Patricia Mary W. Barker, CBE , FRSL ( née Drake; born 8 May 1943) [1] is a British writer and novelist. [2] She has won many awards for her fiction, which centres on themes of memory, trauma, survival and recovery. Her work is described as direct, blunt and plainspoken. [3] [1] In 2012, The Observer named the Regeneration Trilogy as one of "The 10 best historical novels". [4] Personal life [ edit ] Regeneration begins with Siegfried Sassoon's open letter, dated July 1917, protesting the conduct and insincerities of the First World War. The letter has been published in the London Times and has received much attention in England, as many people are upset over the length and toll of the war thus far. The army is not sure what to do with Sassoon, as his letter clearly threatens to undermine the strength of the war effort at home. Bourke writes history and Barker writes fiction, but both tell stories which were, when first published, at odds with how most of us imagined the First World War. They are both also stories which are very much products of their time. Dismembering the Male still repays reading today – very few historians dealing with similar aspects of the war have matched its scope or achievement since – but it is also rooted in the historiographical trends of the mid 1990s. Bourke partly inspired further historical research on masculinity, the body, and war, but her book is also a product of existing interest in these areas, and the alacrity with which her lead was followed suggests a field ripe for harvesting. There’s nothing odd about this: the discipline of history works through the continual revision of old arguments and realization of new perspectives, and sooner or later gender and the body will seem old hat. Yet although cultural history has its critics, no serious historian would now condemn Bourke for writing a history that is informed by the disciplinary (and interdisciplinary) concerns of its time. Barker, on the other hand, has been seen as fair game, with historians happy to censure her for projecting the concerns of 1990s liberals and lefties onto her wartime protagonists. (4) There is a case to be made that, at least in Regeneration, this isn’t quite what she’s doing: after all, she is writing about a soldier who protested against the war and a doctor who was transformed from an instinctive Conservative into a potential Labour candidate by the experience of war. This isn’t projection so much as selecting a story which chimed with more widespread concerns at the time of writing the book.

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Some critics have written extensively on the place of women within the novel, even though it focuses on men. [8] In part this is because Barker's previous novels focus on working-class women's history. [8] In her companion to the novel, Karin Westman sees the novel as a response by Barker to critics stereotyping her as only being interested in writing about women. [21] However, Baker has repeatedly talked about how this novel as connected with her earlier interests in feminism. [21] Barker describes the novel as providing a voice for the home front, stating, that "In a lot of books about war by men the women are totally silenced. The men go off and fight and the women stay at home and cry; basically, this is the typical feature. And the women in the trilogy are always deeply significant, and whatever they say in whatever language they say it in, it is always meant to be listened to very carefully." [2] In particular, Barker is interested in the contradictions placed on women's expectations during war period, and its history; [2] for example, she points out that the women in the munitions factories are expected to produce weapons to kill thousands, but a woman who attempts to abort her unborn child is criticised. [2]

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Robert Graves – Another real life character, Graves is a fellow poet and friend of Sassoon who sees the war as unjust and immoral. However, Graves does not want to make his life more difficult by protesting. Graves sees it as his duty to serve his country regardless of his own moral beliefs. A Northern accent, not ungrammatical, but with the vowel sounds distinctly flattened, and the faintest trace of sibilance. Hearing Prior’s voice for the first time had the curious effect of making him look different. Thinner, more defensive. And, at the same time, a lot tougher. A little, spitting, sharp-boned alley cat (p. 49). Catharsis refers to a moment of release. This is often from strong or repressed emotions. For example, coming to terms with repressed emotions can be release from the stress this repression places on a person. This is a cathartic moment. W.H.R. Rivers: A Founding Father Worth Remembering. Human-nature.com. Retrieved on 21 October 2011.

emotions and the First World War Shell-shocked: trauma, the emotions and the First World War

Other interviews also emphasise her memories of her grandfather's stories about his experience. [6] There are many soldiers with various problems and ailments in the hospital. Burns, an emaciated man, has been unable to eat since a shell threw him into the gas-filled stomach of a German corpse. Anderson, a former war surgeon, is now terrified at the sight of blood, and is worried about resuming his civilian medical practice. Prior, a young, stubborn, and slightly difficult patient, enters the hospital suffering from mutism. Rivers meets with each of them in turn, helping them to recover from their problems.a b c d "Freud and War Neuroses: Pat Barker and Regeneration". The Freud Museum . Retrieved 21 October 2011. Starting the section, Sarah tells her mother, Ada, about her relationship with Billy Prior. Ada scolds her daughter for having sex outside marriage. A few chapters later, Sarah discovers that another munitions worker attempted a home abortion with a coat-hanger, but only harms herself. Meanwhile, Sassoon tells Graves of his decision to return to war. In the same conversation, Graves stresses his heterosexuality, leaving Sassoon feeling of unease about his own sexual orientation. During a counselling session Sassoon talks to Rivers about the official attitude towards homosexuality. Rivers theorises that during wartime the authorities are particularly hard on homosexuality, wanting to clearly distinguish between the "right" kind of love between men (loyalty, brotherhood, camaraderie), which is beneficial to soldiers, and the "wrong" kind (sexual attraction). It is not only in dialogue that the novelist makes fiction out of carefully researched fact. In her narrative, she takes her readers into the minds of these characters. The fictionalisation of William Rivers and the inhabiting of his thoughts is the key to the novel. Humane and psychologically perceptive, he is the novelist's representative. This is not just because of his insight, but also because of his distance from the horrifying experiences of his own patients. Harris, Greg (1998). "Compulsory Masculinity, Britain, and the Great War: The Literary Historical Work of Pat Barker". Critique. 39 (4): 290–304. doi: 10.1080/00111619809599537. ISSN 0011-1619. a b Kemp, Peter (1 July 2007). "Pat Barker's last battle? War has been her greatest obsession – and it looms large in her new novel". The Sunday Times.

