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

Extraits de l'exposé

[...] 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. [...]

[...] PART 2 : The importance of the letter within the novel: We shall now speak of the importance of the letter within the novel. In order to understand this letter it is important to make an analysis of Sasoon's character and what his similarities with the real Sigfried Sasoon are. Judging by his letter, we get the impression that Sasoon is a man of strong character. He is independant, in his thoughts as much as in his actions and this is underlined in the text by the use of the singular pronoun at the beginning most of his sentences, when he says: am a soldier" am making this statement as an act of willful defiance", have seen and educed the suffering of the troops" etc Sasoon's character in the book is not very different from the real Sasoon and Pat Barker's novel although it is a fictional one, is based on real historical figures and she has tried to stay faithful to the real characters. [...]

[...] It is also interesting to analyze the weight that Sasoon's letter gives to the novel in general. Barker's choice to include an historical document in her novel is obviously not a coincidence. "Regenerations" although it is a writing of fiction, does have historical support, through the use of non- fictional characters. Therefore the fact that she chooses Sasoon's letter and Sasoon himself as a character for her novel may be considered as a way of giving her text more historical credibility. [...]