REPRESENTATIONS OF WAR AND TRAUMA IN PAT BARKER’S “REGENERATION”

Adrian RADU

doi:10.24193/subbphilo.2019.1.15

Authors

Adrian RADU Faculty of Letters, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca (Romania). Contact address: adrian.d.radu@gmail.com

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24193/subbphilo.2019.1.15

Keywords:

army, aphasia, neurosis, trauma, treatment, war.

Abstract

Representations of War and Trauma in Pat Barker’s Regeneration. The Regeneration Trilogy focuses on the British soldiers of the Great War who, besides their physical wounds, often suffered from psychic and psychosomatic disorders, more or less disabling. The aim of this article is to discuss how trauma generated neurological and psychic disorders and affected the lives of soldiers, how the doctors of the time attempted to cure them and make them able to return to the frontlines. The article refers mostly to Regeneration, the first novel in the sequence.

REZUMAT. Reprezentări ale războiului și traumei în romanul Regeneration de Pat Barker. Principala preocupare a Trilogiei lui Pat Barker sunt soldații britanici din Marele Război care, pe lângă rănile fizice, au fost afectați adesea de tulburări psihice și psihosomatice, mai mult sau mai puțin incapacitative. Scopul acestui articol este analiza modului în care traumele au generat tulburări neurologice și psihic, a manierei în care medicii de atunci au încercat să le vindece și să-i facă să se poată întoarce pe front. Articolul se ocupă în principal de Regeneration, primul roman din secvență.

Cuvinte cheie: armată, afazie, nevroză, traumă, tratament, război.

Author Biography

Adrian RADU, Faculty of Letters, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca (Romania). Contact address: adrian.d.radu@gmail.com

Dr Adrian Radu is currently Associate Professor at the Faculty of Letters, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca (Romania). He is the author of three literary studies: The Sign of the Phoenix, dedicated to the short prose of D.H. Lawrence in the 1920s; The Literatures of Identity, which provides a cultural perspective on the literature in Britain of the 1980s; Perceptions of Victorian Literature that reconsiders the most important names and literary output of Victorian England. The Palace of Art is a critical and annotated anthology of texts followed by Good Usage, a book of English grammar for advanced students. Dr Radu has authored several studies and articles on Victorian literature, the contemporary British novel, and contemporary Irish poetry. Contact address: adrian.d.radu@gmail.com

References

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