Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Regeneration, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Masculinity, Expectations, and Psychological Health
War, Duty, and Loyalty
Male Relationships
Trauma and Mental Illness
Alienation vs. Belonging
Summary
Analysis
When Rivers arrives back at Craiglockhart, he finds several patients including Sassoon playing soccer in a ward hallway with a visitor’s balled up hat, taken from a peg on the wall. A brief word from Rivers “subdue[s]” Sassoon and he returns the hat to its peg on the wall. Rivers mentions Head’s job offer to Bryce, and Bryce strongly encourages him to take it, though Rivers is still unsure. He’s come to realize that he feels his work here is what he is meant to do.
Sassoon’s instant shame at Rivers’s minor disapproval again suggests that a paternal relationship has formed between them. If Rivers and Sassoon had a friendship as equals, as with Owen, Sassoon would not feel instantly ashamed and “subdued” at acting childish and irresponsible.
Themes
Later, Sassoon tells Rivers about his new hallucination of the man in his room and the tapping he hears at night. Since then, he has seen other people as well, but the circumstances were the same. Both Sassoon and Rivers agree that the hallucinations are a manifestation of guilt for being safe while others are fighting, and Sassoon resolves to go back to the front.
It is worth noting that Sassoon’s decision to return to combat does not suggest that he approves of the war, only that his guilt at being safe while others are endangered is overwhelming his hope to protest, be court-martialed, and make a martyr of himself.
Themes
