Regeneration
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ÐRegeneration by Pat Barker is a novel focusing on Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland in 1917. The novel shows the physical and mental traumas inflicted by the war on the soldiers. Apart from the main war, the novel also addresses the internal wars in Britain, based on class, gender, father and son relationships, the sane and the insane, the soldiers and the civilians. While men aspired to gain glory from war and become heroes, Regeneration effectively conveys that not all of war was glorious .The horrible mental and physical sicknesses, which plagued a number of soldiers, caused many men to withdraw from the battlefield. Feelings of guilt and shame haunted many of these soldiers as they found themselves removed from the heat of war. Barker discusses many issues plaguing the soldiers at the front, which gives insight into the reasons why many soldiers were getting disillusioned and turning against the war.
The war is brought to life by the flashbacks the soldiers experience in their nightmares as well as in their interaction with Dr. Rivers. Barker offers realistic details of many horrible war scenes, dwelling upon the destruction that war wreaks upon mens minds. Throughout the novel, there is an insistence on physical suffering as well as on mental suffering.
Barker also delves into the class distinctions at the front, within the ranks of the British military. This issue is brought to light through a conversation between Billy Prior and Dr. Rivers. The characters discussion explores the injustice of these class distinctions and the harm they produce on the war front. Priors discussion with Rivers highlights specific examples of “snobbery” and degree of class bias and prejudices at the war front. According to Prior
“Its perfectly made clear when you arrive that some people are more welcome than others. It helps if youve been to the right school. It helps if you hunt, it helps if your shirts are the right color ” . Despite Priors rank as Second Lieutenant, he is snubbed because of his social status. Their conversation illustrates the effects of the Britains social structure, which are reproduced within the trenches of war.
Back in Britain, however conditions for the working class seemed to be improving according to Robert Roberts, the author of ÐThe Classic Slum,
“abject poverty began to disappear from the neighborhood. Children looked better fed. There were far fewer prosecutions for child neglect.” World War I also helped the womens movement. As men engaged in war overseas, more jobs became available.New employment opportunities became attainable to women. The women became more independent. This is illustrated through the characters of Sarah, Betty and the other women working at the bullet factory. The working class women were more financially independent than before. Many of them moved away from their families, as in the case of Sarah, in search for adventure and a better life.
ÐRegeneration also highlights many other aspects of the war which led Siegfried Sassoon to write the Declaration. ÐRegeneration brings to life the hardships of living in a trench through the patients interactions with Dr. Rivers. Many of the patients have terrible experiences and memories involving trenches. Prior, most notably, remembers finding two of his men killed by an exploded shell in the trench. The trench became the mens grave. For many days the bodies would remain in the trenches. “The British trenches were wet, cold, smelly, and thoroughly squalid.”
Censorship was another thing which affected the soldiers. Letters were the only way in which the soldiers could communicate with their family. However they could not include anything about their conditions in the letters. The letters of the enlisted men were censored by the officers while the letters of the officers were censored by the other officers. The families of the soldiers were in complete dark about their conditions. The families were also told lies of the way the men died. Most deaths were described to be swift and painless even though the reality was something else.
This lead to many soldiers resenting the civilians to pictured the war to be glorious and are protected from the horrors of the war. This is clearly illustrated in ÐRegeneration. Siegfried Sassoon and Prior are both shown to clearly state their hatred for the civilians. For instance Priors hatred is depicted brilliantly in the scene at the beach with Sarah,
“She belonged with the pleasure-seeking crowds. He both envied and despised her, and was quite coldly determined to get her. They owed him something, all of them,