Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2018

Page 12 Candidate Number: FYW812

unmanly by society, and thus, only through further emasculation are the patients are able to improve their emasculate conditions. What is most significant, is that Rivers acknowledges that he is making his patients feel emasculated and admits that he would also feel uncomfortable with voicing his emotions and feelings. When faced with more difficult patients such as Prior who avoids all questions leading to exposure of emotions, Rivers ‘tries to break down the detachment, to get to the emotion, but he knows that, [when] confronted with the same task, he would have tackled it in exactly the same way as Prior’ (Barker 1991, p.79). Furthermore, Barker displays the emasculation through Siegfried Sassoon. Sassoon plays an essential role in the novel, and the opening of the novel begins with his declaration protesting against the brutality and the conduct of war. Sassoon, in the novel and in real life, was a reputable officer, as well as a distinguished poet. In the novel, Wilfred Owen, a patient at Craiglockhart aspiring to be a poet, describes Sassoon’s ‘height, good looks, the clipped aristocratic voice, … and his reputation for courage’ to be ‘intimidating’ (Barker 1991, p.81). Despite being known for his bravery, Sassoon, like the other male characters, undergoes a certain degree of emasculation. Firstly, Sassoon being ‘an established poet’ (Barker 1991, p.81) is one of the causes of his emasculation, as men at this time were expected to be fighting for his country and undergoing physical exertion, rather than undertaking stagnant activities deemed unmanly such as writing poetry. Furthermore, Sassoon’s homosexuality plays a large role in his emasculation. As mentioned previously, during the 19 th century, homosexuality was deeply frowned upon, and men with ‘abnormal’ sexual preferences were oppressed. The decriminalisation of homosexuality did not occur until 1967 (BBC, 2017), meaning that during World War 1, bisexual and homosexual men could face life imprisonment for their sexuality. Furthermore, Sassoon, being an upper-class man, would have struggled more with the negative implications of being homosexual as social currents opposing homosexuality were particularly