Consider the novels ‘Birdsong’ and ‘Regeneration’ compare Faulks’ and Barker’s presentation of life in the trenches during world war one.

your more grotesque kind of rats, 'They moved low towards a mine crater where bodies had lain for weeks

uncollected. "Try to lift him".... On Weir's collar a large rat, trailing something red down his back....Bright

and sleek on liver, a rat emerged from the abdomen; it levered and flopped fatly over the ribs, glutted with

pleasure. Bit by bit onto stretchers, what flesh fell left in the mud.' (birdsong-quote form fat, bloated rat

comment on corpse when colecting bodies)

Faulks's writing reflects a desire to paint the details of war as graphically and realistically as possible, to

suggest the degradation and futility (uselessness) of the war. The nature and the length of the war led

people to question many things; the motives of generals and politicians (link to Sassoon/sassoon's actual

declaration), religion and the purpose of life itself. This is reflected in both Birdsong and Regeneration.

We also find that between offensives, death and severe injuries were caused by random shelling,

ricocheting bullets (link to Weirs death) and grenades. In Regeneration, talking to Rivers about his war

service, Burns says, " You can't let yourself know that you want to be wounded, because officers aren't

supposed to think like that. And, you see, next to a battle, a patrol is the best chance of getting a good

wound". Bombs were easily hurled without warning into enemy trenches. Faced with the prospect of being

killed or permanently disabled, soldiers sometimes hoped that they would receive a blighty wound and be

sent home. In some cases soldiers shot themselves in an attempt to end their time on the front line. Others

killed themselves rather than carry on in the trenches (before offensive-birdsong) " In the trenches, it's

shrapnel or head injuries. On patrol, if you're lucky, it's a nice little hole in the arm or leg. I've seen men cry

with a wound like that". He said, "Cry with joy". In some cases men would endure no more, stand up on the

fire step and allow themselves to be shot by an enemy sniper. In Birdsong Stephen's beloved war

companion, the one person who, "Alone had made the war bearable, is shot by an enemy sniper, when he '

climbed onto the fire step to let a ration party go past', as a result of inappropriate cover, 'Jack noticed that

some of the sandbags on the parapet had not been properly replaced from the day when the infantry had

gone over them'. Moments before Weir is hot Faulk's mentions that on his way to meet his men 'he looked

happier than usual', the language used here suggests that perhaps he was fully aware of the consequence

of his actions and that the gesture, resulting in his death was intentional on his part, the fact that he was

cheerier than usual implies that he knew that he was getting out of it all. (also link to weir-might've been

intentional on his part, mention the perhaps implied use of language by Faulks-he was cheerier than usual-

perhaps he knew he was going out of it)

Soldiers subjected to continual exposure to shellfire were in danger of developing shell shock (birdsong-

whoevr, got so used to shellfir that he could distinguish distances/casualties, ect). Early symptoms of shell

shock included tiredness, lack of concentration, etc. Whe internally examining Sassoon for symptoms of

shell shock, Barker through Rivers informs the reader that the obvious signs of this would be 'twitches,

jerks, blinks and repeated ducking to avoid a long exploded shell', and also 'shaky hands'. (link to Rivers

description of shell shock when first meeting Sassoon and doing a mental check of his mannerisms).

Eventually the men suffered breakdowns. Some doctors argued that the only cure for shell shock was a

complete rest away form fighting (regeneration quote). If you were an officer you were likely to be sent back

home to recuperate. However the army was less sympathetic to ordinary soldiers with shell shock. Some

officers took the view that these men were trying to get out of fighting(regeneration-sassoon board meeting

shellshock quote)

According to Faulks the majority of soldiers' diet in the trenches consisted of Bully Beef, Bread and

Biscuits. Obviously, this general lack of food and therefore nutrition and the never ending, constant

strenuous physical strain the men endured took its toll as Sassooon in Barker's Regeneration recalls his

'horror at their physique. Many of them were almost incapable of lifting their equipment, let alone of

carrying it mile after mile along shelled roads. I'd ended one march pushing two of them in front of me, while

a third stumbled along behind, clinging to my belt'. Faulks implies that the officers were well fed, but the

men in the trenches were treated appallingly (Birdsong-stephen and dinner meeting)

