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Barker's Methods, Influences and Intentions (Stylistic features…

- - - - '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... for the private soldiers the consequences of speaking his mind are always going to be far worse than they would for an officer.' - page 96, chapter 9
        
        Barker uses the professional status of Rivers to
      - Links to the wider theme of Speech and Silence that runs through the novel
      - It's usually thought that neurasthenic stammers arise from the same kind of conflict as mutism, a conflict between wanting to speak and knowing that w-what you've got to say is not acceptable.'
      - Rivers has a lifelong genetic stammer and his father was a speech therapist - 2 examples of irony as it is part of Rivers's job to restore speech to mute and stammering soldiers - why do you think Barker includes these historical facts?
      - Manifests in the novel with the characters of Owen, Prior, Callan and Rivers
        
        Symbolic significance
    - - trapped inside the trench, inescapable as it is inside their minds - manifests itself in descriptions of the natural world
        
        'like a trench without the sky'
  - - - Symbolic significance:
        
        Rivers's fear that he is silencing his patients as the bit is used to control a horse, like a muzzle on a dog
        
        Comparisons can be made between Rivers's actions in the dream and Yealland's inhumane treatment, in that they both use force and cause the patient considerable pain
        
        Speaks of Rivers's moral dilemma: he is concerned that his treatment is fundamentally no different than Yealland's, as he questions whether they are "both in the business of silencing" as both are fuelling the war machine by sending men back to the front
        
        Freudian dream theory - Rivers thinks this is a manifestation of what he is thinking
        
        quite an obvious symbol of control, also a symbol of the dehumanising treatment of men in war
    - - 'They looked, Rivers thought, almost comically symbolic: Time and Death invading the Arcadian scene' - page 98, chapter 9
        
        Symbolic significance:
        
        'Arcadia (utopia) refers to a vision of pastoralism and harmony with nature'
        
        The scene is ironic as their playful behaviour is incongruous with the symbol of death that they carry
        
        As the scythe is a symbol of death, the cutting down the grass is like cutting down an entire generation of men
        
        The madness of the scene could be a reflection of the madness of returning to war
        
        Barker's subtle hint to the reader that Rivers is questioning the morality of his role in healing the men only for them to return to war and his responsibility in their deaths
        
        clunky inclusion of symbolism as Barker directly identifies them being 'symbolic'
- - - - This allows Barker to write about the Great War from an unusual viewpoint, as no real 'battles' take place in Regeneration, at least not in a literal sense. Conventionally, in the canon of literature produced during or in reaction to WW1, combat on the Western Front is a central point of focus, as this is where the war most obviously took place. However, writing from the perspective of psychiatrist William Rivers, Barker is able to explore one of the most startling and dehumanising effects of the war and the battles that took place in the men's minds on their path to recovery.
- - - - Wilfred Owen and the Poetry in the pity???