AQA A-Level English Literature A Paper 2: Texts in shared contexts (2A), June 2025: Question 14

25 marks · Hard difficulty · Extended Response

Examine the view that in Pat Barker's 'Regeneration', trauma is never cured or overcome.

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Question 14 from an English Literature paper. The question prompt states: 'In Regeneration, trauma is never cured or overcome.' Followed by the instruction: 'Examine this view.' The question carries 25 marks.
Question text

or

14 ‘In Regeneration, trauma is never cured or overcome.’

Examine this view.

[25 marks]

Mark scheme

Show the mark scheme Mark scheme for Question 14 on Pat Barker's 'Regeneration'. Outlines possible content across AO5, AO4, AO3, AO2, and AO1, including points on the presentation of post-traumatic stress, distortion of perception, the impact of the talking cure on Rivers, historical treatments of shell shock, narrative form, and structured evaluation.

Question 14

Regeneration – Pat Barker

‘In Regeneration, trauma is never cured or overcome.’

Examine this view.

[25 marks]

Possible content:

Please refer to pages 4 to 7.

AO5 Explore literary texts informed by different interpretations

Students might consider:

• the ways in which trauma distorts perceptions of time and place within the novel; for Burns and

Prior the countryside and the coast become extensions of the battlefield

• the presentation of post-traumatic stress within the novel; for example, Sassoon’s dreams about

Orme

• the ways in which suppressed wartime experiences are revealed through the treatment of trauma;

for example, the significance of Prior’s recovered memory of the ‘eyeball’ and the moment of

insight that this represents

• the impact of treating trauma through ‘the talking cure’ on Rivers who bears witness to the war

experiences of his patients

• Barker’s focus on traumatised soldiers allows her to ‘recover’ the war for the reader through

considering wider topics such as gender, class and psychoanalysis

• etc.

AO4 Explore connections across literary texts

Focus might be on:

• the presentation of war trauma

• ideas about the nature of social and psychological change during war

• the home front settings

• etc.

AO3 Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which

literary texts are written and received

Focus might be on:

• the development of treatments towards ‘shell shock’ in the war

• the historical sources relating to Sassoon’s protest and Rivers’ practice at Craiglockhart

• the changing nature of medical practice

• changing attitudes towards masculinity in war

• the experience of war on the home front

• etc.

AO2 Analyse ways in which meanings are shaped in literary texts

Focus might be on:

• aspects of narrative form and genre

• the use of dialogue as a way of presenting relationships

• the varied use of narrative perspective as a way of signifying the continuing trauma of war; for

example, the perspectives of Burns and Prior

• descriptions of setting as a way of representing trauma; for example, the descriptive passages of

Aldeburgh in chapter 15

• etc.

AO1 Articulate informed, personal and creative responses to literary texts, using associated

concepts and terminology, and coherent, accurate written expression

• quality of argument

• organisation of ideas

• use of appropriate concepts and terminology

• technical accuracy.

Accept any valid interpretations, any valid comments on contexts and any valid discussion of

authorial methods.

How to answer it

Pat Barker: Regeneration – Trauma and Recovery

Exam Paper: AQA A-Level English Literature A · Option 14 · 25 Marks

What This Question Tests

This question evaluates your ability to construct a balanced, thesis-driven critical evaluation of psychological trauma in Pat Barker's Regeneration. Top marks demand an integrated response across all five Assessment Objectives:

  • AO1 (Argument & Expression): Coherent, critical debate interrogating the absolute term "never" with sophisticated literary register.
  • AO2 (Authorial Craft): Close analysis of narrative perspective, somatic symbolism, motifs (e.g. trench flashbacks, mutism), and setting (Craiglockhart vs. Aldeburgh/the Front).
  • AO3 (Contextual Significance): Historical contexts of WW1 psychological casualties ("shell shock"), Freudian psychoanalysis, W.H.R. Rivers' humane talking cure vs. Lewis Yealland's electrotherapy, and Edwardian codes of stoic masculinity.
  • AO4 (Literary & Generic Connections): Conventions of modern historical fiction, the literature of war, and trauma narratives.
  • AO5 (Alternative Interpretations): Weighing whether medical "cures" simply re-condition men for slaughter versus instances of genuine psychological breakthrough and emotional reintegration.

Question 14: Prompt Analysis

‘In Regeneration, trauma is never cured or overcome.’ Examine this view.

🧠 Exam Technique: Interrogating the Prompt

The prompt presents an extreme proposition through the absolute adverb "never". To reach Band 5 (21–25 marks), you must not simply agree or disagree:

  • Unpack the definitions: What constitutes a "cure"? Is it the removal of physical symptoms (e.g., Prior regaining his voice), or total psychic restoration?
  • Recognise the paradox: Craiglockhart's institutional purpose is to "cure" soldiers only to return them to the very environment that traumatised them. Thus, a clinical "cure" equates to renewed endangerment.
  • Distinguish characters: Structure your discussion comparatively (e.g., Burns’ irreparable disintegration vs. Prior’s pragmatic resilience vs. Rivers’ own secondary, vicarious trauma).

❌ Common Student Pitfalls

  • Pure character biography: Retelling Prior's or Sassoon's storyline without analyzing Barker's structural and linguistic methods (AO2).
  • Blanket agreement: Concluding flatly that everyone stays broken, ignoring moments of profound therapeutic connection and artistic catharsis (e.g. Sassoon and Owen's poetry).
  • "Bolted-on" history: Writing standalone paragraphs about shell shock or electro-convulsive therapy without linking them to textual quotes or Barker's thematic critique of patriarchal war culture (AO3).