Men in the trenches suffered from lice. They created a sour, stale smell. Various methods were used to

remove lice. A lighted candle was fairly popular, but the skill of burning lice without burning your clothes

was only learnt with practice, 'Jack had at first viewed the lice on his body as simple parasites whose

presumption had made him indignant. Thw way they dug their ugly fawn-coloured bodies into the private

pores of his skin had revolted him. He took great pleasure in holding a lighted candle and working it slowly

up the seams of his clothes where the insects lurked and bred. Usually their fiery deaths were silent, though

occasionally he would here a satisfying crackle. He would do Shaw's clothes for him too because Shawd did

not have the delicacy of hand and was liable to set fire to his underwear... There was a sense of relief when

some of the creatures were gone... Jack always felt they had no right to be there in the first place. The

evident advantage in cutting back the numbers was the temporary relief it gave from the sour, stale smell the

creatures left, though even this relief was qualified, since the odour was usually compounded or

overwhelmed by stronger and more persistent bodily smells' (birdsong-two links;one about how to do it and

one about how somebody who hadnt got the hang of it yet). Wwhere possible the army arranged for the

men to have baths in huge vats of water 'the rare drama of divisional baths. Jack's company was marched

three miles back from the front to an old brewery. Jack enjoyed the ritual and was amused at the optimism of

young officers who were sure that the brief plunge would cure the hygiene problems of the men for good',

meanwhile their clothes were being put through delousing machines ' At the old brewery men lined up and

handed in their clothes. The underwear was thrown into a pile, a grey crawling heap...The men joked at the

women who had to perform the task... They gave their tunics and trousers to others who, under the direction

of Jack's platoon sergeant, carried them to the corner of the barn-like room where a Foden Disinfector, a

machine that was dragged optimistically up and down the front line, was supposed to fumigate them... Jack

climbed into a tub with several men from his platoon... Here, in the old beer barrels, there was a moment of

friendship and relaxation such as had barely been known. Evans and O 'Lone began to splash the water at

each other... Jck found that he had joined in. He felt guilty for a moment towards the memory of his dead

comrades, as though he were not being respectful... He would take any pleasure that helped'. (birdsong

baths and vats scene with references to the delousing ladies). Later, through Jack we find that,

unfortunately, this rarely worked 'By the time they had reached their billets Jack felt the first irritation on his

skin. Withiin three hours the heat of his body as he marched had hatched the eggs of hundreds of lice that

had laid dormant in the seams of the shirt. By the time he reached the front his skin was alive with them'.

(birdsong-walking back from the vats-and within 30 mins the sweat caused the lice egges to hatch out). As

well as causing frenzied scratching' 'Tyson had once been driven so frantic that the medical officer ordered

him to have fifteen days rest. The constant irritation had proved more wearing to him even than the sound

of heavy guns or the fear of dying'. (Jeanne's noticing that Stephen was unaware of his constant

sctratching and other quotes), lice also carried disease. During her meeting with Stephen Isabel becomes

aware that' 'he had changed almost beyond recognition, she thought. He was badly shaved and he

scratched his body all the time, apparently without knowing it'.

Faulks reveals that the soldiers were encouraged to write letters to friends and family in Britain. Most men

decided it would be better to conceal the horrors of trench warfare. As Wraysford in Birdsong and Prior in

Regeneration both demonstrate, as a result of the Defence of the Realm Act that was passed in 1914 all

letters that the men wrote should've been read and censored by junior officers.(stephens reading of the

letters before the big push/bambardment).

A number of offences were punishable with death, including mutiny, disobedience, desertion, sleeping or

being drunk on post (jack firebrace and other quotes about his sleeping on post punishment) and striking a

superior officer.

Regeneration and Birdsong look at the horrors of war and the effects they have on the men who endure

them. Sassoon and Wraysford both argue that the war is wrong. Sassoon in Regeneration is similarly

resentful of the home front attitudes towards the war. When asked by Rivers as to whether he might find it

difficult to feel safe whilst others are dying, he replies, "Nobody else in this stinking country seems to find it

difficult. I expect I'll just learn to live with it. Like everybody else". Barker earlier on in the novel notes that '

Sassoon's determination to remember might well account for his early and rapid recovery, though in this

case it was motivated less by a desire to save his own sanity than by a determination to convince civilians

that the war was mad'. (quote). They question, which in turn asks ourselves to question, without looking

through a haze of patriotic pride, when a nations political, economic or moral position is in enough jeopardy

to warrant the horrifying debt of blood that will inevitably be incurred. When discussing Sassoon with

