Masculinities in Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy: Men's silences and violences

This thesis aims to analyse the critique of masculinity and the war employed in the contemporary British novelist Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy within the frame of Critical Studies on Men and Masculinities and, in particular, through the lens of Raewyn Connell's concept of "hegemonic masculinity". Critical Studies on Men and Masculinities investigate the questions of what masculinity is and how it is socially construed in diverse forms by drawing attention to men's unequal access to power. Particularly, Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity helps to understand how a specific type of masculinity becomes culturally dominant and men feel the pressure to conform to its ideals. Written about the First World War and its impact on men's experiences of masculinity, Barker's Trilogy revolves around the images of shell-shocked, hysteric, paralyzed, mute, stammering men In this respect, each novel of the Trilogy provide a critical perspective to interrogate the construction of masculinities by looking at it from the aspect of those men who fail to live up to hegemonic ideals of masculinity, and who also have become victimized and exploited on account of the social pressures put on them in their attempts to conform to hegemonic ideals of masculinity. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore Barker's representation of men's attempts to negotiate with the forms of hegemonic masculinity in wartime Britain to expose how patriarchal power and gender order also damages men while it promises them to make the most benefit of it in Barker's selected texts with a specific emphasis on men's experience of silences and violences. Key Words: Pat Barker, Regeneration Trilogy, Hegemonic Masculinity, Masculinities, War Neurosis