Character Connections In Pat Barker's Regeneration

Regenerating Relationships
A look at character connections in Regeneration by Pat Barker Throughout Regeneration by Pat Barker there are intricate connections being made between the characters. The relationships between patients, doctors, and soldiers cross over many lines forming complicated bonds that go beyond those of friendships and father figures. The gender roles in this wartime tale do not follow normal social rules. There are strong, dominant females that compensate for the effeminate males. There are doctors and patient relationships that even today could be considered taboo as well as patient and patient partnerships. While some of these relationships are merely implied and not spelled out, they are definitely present throughout
Sarah proves a unique type of woman. Working in the munitions factory, she is a fiercely independent woman who takes Prior by surprise. “She held out her hand to him in a direct, almost boyish way. It intrigued him, since nothing else about her was boyish.” (p 89). While women during the war worked, it was not a normal social habit. During the world wars women were needed to fill the positions that men left behind but when the men came home, women were expected to fall back into the social roles they had been in for decades – homemaker, wife, baby maker. The author, Pat Barker said something interesting in an interview, “In a lot of books about war by men the women are totally silenced. The men go off and the women stay at home and cry; basically this is the typical feature’... ‘Women in the munitions factories were expected to produce weapons to kill thousands, but a woman who attempts to abort her unborn child is criticized.” (Barker, from her
Some of the connections end with the last page of the book, some of them may continue on through the rest of Pat Barker’s trilogy. One thing that can be said for these characters is that they are relatable, we all know a Siegfried Sassoon, a Billy Prior, a Sarah Lumb and a Dr. Rivers. Some of us may be these people. There is a war going on today, and there are men being broken down and torn apart just as Owen, Sassoon, Prior and even Dr. Rivers are. There is still a policy of no gays in the military and mental illness in the war is still controversial. The only difference is that women are over there fighting alongside the men. In some cases, the women are at war and the men are staying home. This book takes place in 1917, these characters are part of a different era, but really it could have been set in any year, in any town, in the middle of any