Compare and contrast Barker and Sheriff’s presentation of the psychological effects of war within Regeneration and Journey’s End.

The psychological effects of war are amplified using alternative methods for escapism within Journey's End and Regeneration. Barker and Sherriff both take alternate routes to present how some men dealt with the extreme trauma and stress they encountered. Stanhope in Journey’s End turns to alcohol whereas Owen in Regeneration turns to literature; Osborne makes a point to Raleigh in that ‘you mustn’t expect to find him – quite the same.’ This change in Stanhope is a consequence of how he’s been ‘through all sorts of rotten times,’ with the company since the war started. The hesitant dialogue of Osborne here, with his clear cautious wording, and his pauses, reiterates how Stanhope’s alcoholism is far worse than Raleigh could imagine. Stanhope takes refuge in whiskey, as he can’t ‘bear being fully conscious all the time.’ Alternatively, Barker demonstrates how Wilfred Owen created an outlet of poetry about the war, during his stay at Craiglockhart Hospital, and his interaction with Sassoon. Owen thought that poetry was ‘the opposite of all that. The ugliness.’ For Owen, his poetry was something to take refuge in, and a psychological escape from the brutality of the war. However, Sassoon quickly altered his perceptions of poetry, and he encouraged Owen to portray his experiences of battle onto paper. Evidently, he created polemic pieces such as ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth,’ [1]that the pair worked on within the novel, the first lines being ‘What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? / Only the monstrous anger of the guns.’ His resignation and clear influence from Sassoon, whom he developed a close relationship with in life, is evident through his clear sarcastic tone and the use of a rhetorical question that emphasises the attitudes of the governments towards their expendable men. Moreover, the use of Owen’s poetry within the novel allows Barker’s ‘faction’ novel to resonate as entirely real, regardless of whether some aspects of the novel were fiction, the psychological effects were the same.[1] Warpoetry.co.uk. (2017). Anthem for Doomed Youth - popular First World War poem