Psychological Impacts of War in Regeneration
- Lauren Bruce
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
The following is an excerpt from The English Lab's Regeneration Study Companion, available on the resources page of our website.
The first in a trilogy of novels, Barker’s Regeneration explores the unfathomable depths of human suffering experienced by soldiers during World War One. Through the protagonist William Rivers, an eminent army psychiatrist, readers are invited to enter Craiglockhart War Hospital where soldiers suffering from war neurosis have been sent to convalesce in the hope that they will be deemed fit to return to the frontline in France. Described as a “gloomy, cavernous bulk of [a] place,” the interiors of Craiglockhart house all manner of human suffering associated with war trauma including “hallucinations” and “neurasthenia” – a now obsolete diagnosis which encompasses anxiety and depression. Tasked with determining if Sassoon and the other patients can return to their duties, Rivers conducts assessments that involve scrutinising the presentations and symptoms experienced by the men in an effort to determine if they are “sheltering ‘conchies’ as well as cowards, shirkers, scrimshankers and degenerates.” Barker humanises the experiences of these broken men by exposing the depth of pain that they have been asked to tolerate as shown when Sassoon relays his nightmares involving “corpses. Men with half their faces shot off, crawling across the floor.” With no shortage of horrors relayed by the patients, Craiglockhart appears to readers as a “living museum of tics and twitches” with characters such as Pugh impacted by an accident that saw him “picking bits of his platoon off his gas cape for an hour.” Despite Rivers’ experience and knowledge, he finds Burns’ case particularly disturbing as it involved an aversion to food following an incident that had “filled his nose and mouth with decomposing flesh.” It is evident that Rivers himself experiences vicarious trauma and he laments that “Burns defeated him.” Clearly overworked and experiencing burnout, Rivers diagnoses himself with “war neurosis” before taking leave. Here, Barker suggests that the impacts of war are far reaching and that those involved in treating patients for trauma are not exempt from sharing in their pain.
In the case of Anderson, whose “nightly outbursts” were keeping his comrades awake, he faces the grim prospect of returning to his role as a field surgeon with his newly acquired “haemophobia” following the harrowing experience of watching a young patient bleed out. Unable to reconcile his experiences, Anderson bleakly asks “what do you do when the doctor breaks down?” Alternatively, in Prior’s case, shell-shock is displayed in the form of mutism and renders him unable to speak for periods of time. Prior reluctantly shares with Rivers that his ability to speak leaves him “when [he is] upset.” Their initial appointments together display Prior’s antagonistic nature with Prior remarking that he would “rather talk to a real person than a strip of empathetic wallpaper.” Barker’s inclusion of the awkward meetings with Prior’s parents also provides an insight into the generational nature of trauma and the abuse that some of the soldiers endure that spans across generations. Prior’s confession to River’s that he had seen his father “use [his] mother as a football” suggests that childhood trauma was clearly evident in his young life. In a sense, Prior challenges Rivers to be more honest with himself and pointedly remarks to River’s that he “might actually have to sit down and work out what it is [he’s] spent fifty years trying not to say.” Here, Barker indicates that Rivers has also experienced traumas of his own that may have impacted on his ability to communicate clearly with himself. Yet, it is this contest that precedes Prior’s breakthrough which is facilitated by hypnosis. Prior’s newfound ability to connect with his emotions enables Rivers to explain that breakdowns are “a matter of …erosion” thus normalizing and validating Prior’s experiences as the response of any normal person faced with unimaginable circumstances. For many of the soldiers, their trauma experiences also manifest as physical symptoms, many of which are seen as more socially acceptable than their psychological ones which are less palatable to their families. Indeed, patients such as Willard fear perceptions of him as “malingering” in his attempts to avoid returning to active duty due to paralysis of his legs. Rivers assuages Willard’s concerns and offers him that “paralysis is no use to a coward…a coward needs his legs” which results in a “relaxation of tension.” Sassoon admits that “Craiglockhart frightened him more than the front had ever done” noting the atmosphere of “haunted faces, the stammers, the stumbling walks, that indefinable look of being ‘mental’”. Although it is beyond the walls of Craiglockhart that one of Rivers most stunning breakthroughs occur during his visit to Burns’ home. By affording Burns the time and space to reconnect with his traumatic memories, the young soldier is finally able to work towards healing. This turning point also helps Rivers to clarify his views on war and he arrives at the conclusion that “nothing can justify this, he’d thought. Nothing, nothing, nothing.” Rivers also experiences further trauma of his own in viewing Yealland’s treatment of Callan and hearing his demands that the traumatised solider “must talk before you leave me.” For Rivers, replaying this session repeatedly in his mind enables him to question his own influences on the soldiers and clarifies his ability to reflect upon himself and his role in the care of his patients. It is clear from Barker’s confronting descriptions of trench warfare and the ongoing challenges that the returned soldiers face that she wants readers to immerse themselves in the recovery journey of the characters depicted.
Did you notice? Barker uses a powerful series of images to depict Burns’ mental decline as he wanders to the outskirts of Edinburgh. He encounters a tree “laden with dead animals”. He feels compelled to arrange the corpses whom he describes as “a circle of his companions” and takes pains to provide them with the opportunity to “dissolve into the earth as they were meant to do”. This particular instance also foreshadows the events of Chapter 15 and Burns’ desire to seek refuge in the tower, the setting of many childhood games, during the storm. Rivers remarks that “it was like France. Like the battle fields” and it appears that Burns’ fascination with these “menacing” spaces is an attempt to reconcile his war time experiences and lay the dead to rest. Barker’s language choices are deliberate here as she likens the tower to “the bones of a skull” thus further illustrating Burns’ fixation with eerie spaces that bear similarities to his frontline experiences.
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