The seeds of discontent of an epoch seen through the eyes of Pat Barker’s hero : Billy Prior in her Regeneration trilogy

Abstract

This thesis analyses Billy Prior, the main fictional character in Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy, a young man who does not know any boundaries and who challenges the concepts and ideas that had been the foundations of his society until the beginning of the XXth century. Authority, sex, class divisions, gender roles and the war are the main areas of discussion. This work examines also the dialogue between Modernism and Postmodernism, the cultural context when the novels are set and written respectively. Of great importance too is the analysis of the trilogy as an example of the genre historical novel and of the use Pat Barker does of intertextuality.