Compare the ways in which Pat Barker and Seamus Heaney use language as a central motif in 'Regeneration,' 'Death of a Naturalist' and 'North,' particularly focusing on their use of language to explore the past and memory.

Heaney uses similes to express his disturbing memories:

"...big dark blobs burned

Like a plate of eyes."

Likewise, the visceral language used here to describe past and memory can also be seen in 'Regeneration', especially when Prior finds a blue eye in the trench. However, he irreverently describes it as a "gob-stopper." In 'Regeneration' there is an abundance of visceral imagery and detailed description:

"He began shovelling soil, flesh and blackened bone." This is also seen through Heaney's language in 'Punishment,' '...of your brain's exposed /and darkened combs.'

In chapter two Sassoon has hallucinations where Barker explores graphical, visceral imagery through "corpses, men with half their faces shot off." Burns is Barker's tool to show the extreme suffering and dehumanisation the war inflicts on innocent men. The use of olfactory imagery through "vomit lingered", and a visceral description of burns' "yellowish skin" and "visible" ribs and collar bone reinforce his pain and suffering. Owen uses visceral imagery when he describes a particular trench to Sassoon, 'You know one trench we held, it had skulls in the side.'

Heaney also employs visceral imagery, when discussing the torture experienced by the bog bodies, confirmed by "slashed throat" and "slashed and dumped"; the use of onomatopoeia in "slashed" represents how brutally violent the deaths were.

Similarly, Barker uses Rivers to 'dig' into the soldiers memories. I agree with Samuel Hynes statement "to cross gender, class, geographical and historical lines all at once strikes me as a courageous and chancy thing for any writer to do."2 The defiant and aggressive Billy Prior was created to challenge Rivers. He suffers from neurasthenia in the form of mutism. Stammering, paralysis, hallucinations, nightmares and vomiting are other symptoms of neurasthenia, more commonly known as 'shellshock.' Prior cannot remember what happened in the trenches to make him become a mute. When he regains his speech Rivers encourages him to try and remember his time in the days leading up to him becoming mute:

"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."

The language Barker uses to construct conversations between the men creates dramatic tension: when Rivers asks "and coming here upset you?" Prior responds, "I'd have preferred somewhere further south". Here, Prior uses sarcasm as a defence, in order to avoid questions; the sentences are often short and direct, which reaffirms Prior's aversion about discussing his war-time memories. However, despite this, Prior eventually begins to reveal his past, in the trenches, to Rivers and establishes contact between the two: "butting him in the chest", signifies the physical contact between the men, which contrasts to Prior's previous statement: "You'll never make me feel".

Prior's statement links with the cause of some cases of neurasthenia. The problem of not feeling masculine during the war was common. Hysteria was only for woman to express-not men-and the officers behaved more like women in the way that they cared for their soldiers. I agree with K Kellaway's statement that "Barker does more than think her way under a soldier's skin"3 and "this physicality makes of the past a present tense". "One of the paradoxes of the war" was the "domestic" and "caring" relationships set up between the men, through the "most brutal of conflicts". This resulted in a gender role reversal, as the men were situated in trenches for months without any "'manly' activity" which delivered "'feminine' passivity", a cause of their neurasthenia, which broke the men's pride.

This struggle for identity can also been seen in 'Personal Helicon' where Heaney describes his childhood obsession with wells. This poem is reflective and is written from an adult's perspective, rather than a child's. 'Personal Helicon' links directly with 'Digging' as Heaney uses repetition of 'roots' suggesting that he needs to find his identity and heritage. The "long roots" in 'Personal Helicon' represent, metaphorically, the roots of Heaney's past and the roots of nature and are represented as a central motif in Heaney's poetry; the enjambment, "When you dragged the long roots from the soft mulch", emphasise this journey. This poem also explores the metaphor of "wells", as Heaney rekindles his childhood memories through his "reflection", by "a white face" hovering.

This poem has a strong sense of memory; perhaps because it is personal, represented with the repetition of 'I.' The last stanza refers to himself now stating:

"To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring

Is beneath all adult dignity."

He explains that he cannot while away time like he used to. He now rhymes 'to set the darkness echoing.'

