Regeneration

A detailed Summary of Regeneration

The authorial purpose of Pat Barker and Wilfred Owen is to present the harsh reality, of World War 1 and to shock and move us through their portrayals of the horrors at the front and their consequences. Discuss.

Regeneration is deliberately set in a psychiatric hospital, Craiglockhart, and this location highlights some of the major issues of war. Pat Barkers intention in terms of location is obviously because this emphasises some of the key elements of WW1 she wishes to explore, such as the mental trauma that the trenches caused, the often suicidal battle plans of those in charge of the conflict, plus other issues of hierarchical command. From the very beginning the experiences of the patients provide a disturbing insight into the effects of war on the soldiers. Within this hospital, which should be the soldiers sanctuary, their haven we are shocked and moved by Barkers portrayal of events as we realise that the men are seen as unmanly and degenerate for being in hospital.

Barker uses the central character of senior psychiatrist Rivers through his therapy with the patients to highlight their war experiences and the horrific effects of those on them. She employs a mix of fictional and historical characters,

Owen makes us realise the pain of war when he writes how "many had lost their boots, but limped on blood shod". The effect of this metaphor "blood-shod" makes us think of blood shed and the harshness and pain of war, animals, and the shoeing of horses, how it is painful for them even to put their feet down. "Blood shod" is a harsh sounding word, and its link to horses symbolises how men in war were forced to act like and were treated like mere animals, those "who die as cattle" as Owen's memorable first line of Anthem For Doomed Youth Records. In "Dulce Et Decorum Est" Owen explores the insanity of war and we are alarmed at how robotic these men had become, trudging towards their "distant rest".

Owen describes events in this poem in graphic detail, appealing to the senses so that we are almost forced to go through the experiences of war with him. He wants us to pace "behind the wagon that" they threw a soldier who had been gassed in. He appeals to the senses of sight when he wants us to "watch the white eyes writhing in his face". The use of alliteration here makes the image clearer and more vivid in our minds, encouraging us more to be brought in and hear and experience the horror of people "guttering, choking, drowning".

When we meet Yealland we are also introduced to Callan, a soldier who has fought in and been affected by many battles. Barker moves the reader when Yealland poignantly and coldly lists all of the battles Callan has fought in. It is the way Yealland is so casual and comfortable when he lists "Mons, The Marne, Aisne, first and second Ypres, Hill 60, Neuve-Chapelle, Loos, Armentieres, the Somme and Arras" that disturbs the reader. Barker does this to highlight why Callan might be mute and to emphasise how Yealland has no idea what it would have been like to fight in any one of those battles. Yealland would have no concept of the pain and heart-rendering horror that this soldier must have endured: he clearly does not even acknowledge the huge psychological impact of war on the soldiers.

Owen in this poem portrays war as something that leaves deep mental scars as well as physical ones. War is described as a recurrent nightmare. Those soldiers who fought in the war will be haunted by the images of war for the rest of their lives: they can't switch off. This moves us when Owen says, talking of the gassed soldier who dies, "In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, he plunges at me" the images Owen has of war are omnipresent and he conveys this effectively to us with his use of imagery and similes. In one section of the poem Owen tells of when the soldiers are being gassed - without their helmets they would simply drown. Most of the men managed to fit on the "clumsy helmets just in time", one soldier however didn't manage in the "ecstasy of fumbling" to get his helmet on in time to save himself. He began "yelling out and stumbling and floundering like a man in fire or lime". The effect of this simile shocks us, and makes us feel sick, as we can almost taste the lime; his detailed descriptions have helped us imagine so well what it would be like.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3817
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English