Regeneration Chapters 13–14 Summary & Analysis

Summary

Chapter 13

Burns is brought before the medical board, and although Rivers has assured Burns that he has recommended an unconditional discharge, Burns is extremely anxious. During the interview, Rivers helps a trapped insect find its way to the window.

Prior is in the sick bay again, after passing out on the train ride home with Sarah. He talks to Rivers, who tells him that his asthmatic condition will have to be reported to the Board. Prior is frustrated; he wants to return to France because he feels like he does not fit in anywhere but there. He needs people to talk with and he feels that the soldiers on the front are the only men who can relate to him. Prior feels he has failed because he broke down, and he wants to return to the front to prove himself.

Rivers gets a call that there is something wrong with Anderson. Rivers rushes to Anderson's room to find him on the floor in a fetal position, afraid of the blood from his roommate's shaving wound. Rivers cleans Anderson up, calms him down, and asks him to think seriously about a profession other than medicine to practice when he leaves the hospital.

Rivers then begins his daily appointments. The first patient is Willard, who requests to be separated from Prior in the sick bay; he cannot stand Prior's nightmares and screaming, and furthermore, he thinks Prior is gay. The next patient is Featherstone, who requests another room; he cannot stand Anderson as a roommate any longer. Rivers is kept busy by a string of patients and appointments. It turns out that Broadbent, who swore that his mother had passed away and who had taken leave for the funeral, was mortified when his mother showed up to question why she had never heard from her son. At the end of the day, Rivers is exhausted. He goes to bed early, but wakes up in the middle of the night with terrible chest pain. When Dr. Bryce comes in the next morning, he examines Rivers, finds an irregular heartbeat, and orders him to take three weeks vacation.

That night it storms heavily. Sassoon goes to Owen's room, and together they work on poetry for a few hours. When Sassoon returns to his own room, he thinks about all the men under his command: how they were in poor physical condition, many just five feet tall, "almost a different order of being." Sassoon falls into a troubled sleep and dreams that his friend Orme is at the door, but then he realizes that Orme is dead. Sassoon wakes up and waits for the morning so that he can talk to Rivers before he goes on leave. He rushes down to Rivers's office, only to find that the doctor has already left on the early train. Sassoon is dejected. He returns to his room and thinks of his father who has abandoned him. He realizes how completely Rivers has taken his father's place, and how much this feels like a second abandonment.

Chapter 14

Rivers is at home, and he makes a trip with his family to church. He stares at the windows, which depict Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac and Jesus dying on the cross. The contract, Rivers reasons, is that if a man obeys his elders, even to the point of sacrificing his life, he will someday receive the same obedience from his sons. He reflects that today, in France, they are voiding the contract by killing their sons; there will be no one to inherit from the fathers.

Previous section Chapters 11–12 Next page Chapters 13–14 page 2