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english literature a2 war literature

Hey everyone! :smile:

I have to start thinking for a question for my english literature coursework about war literature, and I wanted to compare and contrast "Regeneration" by Pat Barker and "Atonement" by Ian McEwan, but I'm not sure which theme should I do for the question. Any ideas?? Thank you so much!

Reply 1

The Empire Odyssey

Have you red any? And I've read both of them and they are really quiet different if I'm honest. The only theme that you could present is the theme of regret and atonement. You could look at Sassoon's regret of not doing enough as a soldier and then Briony's regret for what she did with Robbie and Cecelia.

I would strongly recommend something like Birdsong and Regeneration. I think Atonement is such a hard heavy novel to compare Regeneration with. Simply because of the time periods within Atonement. What I would do is perhaps look at the physical or mental consequences of war on male characters perhaps? Now Birdsong and Regeneration would be amazing for this indeed.

I did WW1 Literature at AS so if you want any suggestions or help in picking texts and stuff, just PM me :smile:

Reply 2

minnieuk

I would agree that they're not an obvious pair for comparison. It depends which novel you're most keen to use - if you really want to look at Barker alongside Atonement you could use Another World instead - it is stronger on issues of guilt/regret/atonement than Regeneration although it's still about WWI. You could also look at Regeneration alongside Mrs Dalloway which also addresses the psychological trauma of WW1 - or as the previous poster suggested with Birdsong. It is easier to do a compare and contrast essay using representations of the same war in my opinion although that doesn't mean you should if you don't want to.

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