Bryce, Rivers comments that he doesn't believe him to be a pacifist, but that, 'It seems to be entirely a matter

of horror at the extent of the slaughter, combined with a feeling of anger that the government won't state its

war aims and impose some kind of limitation on the whole thing'. Faulks announces that the war is a pitiless

human activity and the depiction's of it should be equally pitiless, as in any war, nothing human is sacred

and nothing human should be spared. It's as if death was meaningless, Once more in ragged suicidal line

they trudged towards the pattering death of mounted guns. Bloodied beyond caring, Stephen watched the

packets of lives with their memories and loves go spinning and vomiting into the ground. Death had no

meaning, but still the numbers of them went on and on, in that new infinity there was till horror. Faulks puts

his finger on it when Stephen says, "It sounds strange, but we have degraded human life so far that we must

leave some space for dignity to grow again". (birdsong-non cut wire-wraysford). Amongst the earlier

chapters of Birdsong, Stephen is described by Faulks as a person having 'artless enthusiasm' and an

'outrageous sense of right and wrong' and is also said to have quizzical eyes'. The war seems to transform

the characters of Wraysford's novel, as it does to the characters of Braker's novel. Later on in Birdsong,

and after seeing and enduring what they had we find that the war has done exactly that to the character of

Stephen Wraysdord, when visiting Jeanne she tells him that she was worried by his listlessness. It was as

though he had given up hope and was allowing himself to drift, he said it was hard not to when the attitude

of the people at home to what they had endured was one of "indifference", Jeanne also notices that 'he had

grown very thin and his skin had become lined and leathery around the eyes. Their expression was no

longer guarded, to Jeanne it seemed "vacant", 'this was the man who eight years earlier had so stirred her

younger sister'. They will never again know life as it was before the pointless horror and betrayal of the war.

It seems that whatever life remains to them will be lived in the awareness of what they have witnessed.

Barkers' Regeneration is reserved but makes a telling point about the dehumanising experience of the war,

often the deepest wounds endured in battle are not those done to the body, but those suffered from the

mind, the personal, psychological devastation wrought by combat, the kind that makes day to day existence

almost unbearable. Doctors may be able to regenerate the flesh, but mending a broken spirit requires

considerable more time, energy and skill (link to rivers methods and theories and other doctors theories and

methods)

The environment of Rgeneration is well set up without heavy exposition. When Rivers is visiting a

colleague he is shown the effects of the newly used electric shock therapy, a device for turning men into

fighting zombies. Barker directly writes about men's struggle with possible loss of masculinity 'in the war,

you've got this enormous emphasis on love between men-comradeship-and everybody approves'. She

notes the feminine side of men that emerges 'Fear, tenderness-these emotions were so despised that they

could be admitted into consciousness only at the cost of redefining what it meant to be a man'. when

experiencing combat, in how they are forced to mother each other.'... In war, you've got this enormous

emphasis on love between men-comradeship-and everybody approves'. As Barker comments, 'Fathering,

like mothering, takes many forms beyond the biological. Rivers had often been touched by the way in which

young men, some of them not yet twenty, spoke about feeling like fathers to their men. Though when you

looked at what they did. Worrying about socks, boots, blisters, food, hot drinks... One of the paradoxes of

the war-one of many-was that this most brutal of conflicts should set up a relationship between officers and

men that was... Domestic. Caring. As Layard would undoubtedly have said, maternal...the war that had

promised so much in the way of 'manly' activity had actually delivered 'feminine' passivity and on a scale

that their mothers and sisters had scarcely known. No wonder they broke down'.(regeneration quote and

birdsong quote-perhaps sleeping or drawing quote). Faulks, not so directly, also demonstrates this. Barker

reflects on the effects of war on the soldiers in the front lines during world war one without entering the

battlefield; with the exception of dreams sequences.

Sassoon is best known for his 1917 public refusal to serve in the war any longer, a war that he called "a

senseless slaughter". In Birdsong, Faulks also uses on many occasions, imagery associated with slaughter,

on one occasion he mentions an excited party of young officers who had experienced only six months at the

front and who 'had not been there for the great slaughters of the previous year and could not foresee the

mechanised abattoir that was expected in the impassable mud of Flanders in the months to come'. Barker

demonstrates Sassoon's heretical into conversations between Sassoon and Rivers, examining the reality

that the psychological terrain that soldiers must struggle with is even more brutal than the tranches.

