Regeneration by Pat Barker

In the novel Regeneration by Pat Barker the author captures how the denaturing effect which engulfed British society in the World War I transformed established gender roles. The demands placed on both men and women during the war were severe and almost foreign. During this first “total war” there was a seemingly drastic shift in gender roles which created friction in relations between women who had entered the workforce and men returning from the battle field. As we explore how the roles of men and women changed as society reacted to the demands of war we begin to understand why Barker’s novel effectively captures the shift in roles and the friction it created particularly through the characters William Prior and Sarah Lumb.
Before the Great War, battles were romanticized and conflicts were fought on foreign lands. Therefore, there was little or no involvement with the war effort by members outside the military, especially people back home. This enabled the divide between how soldiers fought and how civilians perceived the soldiers exploits, which developed into a fantastical support for war. For example, soldiers returning from the Napoleonic wars would share their tales of victory and the glory of battle creating romantic misconceptions about how war should be.
As the western world entered into the Great War, these fantastically naive preconceptions of war lead to unanimous support to the war effort. However the horrors of trench warfare and the severe famine in the home front did little to diffuse the enthusiastic belief that war was a righteous cause. Every aspect of society became devoted to promoting a sense of national identity in any form which would support the war. Nevertheless, the atrocious demands for human life ...

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...ers, the prolonged exposure to an independent life in the absence of her husband made it impossible for her to cope with the idea of falling back into the way things were before the war (110). This meant that women resented the idea of returning to the oppressive role of homemakers and the loss of their independence.
The disestablishing effects that WWI had on gender roles caused a rift which transformed how men and women would relate to each other. The displacement of both women in the home front and men returning to the battle fields lead to changes in British society even after the war. As British society was force to adjust to these new roles it transitioned into an era which temporarily destabilized society which demanded a redefinition of the roles which men and women should play.

Works Cited
Baker, Pat. Regeneration. First Plume Printing, 1993. Print.