Regeneration
World War I was fought on the battlegrounds of Europe. Death and dismay was strewn throughout the landscape. The major players included, but were not limited to, The United States, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, and France. Much like the Vietnam War, that would occur later on in the century, this war was one of bewilderment for most of the people involved, and not involved, for that matter. The soldiers and civilians alike were uncertain about the events leading up to this escalation of mass bloodshed. This uncertainty through Europe and the US, led to a myriad of recurring themes on and off the battlefields. The novel Regeneration, written by Pat Barker, discusses these experiences, and consequential themes in depth. In particular, one of these recurring motifs found in the novel that is incredibly interesting is that of Emasculation. It can be found throughout the novel through a variety of medium, including experiences and even clinical healing methods used by a doctor. Emasculation was expressed as a major theme throughout the World War I era and should be addressed properly.
The primary character, Siegfried Sassoon, based on a real life person, was a poet as well as an extremely recognized war hero in WWI. Through his trials and tribulations he was transformed from an expert bombing technician, to an anti-war advocate. His writing of the “Declaration,” which was his most widely controversial writing, got him sent to Craiglockhart Hospital, as a mental patient and he was labeled “mentally unsound.” It was during his time at the hospital that we see the variety of emasculation that he encountered through the war.
At the turn of the century it was a time of strong patriotism. Men foolishly felt that it was their solemn duty to enlist in the war and fight gallantly for their country. There was no greater “manly” honor than to die in battle fighting for the country that you loved so much. It would have been completely “unmanly”, or emasculating to shy away from this God given duty to fig...
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...The loss of being able to speak is a very strong debilitating experience. Through this debilitation it is that emasculating experiences can occur; the inability to defend ones self verbally, not being able to communicate in an easy and effective manner, and it represents a complete loss of power, in terms of being able to command people around. This debilitation can easily be correlated to the debilitating feelings during the war. During battle men would be sent into trenches and mortar holes in the middle of the battle field, and commanded to hold their position. This was like sending a man into a grave to wait and be shot. Even though it was what every young boy read about and one day dreamed of doing, it was insane. Men packed so closely into a hole in the Earth, not able to move, and just waiting till the next shift comes or a shell hits them. “The war that had promised so much in the way of ‘manly’ activity had actually delivered ‘feminine’ passivity.” (Barker, 108) Everything the men aspired to do in life, which was fight for their country, then only seemed like a ridiculous activity, where they were emasculated beyond any question of a doubt.
The fourth Chapter of Estella Blackburn’s non fiction novel Broken lives “A Fathers Influence”, exposes readers to Eric Edgar Cooke and John Button’s time of adolescence. The chapter juxtaposes the two main characters too provide the reader with character analyses so later they may make judgment on the verdict. The chapter includes accounts of the crimes and punishments that Cooke contended with from 1948 to 1958. Cooke’s psychiatric assessment that he received during one of his first convictions and his life after conviction, marring Sally Lavin. It also exposes John Button’s crime of truancy, and his move from the UK to Australia.
Many of Remarque’s ideas expressed in All Quiet on the Western Front were not completely new. Remarque emphasized things that portrayed the magnitude of issues soldiers face, and how the physical body and senses affects their emotional well-being. The ideas in All Quiet in the Western Front of not knowing the difference between sleep and death, seeing gruesome sights of people, and frustration towards people who cannot sympathize with soldiers, are also shown in Siegfried Sassoon’s “The Dug-Out”, Giuseppe Ungaretti’s “Vigil”, and Sassoon's’ “Suicide in the Trenches”.
