Jumia Books Regeneration Novel By Pat Barker(historical And Anti-war)

The novel explores the experience of British army officers being treated for shell shock during World War I at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh. Inspired by her grandfather's experience of World War I, Barker draws extensively on first person narratives from the period.Craiglockhart War Hospital, 1917, a hospital for treating soldiers suffering from various forms of shell shock. Army psychiatrist William Rivers is awaiting the arrival of Siegfried Sassoon, who has been sent to the psychiatric hospital because he has protested against the war, thrown his military cross into the Mersey, and written a 'letter of wilful defiance'. It is with this letter, which has been printed in The Times, that the novel begins - an interesting opening, as Sassoon's letter seems completely rational. He doesn't seem to be suffering from any mental illness. Why, then, is he being sent to a psychiatric hospital? Here Barker introduces her main themes; the unjust nature of war, masculinity/emasculation and madness.