Compare And Contrast Regeneration And Rivers In Regeneration

Regeneration, an historical anti-war novel written by Pat Barker in 1991, deals with the process of ‘regeneration’ of soldiers shell-shocked in World War One. The protagonist of the novel is Dr. Rivers, a practising psychiatrist at Craiglockhart War Hospital who created a new approach to treating shell-shocked soldiers, through speech therapy rather than through physical therapy. Just how innovative Rivers’ methods are becomes apparent in Chapters Twenty and Twenty-One when we meet Dr Yealland, who is presented as the polar opposite to Rivers, both in demeanour and in his methods of treatment. He is arrogant in his speech, treating his patients in a cold, sadistic fashion, attempting to ‘play god’. Yealland believes in using a single session of painful electroshock therapy, in order to cure patients “whose weakness would have caused them to break down, eventually, even in civilian life”. It is the description of this treatment which is the focus of Chapters Twenty and Twenty-One, allowing Barker to contrast the two characters and their methods. The

characters of Rivers and Yealland become vehicles through which Barker is able to explain the different approaches at the time to healing shell-shock.

By Chapter Twenty, Rivers is a familiar character - a sympathetic and caring doctor who would do anything to help a patient - and so Barker is able to use the introduction of Dr Yealland to create a contrast between the two that is immediately obvious to the reader. Yealland is described as an ‘impressive’ figure; this adjective immediately colours the reader’s perception of the character; it suggests that Yealland is perhaps not as humble and unthreatening as Rivers, who is described by Prior as a ‘male mother’. Barker goes on to say that Yealland “did not merely meet your eye, but stared so intently that you felt your skull had become transparent”. The adverb ‘intently’ emphasises how Yealland constantly seems like he is analysing whoever he is with, and therefore patients cannot feel comforted by him, or see him as a fatherly figure like they do with Rivers. The highly visual imagery used here is effective as it gives the reader the immediate impression that Yealland is an intimidating and rather frightening man; he is Rivers’ opposite. Yealland is portrayed as the sort of man who can see straight through a man and make them feel powerless and under his control with just one look. There is an inhuman quality to this description; he is being described more like a machine than a person; it is a natural and human thing to look somebody in the eye. By using the description ‘impressive figure’, Barker is drawing comparisons between him and the machines which he uses to cure his patients, which contrasts with how Rivers is portrayed as such a human and compassionate character. The adverb ‘intently’ emphasises how Yealland constantly seems like he’s analysing whoever he’s with, and therefore patients cannot feel comforted by him, or see him as a fatherly figure like they do with Rivers.

Barker uses Yealland’s dialogue in order to emphasise how he treats his patients with inhumanity. In Chapter Twenty-One Yealland describes Callan’s case as ‘fairly typical’ and refers to him as ‘this one’. This dehumanises Callan, which emphasises how Yealland has no personal sympathy or feeling towards his patients, a characteristic which Rivers finds shocking, as is portrayed by how he is later described as ‘tense’, and how he ‘can’t stand it’.

Yealland is an unchanging character who serves as a foil to Rivers, whose superiority of character is emphasised by the start of Chapter Twenty-One, where Yealland “nodded cheerfully to Rivers, but didn’t speak. Then, rather to Rivers’ surprise, he began pulling down the blinds.” The adjective ‘cheerfully’ emphasises his ghoulish, sadistic nature as he prepares to essentially torture Callan. The fact that Yealland pulls down the blinds highlights how Callan and Rivers are trapped in the electric chamber, which is emphasised by the structure of the chapter: the setting remains the same throughout, creating the feeling that the reader is trapped on the same horrific journey. Rivers’ ‘surprise’ elucidates his disbelief of Yealland’s nature; he would never purposely make a patient feel trapped or exploited. Barker is using Rivers as a kind of modern day perspective; his reaction to Yealland’s treatment is similar to what a doctor in the 21st century’s would be, which accentuates how his ideas and methods are innovative, sensitive and ahead of their time, whereas Yealland’s are insensitive and cruel, which is supported by Yealland’s patient’s chair which is describes as ‘rather like a dentist’s chair’, with ‘straps on the arms’.

Structurally, Barker leaves it until Chapters Twenty and Twenty-One to describe Yealland’s contrasting treatment to Rivers’. The readers have been allowed to see for themselves that Rivers’ methods are effective in helping patients heal in a humane way, whereas they never see evidence of Yealland actually healing his patients. All Barker includes is him cruelly controlling them until they submit to his will, which highlights how to Yealland the healing process is not important enough to be considered; he stresses that his patients “must talk before you leave”, so that he can get it over with and move on to his next victim. This declarative sentence is put in italics by Barker, which emphasises for the reader how the most important thing to Yealland is not to see these men healed and happy, but cured and humbled, which is highlighted by his insistence on a thank you from Callan later in the chapter. This creates a paradox between him and Rivers, as previously, he orders Callan to speak, but tells him “I shall not listen to anything you have to say.” This unnecessarily harsh statement dismisses Rivers’ entire method; he takes great care and interest in listening to what his patients have to say to him, therefore this emphasises the contrasts between their views. Also, the reader only ever hears about the patients Yealland has supposedly healed from his own mouth, whereas with Rivers we witness the process for ourselves throughout the novel with patients such as Billy Prior. Therefore we trust Rivers, but are not convinced to trust Yealland, nor do we want to.

To conclude, Barker presents the characters of Dr Rivers and Dr Yealland in Chapters Twenty and Twenty-One of Regeneration in order to bring awareness to the reader of how innovative Rivers’ methods of treatment were, especially compared to the sadistic methods of doctors such as Yealland.

The two characters are presented as polar opposites both in their treatments and personalities in order to emphasise the different approaches at the time to healing soldiers suffering from shell-shock. Yealland takes inhuman satisfaction in using pain to cure his patients, whom he sees more as projects to prove his power than people; however, Rivers uses gradual and consistent talk therapy in order to thoroughly and thoughtfully heal his patients. The contrasting characters give the reader a new interpretation of the novel, and especially Rivers’ character, because they find themselves sympathising more with him and despising

Yealland.