Compare And Contrast Regeneration And Rivers In Regeneration

Regeneration, an historical anti-war novel written by Pat Barker in 1991, deals with the process of ‘regeneration’ of soldiers shell-shocked in World War One. The protagonist of the novel is Dr. Rivers, a practising psychiatrist at Craiglockhart War Hospital who created a new approach to treating shell-shocked soldiers, through speech therapy rather than through physical therapy. Just how innovative Rivers’ methods are becomes apparent in Chapters Twenty and Twenty-One when we meet Dr Yealland, who is presented as the polar opposite to Rivers, both in demeanour and in his methods of treatment. He is arrogant in his speech, treating his patients in a cold, sadistic fashion, attempting to ‘play god’. Yealland believes in using a single session of painful electroshock therapy, in order to cure patients “whose weakness would have caused them to break down, eventually, even in civilian life”. It is the description of this treatment which is the focus of Chapters Twenty and Twenty-One, allowing Barker to contrast the two characters and their methods. The

The two characters are presented as polar opposites both in their treatments and personalities in order to emphasise the different approaches at the time to healing soldiers suffering from shell-shock. Yealland takes inhuman satisfaction in using pain to cure his patients, whom he sees more as projects to prove his power than people; however, Rivers uses gradual and consistent talk therapy in order to thoroughly and thoughtfully heal his patients. The contrasting characters give the reader a new interpretation of the novel, and especially Rivers’ character, because they find themselves sympathising more with him and despising