Key themes
- The military system and the men it destroys — then repairs to destroy again
- Shell shock and the invention of trauma
- Rivers and Sassoon: the officer who heals and the patient who protests
About this book
Shell-shocked officers and the psychiatrist treating them; a quiet, powerful look at war's hidden wounds.
Published in 1991, Regeneration draws on the real meeting between Siegfried Sassoon and W.H.R. Rivers at Craiglockhart War Hospital in 1917. Rivers's case notes survive and Barker read them extensively in preparation.
Discussion questions
- W.H.R. Rivers is both the novel's most sympathetic character and its moral centre — a man who heals men so they can return to war. How does Barker handle this ethical contradiction?
- Siegfried Sassoon has made a public protest against the war and been sent to Craiglockhart rather than court-martialled. What is the novel saying about how systems co-opt dissent?
- Shell shock — now understood as PTSD — was a new diagnosis in 1917. How does Barker use the medical history to make an argument about masculinity, repression and violence?
- The novel is historical fiction featuring real figures (Sassoon, Owen, Rivers). What does this mixture of real and invented characters achieve — and what risks does it carry?
- Regeneration is the first of Barker's Regeneration Trilogy. What in this novel establishes the themes that will carry through to The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road?
Get the book
Links open an Amazon search. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Read together or read next
Books that make a good pairing or natural follow-up.
This is a set text
Regeneration appears on the following curriculum reading lists.
Reading it with your group?
Get Regeneration
As an Amazon Associate and Bookshop.org affiliate we earn from qualifying purchases.