Context

• The book was set in 1917 but published in 1991
• The trilogy signifies a turning point in Barker's career. She originally worked on gritty novels that discusses working class life in Newcastle. "Union Street" was one of her most notable novels before Regeneration.
• She was known as a female author, but this novel is a very masculine novel.
• About the war as much as it is about the effects of war.

  Effects on society and the psyche of people who weren't killed in the war.
• The book is not about heroes. It's about the background to this suffering that is often underrepresented. AO4: "Not about heroes'' a play by Stephen Macdonald, also showcases characters Siegfrid Sassoon and Wilfred Owen and them working together on poetry, similarly to Regen
• It's about the conflicting nature of healing soldiers' war neurosis only to return back to the frontline where the trauma was inflicted.
• AO4: Alfred Lord Tennyson: Charge of the light brigade. Focuses heavily on the patriotic elements of war that were so popular at the time. "Someone Had Blundered '' Someone had accidentally sent 600 soldiers to their death, and now they became heroes. "Honor the charge they made! Honor the light brigade!" War was so futile, and required so many sacrifices for small territorial gain.
• AO5: 1917 - Sigmund Freud, who is mentioned in this novel, had become famous for his research of psychological disorders, which largely revolved around the topics of dreams, sexuality, and parental issues. Those who held traditionally masculine views of the world were often dismissive of his ideas, such as Anderson, who even mentions Freud. He calls Rivers a "Freudian Johnnie" for the way in which he claims the war had evoked damage on his sense of masculinity.
• The therapy Rivers employs, like all the other methods, is experimental for its time; therefore it is important to note the context in which he practices his treatment. Such context helps to explain the distrust for some of Rivers's methods that is implied in the patients' speech.
• Emasculation: motif that runs throughout. Anderson dreams he is tied up with corsets; Sassoon remembers boy whose genitals were shot off; Prior recalls his weakness against his father and the influence of his mother; Rivers counsels Sassoon on homosexuality and idea of an "intermediate sex." All fear emasculation—a real threat in the war and a real threat in the CL. As patients, they turn over all power to the doctors and nurses who care for them, most notably Dr. Rivers. Rivers worries about how the patients fully under his control, but his method of therapy appears to be an emasculating one.
• Talking about feelings goes against the "whole tenor of their upbringing." He acknowledges that "they had been trained to identify emotional repression as the essence of manliness." This is Prior's main problem; he resists Rivers's method because, as a boy, he was trained to be as masculine as possible. He would even rather undergo hypnosis—a physical submission—than release his feelings in what he sees as an emotional submission.
• Rivers wrestles with the costs and benefits of his method; is it worth it to potentially "cure" his patients if the cost is emotional castration? Should he challenge the traditional definitions of masculinity? Rivers decides to continue with the treatment.
• CH9 AND 10: Barker discusess how during these years, newspapers wrote about and people discussed the supposed "class harmony" at the front Prior dismisses such tales of "class harmony." In his experience, class continues to determine one's place in war, just as it does in peace. Prior is extremely aware of such class distinctions. As a man of the lower-middle class who has been "made ambitious" by his mother and has risen to the rank of officer, he notes carefully the differences in upbringing and education that separate him from the real upper class.
• CH9+10: The characters of Lizzie, Sarah, and the munitions girls are used to explore issues of gender. The war has not only changed the men who served in the army; it has also intensely changed the women who have been left at home. It is not at all uncommon for young women to take jobs in factories far from home. They stay in boarding houses with the other workers, supervised by a matron. Still, their jobs allow them freedoms never before imagined. Armed with spending money and free of parental supervision, these women feel the liberty to enjoy themselves as they choose.
• CH9+10 Munitionettes. As Lizzie remarks, "on August 4, 1914…peace broke out." For many women at home, war meant freedom and happiness; not all were so happy it would end.
• p1: Regeneration is primarily structured around the consciousness and experiences of Rivers, who is the link that connects all the patients together. It is through his mind that ideas and beliefs are reflected. By choosing Rivers as the central protagonist of the novel, Barker forces a comparison between the past and the present. Rivers, a good thirty years older than most of his patients, was brought up with a Victorian education. Raised by an Anglican priest, Rivers was taught not only a strong belief in God, but also a deep respect for order and authority.
• p2: However, as Rivers treats his patients and learns more and more about the horrors of war, he begins to question his existing values. Though Rivers will not admit it to Sassoon, he cannot see that anything could possibly justify such mass destruction of a generation of young minds and young men. As a protagonist who is also a scientist, Rivers's keen observations allow us an insight into the moral and societal dilemmas he faces. In Rivers, traditional values and modern reality clash uneasily.