Characters Flashcards
Rivers
Rivers is the protagonist of the novel. Rivers is a psychiatrist from Cambridge, though he serves at the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland, treating officers who are suffering from war neurosis. Although Rivers has spent most of his life as staunch conservative and in support of war, especially World War I, his views are challenged by the arrival of conscientious objector and decorated officer Siegfried Sassoon, who is sent to Rivers so that Rivers can either declare him insane and discredit him, or convince him to return to combat. Although Rivers develops a fatherly—or even motherly, as his method of therapy is very nurturing and admittedly un-masculine—relationship with many of his patients, he becomes particularly fond of Sassoon and finds himself conflicted about trying to conquer Sassoon’s anti-war complex. Rivers’s sympathy for Sassoon and his anti-war ideals increases throughout the novel, coming to a head when Rivers watches another of his patients, David Burns, have yet another severe mental breakdown as a result of his war trauma. Observing Burns’s terror and reflecting on how the war has shattered any hope Burns had of a normal life, Rivers decides that nothing, not war or honor or duty, could possibly justify that level of suffering, especially on a man only in his early-twenties. Along with his budding pacifism, Rivers also disagrees with society’s view of masculinity and manhood. While he does not desire to make his patients emasculated or effeminate, he sincerely believes that helping them to feel such (stereotypically feminine) emotions as fear and tenderness not only helps them recover from traumatic stress, but also makes them more psychologically durable soldiers. Rivers thus embodies stereotypically feminine qualities—nurturing, tenderness, patience—in a character who is no less a man for it, arguing thus that society should redefine its idea of manhood and base it less on narrow stereotypically masculine character traits.
Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon is technically in the antagonist’s role, though he is still very much a hero of the story and Rivers’s friend. Sassoon is a decorated Second Lieutenant in the British army who is notably brave and revered by his troops. However, Sassoon’s witness of horror and needless atrocities in war lead him to write an anti-war protest declaration, which results in his getting sent to Craiglockhart to be determined if he is insane, though he was hoping to be court-martialed instead and become an anti-war martyr. At Craiglockhart, Sassoon forms a close friendship with Rivers and comes to view him as the father figure he never had as a child, even though Rivers’s stated goal is to convince Sassoon to abandon his protest and return to war. Sassoon plays cricket and hunts, and is a published poet and art lover. Sassoon is also a homosexual, which he admits only to Rivers and his friend Robert Graves, and struggles with society’s embrace of male relationships in the form of camaraderie but outright rejection of male relationships in the form of sexuality, which he sees as not altogether different from each other. Rivers shares this consternation, and their conversations around the issue suggest society’s irony and hypocrisy in its attitudes towards male relationships. Although initially Sassoon never intended to return to combat, Rivers observes that he has something of a death wish and hates the thought of his friends fighting and dying while he sits safely in the hospital. When Sassoon begins hallucinating about men who died in war, watching him at the hospital, the guilt becomes too much, and he ultimately agrees to return to combat, even though he never withdraws his declaration that the war should be over.
Prior
Prior is a Second Lieutenant in the British army and one of Rivers’s patients at Craiglockhart. Prior arrives at the hospital with mutism and memory loss, unable to speak as a result of a traumatic incident that he cannot remember. Although Rivers attempts to treat Prior as he would any patient, Prior is resistant, intentionally antagonistic (even when his speech returns) and unwilling to cooperate, frustrating Rivers. Prior resents the doctor-patient relationship and senses that Rivers is hypocritical, coaching his patients to stop repressing their emotions while Rivers himself is obviously repressing something. Over time, however, Prior slowly becomes more honest with Rivers and even recovers his lost trauma memory while under hypnosis. When Prior wakes from hypnosis he is obviously distraught and in need of physical affection to ground him. However, since society generally discourages love or shows of affection between men, the closest he can come to asking for affection is holding onto Rivers while head-butting him in the chest, suggesting that such supposedly feminine affection is only permissible if mixed with masculine violence. Midway through his tenure at Craiglockhart, Prior starts dating Sarah, who becomes a safe haven and point of contact in the civilian world which he otherwise feels alienated from. When Prior is discharged from combat service because of his asthma, he goes first to Sarah and tells her he loves her, suggesting that he will enter into this new phase of his life by her side. Prior also finally expresses his admiration and respect for Rivers in their last meeting, and hopes they will keep in contact after the war.
