Regeneration and Journey’s End

Both “Regeneration” and “Journey’s End” are set during world war one, with “Regeneration” looking at the mental effects of the men removed from the war and “Journey’s End” focusing on a short period of time in a trench. Sherriff used a play when writing “Journey’s End” so that he could give a true representation of trench life rather than the dramatized version that was commonly presented when it was written in 1928. Barker used novel form when writing “Regeneration” to show us the after effects the war left on men involved; it showed us how many men were suffering with what seems like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which was an unrecognized mental disorder until 1980. However both texts are similar in that they aim to dispel common views of the war, they show people what was hidden from them and present the truth about the war from their own experiences; Barker’s granddad having served in the war and Sherriff himself serving in the trenches, so it could be argued they are both pieces of faction literature.
Sheriff chose to use a play set in the trenches so that he could confine the audience to the theatre like men in the trenches. It was a way of mimicking the claustrophobia the soldiers would have felt. Using a play set in one place over a short period of time, he is able to show the long waits and boredom soldiers faced. The “sounds of the war” that are faintly present also add to the verisimilitude and help the audience understand what the men faced daily. Although sheriff effectively dispels common misconceptions of the trenches, his use of a play doesn’t allow us to understand how his characters are feeling. By Barker’s choice to write “Regeneration” as a novel she is able to give us an insight to how men who had fought and...

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... 1928 when the class divide in Britain was huge and much more prominent than it is today. Barker wrote Regeneration in 1991 when the class divide wasn’t as prominent so it is less clear in her work. The working class is represented by Trotter and Mason in Journey’s End and Ada and Sarah Lumb in regeneration. Both authors use dialect to portray their class. In Journey’s End Mason and Trotter both drop their H’s when speaking for example “aven’t” instead of haven’t and “‘ad” instead of had. With Sarah and Ada Lumb the use of “Aye” at the start of ada’s sentence and Sarah calling her mum “mam” shows they are of a working class background.
There is a theme of duty present throughout “Journey’s End” and “Regeneration”; and in both the characters feel their duty has changed by the end. In “Journey’s End”

Works Cited

Journey's End, R.C. Sheriff
Regeneration, Pat Barker