subtle suggestions in the book that he may in fact be homosexual and between the classes - Prior is a young and working class officer, promoted to a higher rank, which was especially unusual for the First World War where nearly all high ranking officers were middle or upper class. The First World War is sometimes described as the gentleman's war. All those giving orders and directing combat were high ranking officers who often did not set foot on the battlefield. Soldiers were encouraged to fight with honour and behave as gentlemen. These often resulted in more psychological torment. Men back home e.g. Yealland, the unsympathetic, practically abusive doctor clearly had no understanding at all of the soldiers' experiences, tormenting those who did not want to go back, who had mental breakdown and suffered with extreme guilt complexes because of the enormous pressure they were under. It was difficult for women, for the men too old to fight and the boys to young but so much wanting to fight, to understand exactly what the war meant and what it was like because they hadn't experienced. This is why I find Barker's book so powerful, because she captures the traumas and the devastating effects of fighting without so much as one chapter being set in France. Though it may seem detached to some, the book encapsulates the effects of the war but back at home, making them all the more painful and real, because the most painful part of these effects is coping with them whilst trying to adjust to life and people back home.
