Examine and compare the ways in which Pat Barker in Regeneration and Es

Examine and compare the ways in which Pat Barker in Regeneration and Wilfred Owen in his poetry explore the nature of life in the trenches. Pat Barker and Wilfred Owen are both successful writers in delivering an insight into trench life from the perspective of a soldier, although in different ways. Owen, being a soldier himself, has had first hand experience of trench life and describes the pity of war, in that war is a waste of young, innocent lives, and the bitterness of the soldiers towards the people who do not have to fight. Whereas Barker recreates trench life through the nightmares, hallucinations and memories of the soldiers. Despite the fact that Barker is a modern woman writer she still manages to write a realistic view of the effects of war on soldiers. We forget that she would have had to do extensive research to get her information so detailed, especially as she combines real characters such as Graves and Sassoon, with her fictional creations. There are several themes explored in the work of both writers, the force of nature and the dangers in the trenches, explored in "Exposure." The hatred and bitterness towards shirkers explored in "The Dead Beat." The torment and terrible conditions that the soldiers had to put up with, in "Dulce Et Decorum Est," and how the soldiers began to think that it would be easier to end their lives in war than to live through another day of horror, explored in "Aterre." The title "Exposure" says enough about the dangers in the trenches, the risk of death and exposure to the enemy and exposure the natural elements. Owen describes the intensity of the "merciless iced east winds" that cut through the soldiers like a knife. Creating a vicious imagery of trench c... ...his poem "Wild with All Regrets" Owen describes how "here in this coffin of a bed," his regret is that after so much time being trapped in the trenches with so much time to just sit and think, it is only now that he appreciates life and how important it is. The comparison with "Regeneration" is that Prior, Sassoon and the others are still trapped and still have hours to think of what it is they have and are missing by being locked up in Craiglockhart. The work of both Barker and Owen captures the realism of what these soldiers actually went through, without actually trying to sugarcoat it for the audience back at home. We are able to understand a little better why the soldiers got so close in war and why they hated the civilians so much. I can say that after reading "Regeneration" and Wilfred Owens work I will never think about war in the same way again.