An Appreciation of Factual and Fictional Characters in the Context of Historiographic Metafiction and Intertextuality as Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy
Journal Title: International Journal of Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Studies (IJIMS) - Year 2014, Vol 2, Issue 1
Abstract
Pat Barker's specialization to experiment with a keenly chosen factual and fictional details in a seemingly simplistic and straight narrative, actually has an abyss of varied levels of characterization of the events and layers of storyline that tends to further the plot and themes of the novel by conveying diverse experiences of her real and non real imaginatively created characters in the backdrop of a harrowing story of world war atrocities and complexities. Well all this done so amazingly in an uncluttered prose and poetic verses through her amply demonstrated award winning intertextuality style,so well innovated in the novel Regeneration. This quietly powerful story begins in the backdrop of World war scenario in 1917, wherein all the main characters are perhaps purposely showcased as leading double lives, some consciously, others as a result of traumatic experiences, social taboos and state and citizens conflicts. This research paper attempts to investigate and probe the functionality of intertextual writing in Pat Barker‟s Regeneration, the first novel in a trilogy, and takes references from its other two sequel parts namely The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road . First published in 1991, Regeneration , based on actual events during World War is an epitome of how an author should combine real elements of history and literature and what a historical novel can achieve with authentic usage of pre and post war literature, poetic verses and events across the varied themes in the entire plot as if its greatly influenced by Hutcheon‟s term historiographic metafiction. A term that has been widely debated as Pat Barker herself quotes in her author‟s note: “Fact and fiction are so interwoven in this book that it may help the reader to know what is historical and what is not.”[1], and Hutcheon stating that one of the features of contemporary historiographic metafiction being “the double awareness of both fictiveness and a basis in the „real‟”[2], it is worth examining whether Regeneration fits into the category of historiographic metafiction or its just expression of intertextuality engaged by the author to drive advantage of authenticity from the literary works of say Owen, Sassoon , Dr Rivers in the real context of events as unfolded in the war theatre. To address the foretasted queries, let us briefly ponder over those portions of Barker‟s novel that are historical and scrutinize the ones that are primarily fictional in the light of postmodernist historiographic writing by Hutcheon and other critics so as to highlight the commonalities and differences in the purpose and application of facts and fictional characterization approaches to Regeneration and henceforth the impertinent purpose and literary plan behind such a classification to whether term this work as historiographic or metafictional or rather an amalgam of both ? The novel accounts for the actual period of world war time between July 1917 up to November 1917 and its plot is purposely set up in the corridor of factual British hospital, built in that era exclusively for the Shell shocked mentally ill British officers at Craiglockhart. The novel‟s opening is wittingly folded with the conversational narratives between the army psychologist Dr. Rivers and anti-war activist and poet Siegfried Sassoon, both the characters chosen as real historical yet dramatic enough. For instance their stay in Craiglockhart at the above referred time is verifiable through the publicly accessible diaries and letters of Siegfried Sassoon, as well as through the published notes of W.H.R. Rivers.
Authors and Affiliations
Chetna Mahajan
Keywords
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