Burns
David Burns is an officer in the British army and Rivers’s most traumatized patient in Craiglockhart. After a shell explosion throw Burns through the air and he lands headfirst in a rotting corpse whose flesh fills his nose and mouth, Burns is so traumatized that he cannot eat anything without immediately choking and vomiting it up. As a result, on top of his night terrors, Burns grows dangerously thin. Although Rivers has seen plenty of trauma and misery before, Burns’s experience is so horrific that Rivers cannot bring himself to push Burns to reflect and re-experience it as he would with most patients. Rivers is particularly pained because Burns was obviously once a very cheerful and likable young man, but the war has utterly destroyed his psyche and chance at an ordinary life. Burns is discharged from service and returns to military service midway through the story, returning to live in a small seaside village where his family spent their summers. However, Burns’s pain continues even into civilian life. Several citizens who do not understand war neurosis label him a coward, and his hallucinations and night terrors continue. When Rivers, visiting Burns at his home, sees his patient have another mental breakdown during a storm, Rivers feels that nothing in war or the world could justify inflicting such pain on a young man like Burns. Although Rivers eventually decides that Burns might someday at least have a functional life, he will never be normal again, and thus embodies the horrific cost of war.
Owen
Owen is a soldier and patient at Craiglockhart. Owen admires Sassoon’s published poetry as well as his anti-war declaration, and initially approaches Sassoon to have him sign several of his books. However, though Sassoon initially intimidates them, the two men become close friends, bonding over their love of poetry and sharing their writings with each other. Over the course of their relationship, Owen grows in confidence and stature, and their closeness models the value of a loving relationship between men. The narrative heavily implies that Owen develops romantic feelings for Sassoon, and in any case Sassoon means a great deal to him, but fears of being thought strange or labeled a homosexual prevents Owen from ever giving voice to them. On their last evening together, Owen is afraid to speak seriously and the dear friends part with an underwhelming pat on the shoulder, illustrating the sad cost of society’s aversion to homosexuality and men’s fear of contradicting what society expects of them by showing even genuine affection to each other.
Graves
Graves is a Captain in the British army, and Sassoon’s commanding officer and dear friend. Although Graves shares Sassoon’s anti-war ideology, he cares more about keeping his head down and protecting Sassoon, though Sassoon sees this as cowardice. In hopes of protecting his friend, Graves initially tells Rivers much more about Sassoon than Sassoon would wish, indicating that he is even willing to betray his friend’s trust to achieve his aims. Graves and Sassoon’s relationship falters when one of Graves’s close friends is arrested for being a homosexual. Although Graves implies that he’s had homosexual inclinations in the past, his fear of being persecuted as well causes him to deny any of those prior feelings and tell Sassoon that he hopes Sassoon never had the wrong idea about him, or assumed he felt such “abominable” desires. To hammer this point home, Graves begins writing to a young woman, seemingly to prove his heterosexuality to himself and the world. Graves’s betrayal in this way deeply wounds Sassoon’s trust and pride, and models once again the cost of society’s aversion to homosexuality and distrust of male relationships outside of combat.
Sarah
Sarah is Billy Prior’s girlfriend, whom he meets in a café in Edinburgh. Although Sarah is not native to the city, she moves there during the war to work in a munitions factory, which pays her five times what she’s made anywhere else and allows her to live independently. Sarah embodies the confidence and new sense of agency women find in World War I, and although her mother wants her to move back home, get married, and stay in her place, Sarah rejects that future for herself, seeing it as far too narrow. Sarah also helps Prior to feel grounded and connected to the civilian world, especially since his traumatic experiences in war leave him feeling alienated and separate. By accepting him as he is and not holding any expectations that Prior will act in a necessarily masculine fashion, Sarah becomes a “safe haven” for Prior where he will hopefully someday be able to share and explore his grief.
