SEEING INTO THE GREAT WAR PATRIARCHAL DISCOURSE AND PRACTICES THROUGH THE MALE GAZE: PAT BARKER'S REGENERATION TRILOGY (original) (raw)

The English literary canon of the Great War has been traditionally shaped by the poetry of the poets who fought the war on the basis of their having seen and experienced its full horror, which attested truthful representation. This premise excluded women writers, whose participation in and experience of the war was obviously very different. Feminist research on the literary contribution of female writers to the representation of the conflict based on the plurality of experiences of many women that challenge that assumption have effectively worked to redress the balance. In this context, the war novels of contemporary female writers with male protagonists are negatively judged for miming the male gaze. In this article I would like to show that far from it Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy, whose third volume was awarded with the Booker Prize, uses the male gaze precisely to unveil and expose the war entrenched patriarchal discourse and practices. Key words: canon, WWI, male gaze, patriarchal discourse and practices, gender.