Explore Barker's Representation of Women in Barker's Regeneration

It is a well known fact that experiencing war changes people; there is an innocence that is forever lost. In Tim O’Brian’s, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”, Mary Anne Bell is an unusual example of the innocence that is lost in war because unlike the rest of the soldiers, she is a woman. Mary Anne’s transformation from innocent “sweetheart” to fierce warrior left readers with mixed emotions because although Mary Anne felt at peace with her transformation, she was also disconnected from reality.

Mary Anne is first presented as a “seventeen-year-old doll in her goddamn culottes, perky and fresh-faced”, which brings about an image of the innocence and an American Dream-esque teenage girl (92). By presenting her as such, O’Brien illustrates the naiveté of someone who is being introduced to war, yet has no experience. She shows up on the first day with no understanding and therefore no knowledge of the severity of war. However, within a page and a half, Mary Anne changes into a girl who could “clip an artery and pump up a plastic sprint…[and who] cut her hair short” (93-94). Like a soldier, Mary Anne did not complain nor shy away from the trauma; she embraced it and fully immersed herself in it. Though she was trying to prove that she was tough and could handle Vietnam, she slowly became more and more invested in the gore and horror of war. After disappearing for days at a time, abandoning her boyfriend, and associating herself with the mysterious “Greenies”, Mary Anne was finally seen “wearing her culottes, her pink sweater, and a necklace of human tongues” (110). Although she retained her classic all-American outer appearance, her personality became polar opposite. This is a reality that many soldiers experience, where they turn into shells of their former selves, left with the abyss that war created. While the character of

"Regeneration" was written by Pat Barker, a university-trained historian and this is confirmed by the presence of very reliable sources in the "Author's Notes", at the end of the novel. It was written the 1980's which has enabled her to gather a lot of information about the war. Pat's grandfather had been bayoneted during the war, and Pat would see his scars when he went to the sink to wash. His experiences in the war made influenced Barker's understanding of the period, making the effect of the war more immediate and personal. She attributes her immediate inspiration for "Regeneration" to her husband, a neurologist, who was familiar with Dr. Rivers's experiments on nerve "Regeneration" in the early twentieth century, yet she chooses not

From before the war to after the war Carol is able to demonstrate how the lives of women had changed in a period of

When the war started, women had to take over the jobs of men and they learned to be independent. These women exemplified the beginning of change. Coupled with enfranchisement and the increased popularity of birth control, women experienced a new

With the flow of war, there were several major tendencies that are generally corresponded with women of the time. The most important of them is the changing of roles they had to switch to in order to substitute missing men. While women were previously presented with the

In the bibliography “Breaking Tradition”, by Kathleen Ernst, the author portrays the changing roles of women during the Civil War and World War II in a variety of methods. These include diction, imagery, and historical facts. By using these methods, Ernst is able to effectively support her claim that women’s roles in society had changed during the Civil War and during World War II.

Modern fascination of war-related trauma in World War I and relating themes are prevalent in Pat Barker’s “Regeneration.” This example of historical fiction highlights the types of psychological damage brought

The author instills emotion in the audience by using many true cases to create a lasting impression on them about the reasons for “fears of putting women in the trenches” (Collins 2) that could contribute to the lack of respect they are getting for wanting combat roles because of them. She mentions a true scenario case involving “Shoshana Johnson, a cook [who] was shot in both ankles, taken captive and held for 22 days” (Collins 2).

A large majority of ‘Regeneration’ is told from the actual participation in war from patients who took part in World War One (But not from their voices) that consists of horrific insights into the implications of war. Sassoon also had seen to be having some hallucinations that were brought up at the start of the play. With the time being written being very important and when Sassoon said that he had seen, “corpses, men with half their faces shot off, crawling across the floor”. This is a very graphic depiction of how war was, unlike ‘Journeys End’. Furthermore, Sassoon also references one time where he “nodded off on a bench” and, “when I woke up, the pavement was covered in corpses”, “old…black” which helps to create an atmosphere and images into the

The detrimental effects of war on soldiers coming home has been an issue since the beginning of war itself. It has been known by many names; shell shock during WWI, battle fatigue during WWII, and PTSD in modern times. The effects of war is an age old issue addressed in The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. O’Brien uses women as a literary element by portraying women as fantasized for their innocence at first, but are really a metaphor to explain the changes that soldiers experience as a result of war, all to explore the damaging effects that war and PTSD have on the men fighting it.

And so did Mary Anne”(97) After her physical change only difference between her and soldiers is the gender and experience, but later she radically shifts to another person, she finds a soldier inside herself. In war She lost her girly manners, identity, and her innocence. “ Sometimes I want to eat this place. Vietnam. I want to swallow the whole country— the dirt, the death — i just want to eat it and have it inside me.

There is a very small but important female presence in “Regeneration”. The first mention of women in the novel is the Voluntary Aid Detachments (VAD’s). “A couple of VAD’s ran across the room to him, clucking, fussing, flapping ineffectually at his tunic with a napkin, until eventually they had the sense to get him out of the room”. The language Barker uses compares the women to chickens, the use of “until they had the sense” shows the women as stupid and “fussing” suggests they were making a bigger drama than they needed to about the situation. Later on in the novel, Barker introduces Sarah Lumb and her friends; they’re described in a much more positive way and are portrayed as strong dominant women. The contrast from the VADs earlier in the novel to Sarah and her friends later in the novel could suggest that Barker is trying to show how the roles of women changed as the war progressed. Her positive description of Sarah and her friends could show Barker is a feminist as she seems to favour the ‘munitionettes’ to the VADs. Though her own views on women are presented within the novel, she still accurately represents women’s roles in

Although some may argue that Mary Anne Bell was a symbol for overcoming sexist stereotypes, she was in fact a symbol for what soldiers transitioned through everyday--her change parallels and exaggerates their stories. O’Brien’s changing description of Mary Anne epitomizes the hypnotic effect that war has. Mary Anne was ‘a tall big boned blonde’ (89) an ‘attractive girl’ (90), ‘coy and flirtatious’ (91), but ‘the wilderness seemed to draw her in’ (100) and soon she ‘cut her hair short’ (92) and wore ‘a necklace of human tongues, [that were] elongated and narrow, like pieces of blackened leather, one tongue overlapping the next, the tips curled upward as if caught in a final shrill syllable’ (105-106). Mary Anne’s description of being ‘a tall

This makes it more factual and life like than ‘Regeneration’ ; a novel written by Pat Barker in the early 1990s (after the First and Second World War) so was more of a second hand version of the war. Most of her inspiration for this book was from her step- grandfather who served in the war, and had scars both inside and out but refused to talk about the war with her. Both Regeneration and Journey’s End explore the horror of war and psychology effects of war wrought soldiers, in different ways.