The importance of Siegried Sassoon's letter in 'Regeneration', by Pat Barker

Thèmes abordés

Regeneration, Pat Barker, Siegried Sasoon's letter, World War I, sign of protest against the war, anti-war novel

Résumé du document

First of all it's important to know that this letter has actually been written by the real Sassoon. He was a poet and even if his first poems were kind of romantic, he is mostly famous for his poems about war. In these war poems, he describes the horror and the barbarism of war with gruesome details such as dead bodies, suicide and the horrible living conditions in the trenches. The aim of his poems was to open the eyes of the British population and show them what propaganda was hiding from them.

Extraits

[...] The importance of Siegried Sassoon's letter in 'Regeneration', by Pat Barker INTRO : Pat Barker was born in a working class family in Thornaby on Tees, in Yorkshire England, in 1943. She had a difficult childhood, she had been abandoned by her mother when she was seven and was raised by her grandparents. At the age of eleven she won a place at "King James grammar school she later went on to study at the London school of economics, graduating in 1965. [...]

[...] We have therefore decided that it would be interesting to understand why Pat Barker chose to put Siegried Sasoon's letter in the beginning of her novel and what the importance of the letter is. We will first of all examine Sasoon and the letter's form and content and second of all the importance of the letter within the novel. PART 1 : The analysis of Sassoon's letter : In the first part we will study Finished with the War : A soldier's Declaration in its form, its themes and opinions that are expressed in it. [...]

[...] The content of the letter is similar to the poems he used to write : the aim is to show the atrocity of the war and the pain which the soldiers are subjected to. He describes his letter as an act of wilful defiance It is an act of rebellion, but also a political one. He states the reasons for which he protests : the political errors and insincerities the callous complacence of those at home who don't fight and the evil and unjust sufferings of the troops. [...]

[...] And this is one of the main reasons for which he wants to stop fighting . But we will examine this in more detail in the following part. Sasoon's conception of war : themes of the letter : First of all, to understand this letter well we have to look at Sassoon's life. Born in 1886, he survived the war and died in 1967. He was an english poet who fought during WW1. He became a very patriotic and brave soldier of the British army in 1914. [...]

[...] The date of the letter is July 1917. At this moment he was convalescing and refused to go to war again. So this letter was actually written to his commander. The authorities decided that he was not fit to fight and he was sent to the Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edimbourg where he was cured for shell shock So, all of this explains his attitude toward the WW1 in this anti-war letter he delivered. In the letter Sassoon appears as a true pacifist who doesn't want to fight for any other reason than to obtain peace. [...]