Imagine being in an ongoing battle where friends and others are dying. All that is heard are bullets being shot, it smells like gas is near, and hearts race as the times go by. This is similar to what war is like. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the narrator, Paul Baumer, and his friends encounter the ideals of suffering, death, pain, and despair. There is a huge change in these men; at the beginning of feel the same way about it. During the war the men experience many feelings, especially the loss of loved ones. These feelings are shown through their first experience at training camp, during the actual battles, and in the hospital. Training camp was the first actuality of what war was going to be like for the men. They thought that it would be fun, and they could take pride in defending their country. Their teacher, Kantorek, told them that they should all enroll in the war. Because of this, almost all of the men in the class enrolled. It was in training camp that they met their cruel corporal, Himelstoss.&nbs most by him. They have to lie down in the mud and practice shooting and jumping up. Also, these three men must remake Himelstoss’ bed fourteen times, until it is perfect. Himelstoss puts the young men through so much horror that they yearn for their revenge. Himelstoss is humiliated when he goes to tell on Tjaden, and Tjaden only receives an easy punishment. Training camp is as death and destruction. Training camp is just a glimpse of what war really is. The men do not gain full knowledge of war until they go to the front line. The front line is the most brutal part of the war. The front line is the place in which the battles are fought. Battles can only be described in one word- chaos. Men are running around trying to protect themselves while shooting is in the trench with an unknown man from the other side. This battle begins with shells bursting as they hit the ground and machine guns that rattle as they are being fired. In order to ensure his survival, Paul must kill the other man. First, Paul stabs the man, but he struggles for his life. He dies shortly after, and Paul discovers who he has killed. The man is Gerald Duval, a printer.&n Having to deal with killing others is one of the horrors of war. The men who are killed and the people who kill them could have been friends, if only they were on the same side. The other important battle leaves both Paul and Kropp with injuries.
who were there but learn them in such a way that we are allowed to
While soldiers are often perceived as glorious heroes in romantic literature, this is not always true as the trauma of fighting in war has many detrimental side effects. In Erich Maria Remarque 's All Quiet On The Western Front, the story of a young German soldier is told as he adapts to the harsh life of a World War I soldier. Fighting along the Western Front, nineteen year old Paul Baumer and his comrades begin to experience some of the hardest things that war has to offer. Paul’s old self gradually begins to deteriorate as he is awakened to the harsh reality of World War 1, depriving him from his childhood, numbing all normal human emotions and distancing future, reducing the quality of his life.
Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place” (O’Brien 21). The soldiers did not go to war for glory or honor, but simply to avoid the “blush of dishonor” (21). In fact, O’Brien states “It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor.
One of the worst things about war is the severity of carnage that it bestows upon mankind. Men are killed by the millions in the worst ways imaginable. Bodies are blown apart, limbs are cracked and torn and flesh is melted away from the bone. Dying eyes watch as internal organs are spilled of empty cavities, naked torso are hung in trees and men are forced to run on stumps when their feet are blown off. Along with the horrific deaths that accompany war, the injuries often outnumber dead men. As Paul Baumer witnessed in the hospital, the injuries were terrifying and often led to death. His turmoil is expressed in the lines, “Day after day goes by with pain and fear, groans and death gurgles. Even the death room I no use anymore; it is too small.” The men who make it through the war take with them mental and physical scarification from their experiences.
He says “any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure”. The men`s deaths resulted from a “test” to see if such a nation can survive. Describing the war is such an unorthodox style downplays the gory image of the wars. It does, however, make the listeners picture the warriors not as barbarians who ruthlessly slaughtered one
As a man raised in a wealthy, Jewish household, Siegfried Sassoon shockingly chose to participate in World War 1. While serving in World War One, he realized the horrors and awful events that take place during wars. His poems calling out the first world war become wildly popular critically and publically. Siegfried Sassoon was born on September 8, 1886 in Brenchley, Kent, England. He was born to Alfred and Theresa Sassoon. Sassoon grew up living in lavish because his family gained fortune from India. He lived “the leisurely life of a cultivated country gentleman… pursuing… poetry and fox hunting” (Anonymous 1). He attended and was educated at Marlborough College and Clare College. Though Siegfried had a jewish upbringing, in his adult life
The Tiger Beer advertisement shown in the appendix is a clear example of the objectification of women in advertising. The Tiger Beer advert was made to appeal to men from the age of 20 to 60. The advert seeks to get a cheap laugh from the target audience with the image of the woman in a sexual pose and the picture of the beer. The ad promotes the idea that beer is the most desirable thing in the ‘Far East’ and that beer is much more important than women. It also openly laughs at the South East Asian sex trade by putting a prostitute in the middle of the ad. The ad also implies that women in the ‘Far East’ are only good for sex (dressing in revealing, sexual clothes designed to make the woman in the ad seem more desirable).
