Emaculation a Mans Fear

            In Pat Barker's Regeneration, emasculation is a major threat to the war officers at the Craiglockhart Hospital. The patients are struck by the loss in their manliness due to the shocks of war. Anderson dreams he is tied up with corsets; Sassoon remembers a young boy's genitals shot off in the war; Prior remembers his weakness against his father and the influence of his mother; and Rivers even counsels Sassoon on his homosexuality. All of these patients fear emasculation which seems to be a real threat in the war and a real threat in the war hospital. As a result, these patients turn over all power to the nurses and doctors that take care of them, most notably Dr. Rivers who later becomes a father figure to most of them. While the goal of mental treatment in the hospital is to prepare these patients for war service once again, the therapy these patients undergo causes them to be emasculated twice. .
             Siegfried Sassoon was one of Rivers most important patients in the hospital. His declaration which clearly states his decision to stop fighting in the war was seen as an act of madness and insanity. Sassoon believes that the purpose of the war has changed the war of liberation and defense has now become a war of aggression. He discusses the sufferance of the army, the betrayal of the government and the "callous complacence" of those at home. As a result of such statement, Sassoon was said to be a crazy fellow and therefore sent to be cured at the mental hospital. It could be said that this act is a sign of emasculation as he wrote this declaration in order to escape the horror and brutality of warfare, as he was no longer able to face it. He acts like a coward who wants to escape the fighting. During his encounter with Rivers, Sassoon recounts his hallucinations of corpses and about things he had to do in the war. He told him," It was just that when I woke up, the nightmares didn't always stop.