I feel that 'Personal Helicon' and River's are connected because of the strong sense of memory they both emulate. River's experiences nightmares at Craiglockhart as a result of spending too much time with patients suffering from neurasthenia. In his dreams he remembers how he experimented with his friend Henry Head. He severed Head's 'radial nerve' and then recorded the progress. They hoped that the nerve would regenerate. This moment confirms to the reader that regeneration is the central metaphor in the novel. Psychoanalytical theorists believe that dreams are subconscious fears or desires. River's dreams that he is causing pain, this could be interpreted that he is afraid of hurting his patients by his experimental method of curing patients by making them retell what happened to them in the trenches. River's feels "the emphasis in the dream had been on the distress he felt at causing pain, and on waking, the affect had been one of fear and dread."

Another example in the novel of memory is when River's remembers about his fathers' treatment of his stammer. River's states "... the relationship between father and son is never simple, and never over. Death certainly doesn't end it." I believe this concurs with Heaney's poem "Digging." He also looks into his past and sees his father indicating that the bond between father and son is strong. Another poem Heaney links to memory is 'Punishment.' Heaney compares a bog body to three Irish sisters who were tarred and feathered by the IRA because they had dated British soldiers. Heaney was said to have witnessed this act of violence. He links the torture of the bog body to the torture of the sisters in Belfast. Heaney writes this poem in the present tense, however, the narration shifts between first and second person. The speaker in this poem has a very close relationship with the bog girl, "I can feel the tug..." Heaney uses a detailed, graphic simile to describe the bog body:

"her shaved head

like a stubble of black corn."

The imagery of her hair as 'black corn' is also associated with the Catholic sisters. More imagery is used to describe the bog body links to the Catholic sister's plight, '... and your/tar-black face was beautiful.' A reference to the bible is made with "little adulteress" as Heaney is linking war and violence with religion; he feels implicated here and he states he "would have cast, I know, /the stones of silence," revealing a sense of guilt. He explains that he 'stood dumb' when the 'betraying sisters, /cauled in tar, /wept by the railings,' reaffirming the sense of guilt he feels. The theme of violence is very apparent in 'Punishment,' as the speaker uses a personal approach to describe he death. She was hung then drowned. 'The Tollund Man' also describes a violent brutal death, 'She tightened her torc on him,' demonstrates the brutality of his religious, ritualistic sacrifice. This poem also links war and violence to religion. The reference 'Of four young brothers, trailed/ For miles along the lines,' is also about the violence in Ireland as four brothers were tied to a train track and killed because of their religion.

Likewise violence is also a major theme in 'Regeneration'. Rivers has another dream after he witnesses an electric shock therapist (Dr Yealland) apply his treatment on a young soldier called Callan. Rivers then has a disturbing dream where he tries to 'force' a horse bit into a man's mouth. He describes the man's mouth as 'raw' and 'flecked with blood and foam.' This violent dream is ironic, as giving the men their voice back silences their protest.

Although most of Heaney's feelings about violence are portrayed in 'North', there are some elements of violence and links to Ireland's troubles in his 'Death of a Naturalist' collection. In the poem 'Death of a Naturalist', for example, he uses the semantic field of violence, as the frogs "invaded the flax-dam" and gave "obscene threats", while "poised like mud grenades".

Equally, 'Requiem for the Croppies', written in 1969 is based on the Battle of Vinegar Hill, in 1798; this direct link to war and death and its anonymous victims cross reference to those in 'North'. However, such beautiful imagery as "the hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave"; seem to contrast the imagery of death, despite its connotation of blood and shame. The men had 'greatcoats full of barley' at the start of the poem. When the men were buried on the hillside they fell on '...the barley grew up out of the grave.' This imagery is hopeful and suggests that their sacrifice provides for future generations.

This links with the "beauty and atrocity" explored in 'The Grauballe Man'. The language and imagery of violence, such as "slashed and dumped", is juxtaposed with poetic descriptions, such as "glisten of mud" and "pillow of turf"; the two themes are perfectly balanced within the poetry. In addition 'Strange Fruit' is written in a Petrarchan sonnet form and the girl is described as having a "leathery beauty" and as a "perishable treasure." The themes of beauty, death and violence are obviously linked throughout Heaney's poems.

The theme of "beauty and atrocity" is also explored in 'Regeneration', particularly in

Owen's poetry, as he expresses his feelings about the traumatic events in the trenches as a form of his own therapy. When Rivers reads Sassoon's poetry, he understands the guilt he suffers and realises that expression through poetry can help resolve inner turmoil; Barker researched much of Owen and Sassoon's poetry in writing 'Regeneration,' as she understood that poetry can delve into the past and therapeutically deal with feelings of distress. The novel is a blend of fact and fiction, all the poetry used in the novel is real, along with the declaration at the start of the novel. Owen famously wrote, "My subject is War, and the pity of War", and it could be said that Barker also reveals some of the pity of the war in the novel. Sassoon feels guilty in chapter 16. River's read his poem 'Death's Brotherhood,' where Sassoon writes "'When are you going back to them again?'" This suggests that Sassoon is guilty about leaving his men.

