Afterwards: Pat Barker - 'Regeneration' Audio

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Pat Barker - 'Regeneration' Audio

Listen to the audio clip (some of the text is included below)

Explore the use of syntx here. Where does the tension peak and how does punctuation signal this?

Consider the references to Owen's 'Disabled.' How has Barker drawn on Owen's use of colour imagery?



In a moving episode, Sarah Lumb accompanies her friend, Madge, to a hospital where they visit Madge's wounded lover. Later, Sarah wanders in to a different ward:

'Once across the threshold she became aware of a silence, a silence caused, she suspected,by her entrance. She was still dazzled by the brightness of the light outside and the relative dimness of the interior, and so she had to blink several times before she saw them, a row of figures in wheelchairs, but figures that were no longer the size and shape of adult men. Trouser legs sewn short; empty sleeves pinned to jackets. One man had lost all his limbs, and his face was so drained, so pale, he seemed to have left his blood in France as well. The blue of the hospital uniform looked garish against his skin. They'd been pushed out here to get the sun, but not right outside, and not at the front of the hospital where their mutilations might have been seen by passers-by. They stared at her, but not as the men had stared on the other ward, smiling, trying to catch her eye. This was a totally blank stare. If it contained anything at all, it was fear. Fear of her looking at the empty trouser legs. Fear of her not looking at them...........

Her sense of her own helplessness, her being forced to play the role of Medusa when she meant no harm, merged with the anger she was beginning to feel at their being hidden away like that. If the country demanded that price, then it should bloody well be prepared to look at the result.'