‘Regeneration’ by Pat Barker was first published in 1991 and is an anti-war novel that examines how soldiers at this time could develop psychosomatic conditions from the implications of war presented in the text more graphically compared to an older text from the critiques lack of understanding of mental health. At Craiglockhart, Willard (who is brought to Rivers) stated that he is in fact paralysed. Although, because of Rivers successful advancement in psychological progress, the attitude to Willard’s condition is changed - “paralysis is no use to a coward Mr. Willard. A coward needs his legs”. This can show that “Willard” was actually never able to grasp the true fact that his illness was a mental problem rather than physical,
Women – beautiful, strong matriarchal forces that drive and define a portion of the society in which we live – are poised and confident individuals who embody the essence of determination, ambition, beauty, and character. Incomprehensible and extraordinary, women are persons who possess an immense amount of depth, culture, and sophistication. Society’s incapability of understanding the frame of mind and diversity that exists within the female population has created a need to condemn the method in which women think and feel, therefore causing the rise of “male-over-female” domination – sexism. Sexism is society’s most common form of discrimination; the need to have gender based separation reveals our culture’s reluctance to embrace new ideas, people, and concepts. This is common in various aspects of human life – jobs, households, sports, and the most widespread – the media. In the media, sexism is revealed through the various submissive, sometimes foolish, and powerless roles played by female models; because of these roles women have become overlooked, ignored, disregarded – easy to look at, but so hard to see.
Dalloway portrays how not only do gender roles impact mental illness treatment of females, but also males. “When Evans was killed, just before the Armistice, in Italy, Septimus, far from showing any emotion or recognising that here was the end of a friendship, congratulated himself upon feeling very little and very reasonably. The War had taught him” (Woolf 86). Even in a time of war, men are expected to cultivate their masculinity. Septimus at first feels numb when his best friend is killed due to the dehumanizing nature of war, by expecting soldiers to move on and not confront their inner pain. However, after the war “for now that it was all over, truce signed, and the dead buried, he had, especially in the evening, these sudden thunder-claps of fear. He could not feel” (Woolf 87). Woolf’s description of Septimus’s post-war reaction demonstrates how he suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A study found that many veterans feel isolated from society because they only can relate with fellow war veterans and are often “reluctant to seek treatment” (Mittal 90). “So when a man comes into your room and says he is Christ (a common delusion), and has a message, as they mostly have, and threatens, as they often do, to kill himself, you invoke proportion; order rest in bed; rest in solitude; silent and rest” (Woolf
Men were by far the most affected by the war, due to the Conscription Act that was passed in 1916. This included all men aged 18-40 who were able to fight against the triple Alliance. The number of volunteers were decreasing, because of circulating news reports of the horrifying experiences and the living conditions the men were expected to live in. War’s glamorous side was destroyed and replaced with fear. With Britain’s army diminishing, they had to bring in conscription to maintain the necessary numbers of troops. Not all men agreed with this measure and those who opposed conscription were known as conscientious objectors. These men were usually pacifists or highly religious individuals, who were treated like criminals by society; many were assaulted and publicly humiliated. These men were forced to take on jobs that aided the military. The men that refused this alternative to fighting were either sentenced to death or put in solitary confinement. This exhibits the extreme mea...
When beginning my search for TV advertisements that feature women, I had little to no trouble finding commercials that displayed female-empowering messages. It’s evident today that there are numerous companies and brands jumping on board to using feminism in order to help sell products and gain attraction towards their products. We can see throughout the years of advertising and television commercials that feminism has grown increasingly popular to use as a means of activism. Although companies don’t have to do this, it’s clear that they want to. But the question is, are these companies genuinely interested in feminism or are they just doing it for the profit? The article “Faux Activism in Recent Female-Empowering Advertising” by Alyssa Baxter