Regeneration quotes

What does the novel begin with?

Sassoon’s ‘A soldiers declaration’ - calls out government, indicates the tone of the novel.

What does Rivers say about Colonel Langdon? (CH1)

‘Langdon doesn’t believe in shell shock’ - link to statement by Lord Gort

Asyndetic list of perception of soldiers (CH1)

‘Cowards, shirkers, scrimshankers and degenerates’

First example of Sasson’s dislike of non - combatants (CH1)

‘Both looking as if they’d done rather well out of the war’

What is Sassoon suffering from after the war?

‘And the hallucinations? The corpses is Piccadilly?’

‘He ______ Sassoon __ __ ___’ - Rivers (CH1)

‘He wanted Sassoon to be ill’

Description of Craiglockhart (CH1)

‘Sheer gloomy, cavernous bulk of the place’

Description of Sassoon (CH2)

‘Pale skin, purple shadows under the eyes’

‘No obvious side of nervous disorder’

‘Perfectly steady’

Sassoon’s nihilism (CH2)

‘Looking for Germans to kill … or just giving them plenty of opportunities to kill me’

What was Sassoon’s nickname in the trenches?

‘Mad Jack’

What does Rivers state to be the first sign of war neurosis? (CH2)

‘Taking unnecessary risks is one of the first signs of war neurosis’

Sassoon’s criticism of the upper class/ orders (CH2)

‘The maddest thing I ever did was done under orders’

Sassoon illustrating the difference between normal life and war life (CH2)

‘No. Agony’s lying in a shell hole with your legs shot off.’

‘A powerful ____ ___ ________’ - Rivers (CH2)

‘A powerful anti war neurosis’

Initial description of Burns (CH2)

‘A thin, yellow skinned man’

What happened to Burns in the war? (CH2)

‘Thrown into the air … landed, head first on a German corpse whose gas - filled body had ruptured on impact’

‘his nose and mouth (were filled) with decomposing human flesh’

First example of friendship between Sassoon and Graves (CH2)

‘There was Sassoon, too impatient to wait indoors, running down the steps to meet him’

Example of people not believing in shell shock - Graves (CH3)

‘There was one youngish man who was sympathetic. The other two … well. I got the impression they didn’t believe in shell - shock at all.’

How did Sassoon get the Victory Cross? (CH3)

‘He took a German trench single - handed.

The futility of war (CH3)

‘It’ll go on until there isn’t a cat or a dog left to enlist’

Andersons’s dream (CH4)

‘I was naked’

‘chased by my father in law and two orderlies’

‘You want me to say my wife don’t you’

‘Locked up in a loony bin’

‘Freudian Johnnies’

The pressures upon Anderson (CH4)

‘I have a wife and child to support’

‘school fees’

The trauma of Anderson at war (CH4)

‘averaged ten amputations a day’

‘Blood.’

‘I missed it. I treated the minor wounds and missed the major one’

‘bleed to death’

How does Anderson believe he could treat himself? (CH4)

‘rest and the endless pursuit of golf balls’

Example of Graves PTSD (CH4)

‘I could do without the smell’ (Chlorine)

Sassoon’s scar (CH4)

‘On Sassoon’s shoulder’

‘The doctor kept telling me how beautiful it was’

Sassoon - Memory (CH4)

‘Sassoon shut the lid on the memory’

Graves’s injury (CH4)

‘Some of us don’t have the full complement of lungs’

Example of the rationing (CH4)

‘We do the best we can with the materials available, Sir’

River’s - father figure (CH4)

‘He (Rivers) was used to being adopted as a father figure’ - imagery used throughout

When did Sassoon join the war? (CH4)

‘On the first day’

Example of Burns’ trauma/ PTSD (CH4)

‘A branch rattled along the windows with a sound like machine gun fire’

Descriptive imagery of Burns’ journey (CH4)

‘slipping and stumbling’

‘lead weights pulling on the muscles of his thighs’

‘cold inside the stiff khaki’

What does Burns do with the animals? (CH4)

He sees a tree filled with them - ‘Bore them like fruit’

Released them from the tree and ‘arranged them in a circle round the tree’, got undressed and sat with them he was ‘white as a root’

Burns’ connection with nature (CH4)

‘This was the right place. This was where he wanted to be’ - he goes back in his mind to find solace.

Burns feels safety in Craiglockhart (CH4)

‘He realised he’d come back for this’

How does Prior’s trauma manifest? (CH5)

‘nightmares’

Physical description of Prior (CH5)

‘Thin, fair haired young man’

‘twenty two’

‘high cheekbones, short blunt nose, supercilious expression’

How does Prior first communicate (CH5)

Writing in block capitals

What term does Sassoon use to refer to Craiglockhart? (CH5)

‘Dottyville’

‘Live with a herd of lunatics’

Graves talking about breaking down (CH5)

‘as if everybody who breaks down is inferior. We’ve all been that close’

Example of Sassoon hating non - combatants (CH5)

‘Now that Roberts was gone, he hated everybody, giggling girls, portly middle aged men, women whose eyes settled on his wound stripes like flies’

Who is the only person that Sassoon pities? (CH5)

