Close anaysis: Rivers and Prior p.95-97

The motif of silence symbolises the incapability of the patients not able to speak their minds, let go of the horrific memories, and let themselves feel the emotions that would, in their minds, emasculate them. It is as if, unconsciously Prior had made himself mute, as a self defense mechanism to stop himself talking about his experiences. Prior was mute when the readers are first introduced to him, however as the novel progresses, his mutism seems to have disappeared. Rivers believes that the mutism occurs to the soldiers because they are stuck, "between waning to say something, and knowing that if [they] do say it the consequences will be disastrous."

The idea of silence is linked to the theme of class division because according to Rivers, mutism is a, "commoner symptom," among private soldiers, and, "officers don't suffer from mutism." This raises the idea of social injustice, how the your rank in the army would affect your own illness. I think Barker had successfully challenge these notions because the higher ranked you are, the less 'damage', you seem to have. Since generals are the one who are sitting back, and sending the private soldiers out onto the battlefield, it seems like a logical thing for the soldiers to be suffering far worse than the generals, because they had to risk their lives, while the generals are just sending them out to the war, without actually joining the war and experiencing the horrors of the war themselves.