7/27/2019 Coursework Essay Pizzey Tap Regeneration Rivers

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  Psychologists during wartime acted as confidantes for their patients, aiding with other aspects of

their lives as well as performing their medical roles. This is explicit during Regeneration (the patients

confess otherwise suppressed emotions to Rivers, such as Sassoon admitting he struggles with his

protest when terrible things are happening to ‘people you know and love’). It is also reflected in TAP

through May’s immediate trust in Rivers – her outburst stating that ‘*Tom’s+ thrown his future away’

makes clear her feelings for Tom and her worry at his departure, whereas in scenes with her friends

and colleagues, she appears almost ambivalent in other scenes (for example saying to Eva ‘Tom’s

chosen to go’). Psychologists are employed to deal with the more private aspects of people’s lives;

Rivers, in both texts, takes this role.

What TAP fails to consider is the effect that such intimate understanding of people will have on the

psychologist. Whelan’s Rivers is completely static and appears unchanged from the first time he is

introduced to his final line ‘Move yourselves you glorious dead!’ Over nine million soldiers died in

the Great War; the fact that Rivers appears unmoved by this gives backbone to the interpretation

that he is not a human character so much as a vehicle showing propaganda. Unrelenting propaganda

campaigns perforated the home front throughout the war, such as the infamous Kitchener poster

stating ‘Your Country Needs You’. Reminiscent of these campaigns are Rivers’ depictions of the

soldiers as ‘happy warriors’, praising the ‘valour of life’. Perhaps Rivers in TAP is nothing more

profound than a host, exhibiting the statements of empty rhetoric that so many relied on as a pale

source of hope through a hopeless time. In contrast, Barker’s Rivers in Regeneration is clearly

affected by the events of the war. He is ‘filled with the most enormous compassion’ for the ‘poor

little blighter*s+’ who are his patients. Also, his time working at Craiglockhart, interacting with men

whose experiences were so dire (and realistic although sometimes fictional), changed his

perspective from that of an obedient doctor to an establishment-questioning man with a ‘fully

fledged’ and ‘articulate’ hatred for the war. War affected everyone – directly impacting the soldiersat the front, then oozing back to the home front as vivid stories that most people could not fully

comprehend. Propaganda could only go so far. The soldiers needed human help. For this reason,

Barker’s Rivers has a much stronger impact on the reading audience as the character is relatable,

compassionate and intensely human; a much stronger literary tool than the blind propaganda

machine that is Rivers in TAP.

It is worth considering however the different circumstances surrounding the characters. TAP’s

Rivers deals mostly with May, ineligible for fighting because of her strong anti-war morality and (the

more valid excuse) her gender. She remains at home, working, having not experienced the horrors of

battle herself. Even the brief moments featuring Rivers at the battle front are just that – at the battlefront – as opposed to the aftermath conveyed in Regeneration. Perhaps it is more effective in this

context to have a character as loose and open to interpretation as CSM Rivers to provide some food

for thought in an otherwise vapid and insultingly shallow play.

‘getting a few simple facts out of him was like extracting wisdom teeth’ – narrative on Prior

‘Watching him, Rivers was filled with the most enormous compassion for his dilemma. Poor little

blighter, he thought. Poor all of them.’ – narrative on Prior, p206