Regeneration: Pat Barker and Regeneration Background | SparkNotes Regeneration: Pat Barker and Regeneration Background | SparkNotes

Barker, Pat (2008). Regeneration. Penguin Books Limited. ISBN 978-0-14-190643-0. 'Brilliant, intense and subtle' Peter Kemp, Sunday Times

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Around the same time, Sassoon becomes friends with another patient, Wilfred Owen. He too is a poet and Sassoon helps him with his poetry. Owen improves as a writer because of this. He has great respect for Sassoon and greatly admires his work. Callan – Callan is a patient of Dr. Yealland who has served in every major battle in World War I. He finds himself in the care of Dr. Yealland after suffering from mutism. Callan tries to fight against his doctor's treatment but eventually gives in to it.

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In addition to Sassoon's conflict, the opening chapters of the novel describe the suffering of other soldiers in the hospital. Anderson, a former surgeon, now cannot stand the sight of blood. Haunted by terrible hallucinations after being thrown into the air by an explosion and landing head first in the ruptured stomach of a rotting dead soldier, Burns experiences a revulsion to eating. Another patient, Billy Prior, suffers from mutism and will only write communications with Rivers on a notepad. Prior eventually regains his voice, but remains a difficult patient for Rivers avoiding any discussion of his war memories. The novel's use of a mental hospital as the main setting, along with psychologist Rivers' treatments of soldiers and their war trauma, focuses much of the novel on the psychological effects of war. In doing so, the novel follows in the tradition of novels like The Return of the Soldier (1918) and Mrs. Dalloway (1925). [18] Many critics focus on this interest in the effects of trauma. For instance, Ankhi Mukherjee describes the failure of characters to turn their memories into a narrative through the medium of talk therapy. [19] Mukherjee describes River's approach to therapy as " autogenesis," or self-understanding through structuring their reaction to traumatic experiences. [19]Prior arrives in Rivers’s office late one night, notably less obstinate than usual and visibly depressed, finally admitting much about his nightmares that he’d formerly withheld. Rivers offers to hypnotize him to help him remember his main traumatic incident and Prior agrees. In a trance, Prior recalls cleaning a trench, shoveling the body parts of two of his men who had just been killed by an artillery strike into a bag, when he finds himself holding a single eyeball in his palm, which triggers his mind to break down and leaves him mute. When Prior awakes from the hypnosis memory, he is both horrified and angered that there was not more to it. However, he grabs Rivers by the arm and begins head-butting him in the chest, which is as close as he can get to asking Rivers for physical affection, since he is a man. After a very busy day, Rivers wakes up in the middle of the night with chest pain; his doctor insists that he take three weeks vacation. During these three weeks, he visits his brother's house and reflects on his relationship with his deceased father. Rivers then visits his old friend Henry Head, who offers him a terrific job at a war hospital in London. Finally Rivers visits Burns's house in Suffolk for a few days. The Review Board has given Burns an unconditional discharge from the army. While at Suffolk, Burns has an episode and tries to commit suicide by hiding in a hole that floods at high tide. Rivers finds Burns, however, and saves him. Barker, who says she has always been an avid reader, studied international history at the London School of Economics from 1962-65. [8] After graduating in 1965, she returned home to nurse her grandmother, who died in 1971. I think the whole British psyche is suffering from the contradiction you see in Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, where the war is both terrible and never to be repeated and at the same time experiences derived from it are given enormous value," Barker told The Guardian. "No one watches war films in quite the way the British do." [17] The idea of "regeneration" functions in the novel to inform and develop the concepts of healing, changing, and regrowth. It occurs several times, most notably in the nerve regeneration experiments Rivers practices on Head, and in the figurative regeneration of men's "nerves" in the War Hospital. Rivers also undergoes a sort of regeneration in the novel. Through observations of his patients, reflections on his upbringing, and most importantly his interactions with Sassoon, Rivers questions many of the assumptions of war and duty that he previously held. This motif highlights the comparison between mental and physical healing, and it emphasizes the regrowth and change in a man who has been confronted with the reality of war. Emasculation