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THEMES REGENERATION
Speech and silence :
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novel begins by Sassoon's declaration + followed by conversation of Rivers and
Bryce on the way they can silence him
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Sassoon torn apart between his will to speak out the horror he witnessed and
Graves' telling him to remain silent
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He's the one who
remains silent during these conversations ('strip of empathic wallpaper')
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Silence as eloquent as speech
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Can't speak out → body takes power
of expression communicating its protest through non-verbal ways
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Suffering to get back his voice but Yealland makes sure he doesn't listen
to him when he talks → paradox
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Has experienced it with his father who never listened to
him, only interested in words and not by their meaning
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Frustration when the patients do not talk → doctors like Yealland and Rivers'
father are going to push the men hard, break them until they can talk
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Speech confronted to silence with characters of Sassoon and Graves : S
expresses his views about the war and admits his homosexuality whereas Graves
is the contrary
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When recovers his
voice, still not cooperative “I don't think talking helps” but In the end, accepts the
doctor's treatment reluctantly
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Masculinity = ability to dominate and control → nobody in novel is truly
masculine
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Rivers' techniques to heal the patients is everything but manly : makes them talk
and express their feelings, which is viewed as feminine during this period
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WW1 = new rules of warfare which prohibit decisive actions
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Eg of emasculation : Anderson's dream : expresses his anxiety regarding his
masculine identity
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Found his father in the army
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Other eg : Willard : can't move the bottom of his body : represents something
idally masculine, the alpha male (strong, brutal, muscular) but handicapped →
needs the help of his wife → inability to act as a strong figre as well → deeper
sense of disempowerement
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Gays vulnerable : took a risky decision that sets them outside dominant
conceptions of manliness
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If homosexuality kind of
accepted on the battlefield (bc associated with comrade-ship), not in the society,
as Rivers warns S some could use his homosexuality to destroy him
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Prior's relationship with S : at the beginning very physical, bc only interested in
testing his sexuality, his sexual ability
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If men have to face emasculation, the women get
masculinisation : have vulgar lg, the way Sarah looks at Prior etc
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When
meets them, Prior = amnesiac, solitary and asthmatic → contrasts with their
cheerful vitality
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Women still have constraints : Sarah's mother's advice about 'keeping knees
togeter' which will affect S's future husband → her state is only temporary, will
return to her former live with men domination
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Motherhood imposes them these constraints : marriage (invetable, ultime goal)
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Female characters very pragmatic but also portrayed through men's eyes
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Eg : angry she hasn't
got a front xp but ca't be blamed for it → irrationnal
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Women & men can't fully
understand each other bc men experience traumatic even of war and women, even

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if they join the war effort, are disconnected from the horrors → barrier
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Same for Mrs Willard : psychological
bullying but now that he's in a wheelchair, has less power
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Eg : Priors father has no love for him,
Sassoon's died so lacks a father figure, Rivers' has had important traumatic effect
on him
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Eg : Rivers
and Abraham and his son Isaac : submission to father authority
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Pb : sons are diyng → can't take
their fathers' place
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Bio father absent → replaced by abstract figure of patriarch, ultimate symbol of
masculine authority
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Shell-shock =
attempt to rebel bc patriarch = army who does them lectures but stiffled by
intervention of therapist
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Males figures are both
disobedient son and father who compels obedience
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Sassoon : abandone son but insparationnal son who leads his men to battle +
commands them
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Most explicit manifestation of patriarchal authority symbolic
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= boys at
war who obeyed fathers' demands
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Positive instances of fathering are shadowed by this idea
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R very compassionate as if patients were his children
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As novel progresses, Rivers
agonises bc betraying the men for whom he cares so deeply
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Head's nerve in his arm is severed, and R has to chart the healing
process → causes extreme pain
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Essential lesson : process of healing invariably causing suffering to
patients and that therapist shouldn't shy away from inflicting pain if it heps the
patient to progress towards ultimate recovery
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Three aspects of regeneration :
- physical : nerve regeneration with Head, but also with Willard : helps the men

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get better physically, more fit for duty (their physique will be destroyed later at the
front)
-mental : main thing in Craiglockhart : reader follows mental evolution to
recovery
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Eg og Owen who had a really bad
stammer but after a while, fit for duty and goes back to front → has apparently
recovered
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Question of who and what is being regenerated in course of novel remains
unanswered by its end
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S returns
to France but hasn't given up his protest, Burns remain empty shell, Prior's role of
misfit intensified by his removal from active serice
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Regeneration = unfinished process whose ultimate end
cannot be envisaged
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Eg : name of hospital magazine Hydra =
multi-headed monster of Greek mythology : can't be killed bc of his several heads
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WW1 only the first
one → no regeneration bc it ws supposed to be 'the war to end all wars'
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Difficult to go back to the initial situation
→ adaptation is the aim to be achieved
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If animals represent
suffering, then Burns = step towards recovery
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Regeneration through poetry (also for poetry because poetry regenerated by
them) for Owen and Sassoon : able to speak out their feelings → helps them
towards recovery
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Restores both the men and the
poets
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Art collaborative experience (when S
and O write together a poem)
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Regeneration through love : Prior and Sarah → from posession to eqality
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Affects civilian society and the role of
women, homosexuality, class structure
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all this is
going to produce a social earthquake
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Rivers : main character and his job' to restore soldiers, to help them get back to
the front
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Talking cure involves men accepting their weaknesses, tell their experience
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Mental and physical pains are linked : Willard
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Cure requires trust
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Rivers regenerated by his patients as well : will learn a great deal : “healing dos
go on, even if not in the expected direction
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Conclusion : also regeneration of a historical novel : new point of view, takes fact
and fiction and mix them up
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The way we look at
history is constantly involving
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Place of the imagianation : how man
uses his imagination to bring death → terrifying, or used to stop killing
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The subject of the artists is always art
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Also in activities : Rivers invites Sassoon to the conservative club and not Prior,
bc knows he wouldn't fit in
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Craiglockhart = hospital for officers → normally only upper-class
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Feels isolated in hospital (bc
of permanent snobbery), in the middle of everything bc torn between his position
of lieutenant et his origins
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Many different visions of the war : old men sending their sons to be sacrificed,
working-class women gaining independence
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Although Rivers likes to believe no distinction at front, still is : no 'community
spirit'
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Narrative technique : dialogue (theatrical, instanteneity, reader feels he's in the
middle of a conflict), confrontation of point of views and interpretation
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