Sassoon in Regeneration is similarly resentful of the home front attitudes, when asked by Rivers whether he

might find it difficult to feel safe whilst others are dying, he replies, " Nobody else in this stinking country

seems to find it difficult. I expect I'll learn to live with it. Like everybody else". Barker earlier on in the novel

notes that Sassoon's determination to remember might well account for his early and rapid recovery, though

in his case it was motivated 'less by a desire to save his own sanity than by a determination to convince

civilians that the war was mad'. Prior's plight is reminiscent of the situation of so many combatants who

could not explain the horror of their experiences to civilians awaiting their return. When visiting Jeanne,

Stephen tries to explain to her that it was hard to show any enthusiasm or hope and to keep himself from

drifting when 'the attitude of people at home to what they had endured was one of indifference', 'he only

managed to exist'. When Stephen asks Weir why he is so anxious to survive, Weir answers that his life is all

he has and that he wants to hold on to it in the hope that perhaps it will all come clear in the end, that he will

go on to do great things. In reply to this Ellis says that "Most people in this war want to survive so that we

can win it. We are fighting for our country", it is his opinion that this is why the men suffer and die, for the

good cause of the people back home. However, Weir does not share this opinion, after going back home o

leave he found himself infuriated at the ignorance and selfishness of the people back home "those aft pigs

have no idea what lives are led for them. I wish a great bombardment would smash down along Picadilly into

Whitehall and kill the whole lot of them" "Even your family?" "Particularly my family. Particularly them. I

tried to explain to them what what it was like and do you know, my father was bored. He was actually bored

with the whole thing. I would especially like a five day bombardment on their street. And on the people who

went on strike for more money in the factories when we were dying on a shilling a day... I would like to see

them walk into the enemy guns in tiny thin lines. For one shilling". (quote from weir and prior and link to

home front attitudes) Soldiers couldn't put into words or even contemplate beginning to describe to the

people back home, the things they had seen and done. In Regeneration, Rivers gives his professional

opinion on Prior's failure to speak, " I imagine... Mutism seems to spring from a conflict between wanting to

say something, and knowing that if you do say it the consequences will be disastrous. So you resolve it by

making it physically impossible for yourself to speak. And for the private soldier the consequences of

speaking his mind are always going to be far worse than they would be for an officer".

The silences that punctuate Barker's text are even more powerful than the words spoken, Barker departs

from the battlefield, away from the firing shots, the explosion of shells and the barking of commands to

explore what happens when silences must be addressed, filled and understood.

Rivers's job involves making men 'sane' by making them willing to go back to mud, slaughter and the

bodies of dead comrades, with equanimity (get quote form regeneration that they dont wnat to go back to

this)

The setting of Birdsong-life in the trenches, a landscape crammed with peril, is potentially claustrophobic. A

virtual slaughter of the Somme.

Faulks delivers us a superb insight into what it must've been like for an 'ordinary' soldier in world war one.

Faulks, in depth, describes the mud and blood and Wraysford's attempt to retain a scrap of humanity while

surrounded by it. Faulks brings to life a stunning confrontation with the reality and meaning of war. He

portrays a surreal world, ' He wanted to sleep, but his eyelids were flickering too much. Each time sleep

seemed near his body jolted it back from it. Eventually he fell into a half-waking state, like the one he had

found on the train in which brightly illuminated scenes from the last two or three years occurred at random

in his mind. Incidents and men he had forgotten recurred with vivid intimacy, and then were gone. He tried

to pull himself back from the lurid sequence of memories. He kept seeing Douglas falling off the stretcher on

the slippery floor of the trench as a shell landed; he could hear the lifeless thump of his passing body. A

man he had forgotten, called Studd, came back to his mind, his helmet blown back and his scalp raked by

machine gun bullets as he bent to help another man who had fallen'. Wraysford finds it difficult to feel safe

whilst others are dying. 'It seemed a strange way, Stephen thought, in which to have passed the war, like

rodents in a separate element. It had shielded them from the impact of the impact of the big attacks and the

sights of bodies piling up, but the world of the miners inhabited his own imagined horror'. Faulks

demonstrates the way the war explored the deepest reaches of their minds. Braker makes a good and

obvious point through the character of Rivers, who tries to justify and put Sassoon's declaration into

