By Hayley Charlesworth
For many A-Level English students, Regeneration is little more than a set text. But the trilogy of award-winning war novels by Pat Barker have had a profound effect on me, particularly in the use of gay and bisexual characters.
For many A-Level English students, Regeneration is little more than a set text. But the trilogy of award-winning war novels by Pat Barker have had a profound effect on me, particularly in the use of gay and bisexual characters.
The trilogy combines notable figures from the First World War alongside fictional characters. Among these are the war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, about whom the first book tends to revolve. With Owen suffering from shell shock and Sassoon kept in a military hospital as a conscientious objector, the two men bond over poetry and the horrors of war. The sexuality of these two characters is crucial to the story, but being restricted by the facts known about Sassoon and Owen, Barker doesn't hit her full stride until the second book, The Eye in the Door.
Billy Prior (excellently played by Johnny Lee Miller in the film adaptation) is a fictional soldier introduced in Regeneration. He is rendered mute through shell shock, and haunted by an explosion in the trenches, leaving the disembodied eye of a friend staring back at him. He is by far Barker’s most fascinating and emotionally affecting character, and much of the focus of The Eye in the Door is on Prior, his recovery and his psyche. It is also in The Eye in the Door that Prior is revealed to be bisexual. While in a loving relationship with Sarah, he engages sexually with other soldiers, but not in the stereotypical “soldiers away from home missing their wives” way. Prior has a genuine attraction to men, but more than that, these are damaged men just seeking a connection with another human being. Sassoon and Owen did this through poetry, Prior in other ways.
Billy Prior (excellently played by Johnny Lee Miller in the film adaptation) is a fictional soldier introduced in Regeneration. He is rendered mute through shell shock, and haunted by an explosion in the trenches, leaving the disembodied eye of a friend staring back at him. He is by far Barker’s most fascinating and emotionally affecting character, and much of the focus of The Eye in the Door is on Prior, his recovery and his psyche. It is also in The Eye in the Door that Prior is revealed to be bisexual. While in a loving relationship with Sarah, he engages sexually with other soldiers, but not in the stereotypical “soldiers away from home missing their wives” way. Prior has a genuine attraction to men, but more than that, these are damaged men just seeking a connection with another human being. Sassoon and Owen did this through poetry, Prior in other ways.
By the third book, The Ghost Road, Prior is back at war, and serving in the same regiment as Wilfred Owen. Knowing what happened to Owen, I have never been able to read the end of The Ghost Road, regardless of how many times I've revisited the trilogy. My connection, and many readers’ connections, to the characters and especially to Prior is too intense to see such a terrible fate befall them. Owen’s death is a fact of history. It’s Prior’s death that feels so cruel.
The Regeneration Trilogy is important to me, not only because of its subject matter, but also because it was my first real connection to gay and bisexual characters in literature. Through Pat Barker, I learnt the importance of LGBT representation and shaped my own attitudes towards LGBT equality.
The Regeneration Trilogy is important to me, not only because of its subject matter, but also because it was my first real connection to gay and bisexual characters in literature. Through Pat Barker, I learnt the importance of LGBT representation and shaped my own attitudes towards LGBT equality.
RSS Feed
