Characterisation

Question 1

What does Billy Prior suffer from?

Answer 1

• asthma
• elective mutism: a refusal to speak in almost all social situations (despite normal ability to do so) which is often attributed to defiance or the effect of trauma

Question 2

What function does Billy Prior play in the text?

Answer 2

• as one of the novels few fictional characters, Barker stated that she purposefully constructed him to “challenge Rivers in ways that his other patients, who revered him to the point of idolatry, were incapable of doing”
• acts as Callan’s binary opposite to drive Rivers’s moral conflict regarding his duty to ‘fix’ patients further
• drives the theme of social class and adds a working-class perspective on the war
• represents the ‘temporary gentleman’ of WW1 (working-class officers, who had risen to this level which was usually reserved for the upper-classes)

Question 3

What are Prior’s key characteristics?

Answer 3

• working-class background with a difficult home life
• conflicted and complicated - fundamentally at war with himself and nuanced in his thoughts and reactions
• self-absorbed; he cares first and foremost about his recovery and experiences and is intent on proving his masculinity
• envious of those who are able to escape the experience of war, hatred of civilians unaffected by the horrors of war
• ultimately endeavours to lead a normal existence, taking solace in the fact that his relationship with Sarah offers him an escape from the war - longing for peace

Question 4

Explain Prior’s belief system

Answer 4

• believes he has a duty to serve, but his ambitions prevent this duty as a reason for him to return to the war
• he wants to prove he is a masculine figure that will not break under pressure
• opposing this desire is a very real fear that he will be killed in the war, which he is hesitant to admit
• he cries when he is told that he will not be able to return to the Front as he feels unable to confirm his masculine identity through military service

Question 5

What themes does Prior drive?

Answer 5

• speech and silence - elective mutism
• masculinity/emasculation - his parents; the ideologies they drive in him; his relationship with Sarah and perception of women’s war work
• social class - working-class background; his opinion of his front-line experiences; Rivers’s treatment of him in opposition to Sassoon
• war and madness - his satirical remarks about the front line

Question 6

Describe Prior’s home life

Answer 6

• oppressive, traditionally ‘masculine’ father and overprotective mother
• the emotional conflict their visit causes Prior much stress, evident when he suffers an asthmatic attack afterward