perspective to persuade the board to empathise with Sassoon who has had to deal with the "grief at the

death of his friends. Horror at the slaughter of everybody else's friends. It isn't clear to me why such

emotions have been ignored", Faulks also deals with soldiers struggles to find normality outside these

conditions, ' For all his lice-free clothes, he felt lumpish and awkward in this tidy, feminine room. He

wondered if he would ever re-find his ease and naturalness in normal surroundings, or whether he had now

evolved into a creature whose natural habitat was corrugated-iron ceilings, wooden walls and food hanging

in rat-proof parcels from rafters'. Faulks in more depth than Braker recreates the nightmare conditions of

world war one, whereas Barker deals in more depth with the issues of sexuality and detachment alongside

the damaging effects of war on the human psyche.

Ffaulks shows how along the whole line, trench life involved a never ending struggle against water and mud

(link to prior and his recollection when walking through mud he is reminded of the hard trench mud

decisions-on outing;dead animals) Duckboards were placed at the bottom of the trenches to protect soldiers

from problems such as trench foot.

INTRO?-

Faulks takes a different approach than Braker in several ways. First of all, there is a romanticism about his

book, although, this romanticism does not extend to the scenes of horror on the battlefield. Wraysford

experiences love and loss before the war and this colours his view of the world and his place in it

throughout. Faulks uses the highly romanticised love affair at the beginning of the book to provide a stark

contrast when, six years later, we find him in the trenches. And this is where Faulks differs. Barker shows us

the effects of the war, but in regeneration there are no scenes actually set in the war. Faulks takes us into the

world of the trenches and also into the world of the miners who were brought into dig tunnels under the

enemy trenches. 'Stephen glanced to his right. He could see a long, wavering line of khaki, primitive dolls

progressing in tense deliberate steps, going down with a silent flap of arms, replaced, falling, continuing as

though walking into a gale'. The battle scenes are very effective and bring the experiences alive to the

reader. ' He looked behind and saw a second line walking into the barrage in no mans land They were hurled

up like waves breaking backwards into the sea. Bodies were starting to pile and clog the process'. The scale

of destruction that takes place at the disastrous allied attack at the Somme is particularly disturbing and in

this scene two of the miners are trying to come to terms with the unthinkable carnage they are witnessing, '

Jack Firebrace stood with Arthue Shaw on raised ground near what they had called One Tree Hill, watching.

They expected a swift passage, almost unopposed. Kack was muttering, Shaw saying nothing at all. They

saw the Scots coming up out of their burrows like raving women in their skirts, dying in ripples across the

yellowish-brown soil. They saw the steady tread of the Hampshires as though they had willingly embarked

on a slow motion dance form which they were content not to return. They saw men from every corner

walking, powerless, into an engulfing storm. Their contribution to the day, a vast hole that had been blown

at twenty past seven, had given the enemy ten minutes in which to take their positions at leisure. By the

crater they saw young men dying in quantities that they had not dreamed possible. They had not fired a

shot. The excess of it made them clutch each other's arms in disbelief. 'They can't let this go on,' said Jck,

'they can't'., Shaw stood with his mouth open. He was unmoved by violence, hardened to the mutilation

he had seen and inflicted, but what he was watching here was something of a different order. Please god,

let it stop, though jack. Please let them send no more men into this hurricane. The padre, Horracks, came and

stood with them. He crossed himself and tried to comfort them with words and prayers. Jack turned his face

away from what he saw, and he felt something dying in him as he turned. Shaw had begun to weep. He held

his miner's hand's to the sides of his head and the tears coursed down his face. 'Boys, boys,' he kept

saying. 'Oh my poor boys.' Horrocks was trembling. 'This is half of England. What are we going to do?' He

stammered. Soon they all fell silent. There was an eruption from the trench below and another wave went

up into the pitted moonlike scape, perhaps Essex or Duke of Wellington's, it was impossible to see. Thye

made no more than ten yards before they began to waver, single men at first picked out, knocked spinning,

then more going as they reached the barrage; then when the machine guns found them, they rippled, like

corn through which the wind was passing. Jack thought of meat, the smell of it. Horrcoks pulled the silver

cross form his chest and hurled it from him. His old reflex still persisting, he fell to his knees and did not

pray. He stayed kneeling with his palms spread out on the ground, then lowered his head and covered it

with his hands. Jack knew what had died in him'