‘Only the young soldier home on leave, staggering out of a pub, dazed and vacant eyed, escaped his disgust’

The comfort of Craiglockhart juxtaposing the war (CH5)

‘No more walls, ruined buildings, shelled roads’

‘a place of desolation so complete no imagination could have invented it’

‘pure joy to go to bed in white sheets and know that he would wake’

Example of Rivers confliction (CH5)

‘conflict between his belief that the war should be fought to a finish … his horror that such events that led to Burns breakdown should be allowed to continue’

River’s treatment philosophy (CH5)

‘Breakdown was nothing to be ashamed of, that horror and fear were inevitable responses to the trauma of war’

Metaphor to describe Prior (CH6)

‘A little, spitting, short boned alley cat’

Prior’s Napoleon reference (CH6)

‘Not tonight, Wilhelm, I’ve got a headache’

What metaphor does Prior use to described Rivers (CH6)

‘a strip of empathetic wallpaper’

One of Prior’s traumatic experiences (CH6)

‘48 hours target practice’ ‘in the pitch darkness’ ‘fifty’

Example of Sassoon becoming close with Rivers (CH6)

They discuss a book ‘The intermediate sex’ in detail and confess their opinions on it.

When did Prior join the war? (CH6)

‘I believe he volunteered, didn’t he? The first week of the war’

Mr Prior on sympathy (CH6)

‘He’d get a damn sight more sympathy from me if he had a bullet up his arse’ - lack of belief in shell shock and focus on physical wounds

Mrs Prior’s pride (CH6)

‘I am because I know how hard it’s been’

Prior’s issue with work (CH6)

He worked at the same shipping yard as his father and was jealous as he was earning much more.

‘He’d never been able to accept that Billy was different’

River’s anger at non - combatants e.g. himself being called ‘Captain’ (CH6)

‘Captain Broadbent’

‘He’s no more a captain than I am’ … ‘You are a captain, Captain Rivers’

Broadbent’s lie (CH6)

‘My mother’s been taken ill’ - told to ask Major Bryce

‘I _______ stand the ______’ - Prior (CH6)

‘I couldn’t stand the smoke’ - asthma is worse

Prior’s opinions on his father (CH6)

‘He’s a bar room socialist’ ‘Beer and revolution go in, piss comes out’

‘I’ve seen him use my mother as a football’

Sassoon - irony of fear at Craiglockhart (CH7)

‘Craiglockhart frightened him more than the front had ever done’ - situational irony

Example of Prior wanting to build a relationship with Rivers (CH7)

‘I find myself wanting to impress you. Pathetic isn’t it.’

Prior and Rivers father figure (CH7)

‘most of them turn you into daddy’

‘I’m a bit too old to be sitting on daddy’s knee’

Prior - class in the trenches (CH7)

‘some people are more welcome than others’

‘rights school … shirts are the right colour’

‘What you wear. what you eat. Where you sleep. What you carry. The men are pack animals’

Prior’s criticism of the leaders at war (CH7)

‘somewhere at the back of their tiny tiny minds they really do believe the whole things going to end in one big glorious cavalry charge’

Description of the contradiction in Sassoon’s personality (CH7)

‘Happy warrior one minute. Bitter pacifist the next’

How long does the average officer last in france? (CH8)

‘Three months’

How did Prior say he felt at war? (CH8)

‘Sexy’

How is Wilfred Owen described? (CH8)

‘A short, dark haired man’

He has a very prominent stutter

He is a great fan of Sassoon and first appears to ask him to sign five of his books

‘Better ___ than a _______’ - Sassoon (CH8)

‘Better mad than a pacifist’

How do Owen and Sassoon bond? (CH8)

Through discussing their war poetry

How does Owen take poetry? (CH8)

He does not write about the war as he views poetry as a ‘refuge’ from the ‘ugliness’

What did Anderson do during golf? (CH8)

‘raised the club and threatened to hit him (Sassoon) with it’ - Anderson’s trauma comes out in anger and violence

Why do Sassoon and Anderson only talk about golf? (CH8)

‘because some return of intimacy would be required’ (if they discussed anything else)

How are the munitionettes described? (CH8)

‘one with blackened stumps for teeth’

‘slightly yellow tinge to their skin’

What is Sarah’s life like in the factory? (CH8)

‘Twelve hour shifts, six days a week but she liked the work’

‘Fifty bob a week’

‘I was earning ten bob before the war’

Asyndetic list of battles - Prior (CH8)

‘Mons, Loos, Ypres, the Somme. Arras.’

Significance of Sarah (CH8 AND ONWARDS)

She provides a sense of normalcy for Prior that means he is able to go back to non combatant life even though he is extremely conflicted.

What punishment did Prior get for staying out late? (CH9)

‘He’s confined me to the hospital for a fortnight’

Why didn’t Prior wear his hospital badge in Edinburgh? (CH9)

‘A badge on your chest saying I AM A LOONY’

What is the speech affliction that officers tend to get?

‘stammering’

Scene of the soldiers cutting the grass (CH9)

‘Great deal of laughter and clumsiness’

Dressed down to much more casual clothing

‘admiring their work’

‘lay on his back panting’

Received the ‘inevitable reprimand’ and there was ‘less laughter’