There is also a sense of guilt in some of Heaney's poetry. In 'Digging' Heaney states 'But I've no spade to follow men like them,' however he will 'dig' metaphorically with his pen. In 'Punishment' Heaney also allows us to see how he uses poetry as therapy for his guilt. He responds personally, as his poems are written in the first person; he is the "artful voyeur", who "stood dumb" and witnessed the atrocities of the Belfast sister's, taking no action.

Additionally language as protest is another dominant theme in both Heaney's poetry and 'Regeneration.' Chapter one of 'Regeneration,' opens with the declaration Sassoon has written in protest of the war. He calls his declaration 'an act of wilful defiance,' and states he is fighting "against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed." I agree with such critics as Samuel Hynes, who have described 'Regeneration' as an anti-war novel, as language to protest is a key theme. It is clear by the end of the novel that Rivers successfully silences Sassoon's protest as he decides to go back to the front. Interestingly, Prior's form of protest is in the form of mutism and silence, not verbal. Prior suffers from a lack of pride. Prior's father states "he'd get a damn sight more sympathy from me if he had a bullet up his arse", as he doesn't consider mutism a 'real' injury. "NO MORE WORDS" reinforces Prior's protest and anger at the war and his aversion to therapy because he doesn't consider it to be masculine. Many protests against society take the form of silence; the irony being, however, that Prior does not choose not to speak. A Marxist reading could be made here, as mutism is often associated with lower class, not officers: Rivers "said officers don't suffer from mutism". Yelland, however, forcibly removes Callan's protest by using electric shock methods and takes his power of protest away. In her interview, Barker states "the underlying paradox or theme is that Sassoon's word and Callan's silence are equally a protest."4

The metaphor of regeneration symbolises Rivers' work to "cure" the men by confronting their past. The original title of the book was 'On The Edge' until Barker realised the importance of using the metaphor of regeneration, as recovery is "substantial, but never complete". The irony here is that although Rivers is curing the men, he is sending them back into the war, the very thing that is causing the men pain. Critic David Morgan described Rivers as "a metaphor for the loss of innocence suffered by his patients and his whole generation."5 I agree as Rivers does, indeed, represent this loss of innocence throughout his generation as he, like many others, was only doing his job by sending the men back to war.

Similarly, Heaney uses the imagery of regeneration and the cycle of life throughout his poetry. In the 'Death of a Naturalist' collection, there is a general metaphor of the death of Heaney's childhood, as he progresses into adulthood; the very title 'Death of a Naturalist' signifies the death of his younger self, and fascination of nature. The semantic field of nature reinforces the idea of the cycle of life, as nature constantly grows as seen in 'Requiem for the Croppies', as "the barley grew out of the grave", symbolising that, despite loss through death, there is still hope for the regeneration of life.

The repetition of "mud" and "peat" in Heaney's poetry symbolises how nature has perfectly preserved the bog bodies. The mud seems to symbolise identity as it gives the bodies a "peat-brown" colour, as if they are a part of the earth. Mud also represents the growth and healing of life, as "long roots" grow from the "soft mulch".

This positive attitude towards the peat is directly contrasted in 'Regeneration', as "mud" is most associated with death. Nature is almost portrayed as another enemy on the fields: Burns describes when "mud dragged at him", which he remembers from "his aching thighs", even as "his mind was incapable" of remembering. There is another reference to death, created by the appearance of the "coffin-like trenches"; it is as if the men are buried under the earth.

There is a juxtaposition of blood and mud, which is particularly emphasised when Anderson describes the mud, "six inches thick," which concealed the "Frenchman's" wound.

Barker and Heaney both have different styles of writing; however I think that both writers are highly effective at unearthing the past through vivid language. There is no doubt that language is a central motif in 'Regeneration' and Heaney's collection of poems.

Word count: 3249

Seamus Heaney, Preoccupations- Selected prose 1968-1978, London: Faber & Faber, 1980

2 Samuel Hynes, New York Times - Book Review, March 29th 1992

3 K Kellaway - 'Billy, don't be a hero.' The Observer August 1995

4 Francis Spufford - Exploding old myths, an interview with Pat Barker, The Guardian

5 David Morgan