Essay Architecture: Balanced Critical Perspectives (AO5 & AO1)

✅ Proposition: Trauma is Indelible & Unresolved

Trauma permanently warps perception, psyche, and society:

  • David Burns: Remains irredeemably shattered. His trauma transforms natural settings into nightmares (the decaying animals at the Suffolk coast). Even when discharged, he cannot eat normally or rejoin civilian life.
  • Secondary/Vicarious Trauma: Rivers himself absorbs his patients' suffering, developing a psychosomatic stammer and physical tremors, showing trauma is contagious rather than curable.
  • The "Dead-End" Treatment: The horrific juxtaposition with Dr Lewis Yealland (Chapter 21) exposes that mainstream military medicine does not cure trauma; it silences protest and forces behavioural compliance through torture.

📐 Counter-Perspective: Pragmatic Recovery & Insight

Trauma can be processed, understood, and integrated:

  • Billy Prior's Breakthrough: Under hypnosis, Prior recovers the repressed memory of shovelling the remains of his men (the "eyeball" incident). Barker shows this recognition releases his hysterical mutism and allows genuine self-insight.
  • Relational & Creative Healing: Sassoon mentors Wilfred Owen at Craiglockhart; poetry transforms horrific battlefield memory into enduring art, achieving a form of emotional exorcism.
  • Prior and Sarah Lumb: Intimacy and sensual connection with Sarah ground Prior in the vitality of life outside military hierarchy, challenging the totality of wartime neurosis.
Band 5 Synthesis Insight: The finest essays argue that Barker presents "cure" as a profound moral irony: Rivers' therapeutic success is ethically compromised because "restoring" these men makes them complicit once again in industrialised slaughter.

Authorial Methods & Key Textual Evidence (AO2 & AO3)

💡 Key Episodes to Analyse Closely

1. Billy Prior’s Repressed Memory & Mutism (Chapters 6 & 9)

"Prior’s eyes were sparkling... 'I’d had an eyeful.'"
  • Barker’s Method: Barker employs somatic metaphors and Freudian parapraxis. Prior’s hysterical mutism is an unconscious refusal to speak about what cannot be ethically articulated.
  • Contextual Link: W.H.R. Rivers’ application of Freud’s "talking cure" enables Prior to verbalise the horrifying sensory memory of scraping human brain and eyeballs into a sandbag.

2. David Burns and the Tower of Skulls (Chapter 15 – Aldeburgh)

"The storm broke... he reached up and touched the rotting flesh."
  • Barker’s Method: Gothic conventions and symbolic landscape. In the coastal setting of Aldeburgh, Burns strips naked and surrounds himself with dead animals inside a storm-battered tower, illustrating how the battlefield perpetually colonises his civilian reality.
  • Critical Impact: Demonstrates that for severely concussed and psychologically wounded soldiers, nature provides no pastoral solace; trauma has permanently overwritten their cognitive landscape.

3. Rivers' Moral Crisis and Somatosensory Burden (Chapters 18 & 22)

"A horse's bit... He was silencing people who didn’t want to go back."
  • Barker’s Method: Free indirect discourse and dream motifs. Rivers dreams of forcing an electrode/bit into a patient's mouth, realizing his fundamental kinship with the sadistic Yealland.
  • Contextual Link: Barker explores the Edwardian conflict between paternal care and military duty. The physician acts as an agent of state violence, dismantling the patient's psychological defense mechanisms solely to render them fit for sacrifice.

Examiner Advice: How to Structure a 25/25 Answer

🧠 Step-by-Step Paragraph Plan

  1. Introduction: Define "cured" vs. "managed". State thesis: Barker depicts trauma as an indelible alteration of consciousness, where medical "recovery" is an institutional fiction designed to fuel the war effort.
  2. Section 1 (The Unreachable): Burns as the personification of incurable trauma; analyze Barker's use of visceral, abject imagery and spatial dislocation.
  3. Section 2 (The Partial Breakthrough): Prior's psychoanalytic recovery of speech and memory; analyze dialogue and narrative tension, balancing this with his cynical self-awareness.
  4. Section 3 (Art & Connection): Sassoon, Owen, and Sarah Lumb; evaluate creative and erotic connections as antidotes to numbness.
  5. Section 4 (The Institutional Paradox): Rivers' transformation, comparing his humane regime with Yealland's brutal torture; reveal the ethical impossibility of a true "cure" within wartime parameters.
  6. Conclusion: Return firmly to the prompt. Barker does not present trauma as completely insurmountable on a human level, but asserts that war inflicts moral and psychic fractures that society can never wholly erase.

✅ Key Terminology Checklist

  • Neurasthenia / Shell shock – Historical diagnostic terms for combat stress reaction.
  • Somatic conversion – Physical manifestation of psychological conflict (e.g. Prior's mutism).
  • Paternalism – Rivers' tender, father-like medical authority over his young officer patients.
  • Abreaction / Catharsis – The reliving of traumatic experience to purge its repressed emotional charge.
  • Moral injury – Deep psychological damage caused by participating in or witnessing acts that violate personal ethics.

Topics

WW1 and its aftermath · Regeneration

Question and mark scheme from the AQA A-Level English Literature A examination, Paper 2: Texts in shared contexts (2A), June 2025. QuestionVault is an independent revision resource; questions remain the copyright of the awarding body.