Pat Barker's Regeneration Analysis

Pat Barker's Regeneration is one of the best anti-war novels written in the late 1990s. Focusing on the adverse side of the First World War, Pat Barker tells the story of male soldiers who suffered shell shock on the battlefield. Most of these men share a common feature: they all suffer from both psychological and physical trauma that needs to be dealt with. The WW1 is considered the first modern war, introducing new inventions such as the mustard gas or the tank, as well as this was the first time when the aerial warfare was significant and bombardment became a common tactic. The soldiers on the front line experienced brutality that was never seen before in the form of exploding bomb shells and killing gas. Pat Barker's Regeneration represents …show more content…
Burns was an officer before he was transferred to the War Hospital in Craiglockhart. He is having eating disorders, to such an extent that he is unable to eat at all. “What had happened to him was so vile, so disgusting, that Rivers could find no redeeming feature. He’d been thrown into the air by the explosion of a shell and had landed, head-first, on a German corpse, whose gas-filled belly had ruptured on impact. Before Burns lost consciousness, he’d had time to realize that what filled his nose and mouth was decomposing human flesh” (Barker 00). This grotesque, bizarre experience he had was so impactful that it not only affects his mental self, but it also causes physical pain. In the case of Burns it is advisable to talk about both mental and physical causes of shell shock. As the physical cause, he was not only directly affeted by the exploding shell itself, but also saw and tasted a rotten soldier on the battlefield. This latter part is also the mental cause. If humans overstep their tolerable or controllable limits of horror, fear, etc., they may have permanent damage to …show more content…
This exactly shows how traumatized Billy was, holding out an eye and comparing it to food. His fellow-soldiers' reaction also shows how serious the problem is, as it is implied that Billy is incapable of doing anything. Luckily enough, this problem later is resolved by the excellent care of Dr. Rivers, as Billy Prior finally, but also only partly, he managed to overcome his shell shock. He is later seen in the town with a girl, but his inner self is still struggling a bit in the society. This problem of reintegrating into the society is also present at all patients at the War