Theme of Imprisonment Essay Example for Free

Theme of Imprisonment Essay Within the novel ‘Regeneration’ Pat Barker explores the theme of imprisonment and the feeling of ‘being trapped’ through the use of setting and the characters mentality. ‘Regeneration’ was written in 1991; however, Barker sets the novel in 1917, during the First World War. The setting for this novel is at Craiglockhart War hospital in Scotland and is mainly rooted to this one location. It is at Craiglockhart that Barker explores the theme of imprisonment. It’s not the characters which Barker uses to show imprisonment and feeling ‘trapped’. Barker uses the setting of Craiglockhart to expand the reader’s visual image of how the characters are trapped or imprisoned. Sassoon, in chapter five, makes a comparison between Craiglockhart and ‘dottyville’ by saying; ‘It makes dottyville almost bearable.’ Barker mostly uses the interior landscape of Craiglockhart to show that the characters are still trapped in the war. For example, the corridors are described with a powerful simile; ‘like a trench without a sky’. By using this description, it links the hospital and the front line together and this could perhaps make some patients worse under those conditions. The description could suggest that the corridors are worse than warfare trenches because there is no natural light above them but instead a dark and dingy room. The setting of Craiglockhart is still darkened even at the very beginning of the novel; ‘Nobody arriving at Craiglockhart for the first time could fail to be daunted by the sheer gloomy, cavernous bulk of the place.’ This allows the reader to get a first impression of Craiglockhart. Being in a place like Craiglockhart shows how soldier’s conditions deteriorated through society constrictions. Throughout ‘Regeneration’, Barker uses a theme of Imprisonment in the presentation of her characters. This is to show that although they are physically away from the war, within their minds they are still trapped within the warfare. The character of Burns is first brought to the reader’s attention in chapter two. He is described as a ‘thin yellow skinned man’. The colour ‘yellow’ being significant as to show illness and how close to death he is. who keeps violently throwing up due to a horrific war experience Barker has purposely twinned with Burns. ‘He’d been thrown into the air by the explosion of a shellwhat filled his nose and mouth was decomposing human flesh’ Here , Barker uses descriptive language to support her ideas about the true horror of war and what effects it may have upon the soldier. With Burns, he is still mentally trapped within that memory and the theme of imprisonment first becomes apparent in chapt er four with Burns conflict with the setting. Barker uses an extended metaphor when dealing with the bus journey and this give Barker an opportunity to use visual imagery. Barker creates the bus journey to be a very difficult time for Burns as everything he smells makes him want to be sick. Barker has made Burns character to feel trapped in cowardice and has a constant fear of judgement for not returning to the front line. However, it was the un-enlisted men who were deemed cowards during the early twentieth century. Later on in Chapter four, Burns removes his clothes and lies down next to the dead animals. For Burns, he feels like this is the right place and feels that while he lays next to the burdenless animals , he too has lost the burden of the war. Barker decided to make Burns psychological effects a lot worse and deeper than other characters. Barker has almost made this seem like a cry for help. Back in 1917, this sort of behaviour would have been deemed as ‘going mad’ and wasnt seen as the masculine behaviour men were expected to obtain. When Barker describes Burns ‘stumbling’ across the field, she uses personification when it says; ‘tensing himself against the wind that seemed to be trying to scrape him, a fiercer gust snatched his breath’. This could show that Burns is fighting a invisible barrier which keeps pushing him back and not letting him through and this connects with Burns fighting against his internal struggles against the war. . The character of Billy Prior is introduced to the reader as a mute. The way in which Barker has shown the theme of imprisonment through Priors is through the use of reoccurring nightmares. He wakes up in the middle of the night screaming which is when he regains his voice. Although he gets his voice back, the reoccurring nightmares how that a part of priors mind is still ‘trapped’ within the warfare. This could also show that Barker put across the point that nightmares to soldiers could represent how they are constantly reminded about the horrors of war, and they can never escape it. Barker shows that soldier’s uniforms are constraints to them and this is apparent throughout the novel. It may have been seen during the war that although a soldiers uniform would show honour and pride, a soldiers uniform could also secrete their true identity and dehumanises the soldier. Barker shows this especially in chapter in chapter four with Burns and the dead animals. By Burns taking off his clothes, it could mean that a little bit of the war has gone away for Burns and he feels relief for removing his uniform. Barker develops the theme of imprisonment and the feeling of ‘being trapped’ throughout ‘Regeneration’. Each Character has a different aspect of ‘being trapped’ within the war. Reoccurring Nightmares, speech impediments and other aids are used to give the true scale of how imprisoned Soldiers were during the War.