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Siegfried Sassoon
Prior is a Second Lieutenant in the British army and one of Rivers’s patients at Craiglockhart. Prior arrives at the hospital with mutism and memory loss, unable to speak as a result of a traumatic incident that he cannot remember. Although Rivers attempts to treat Prior as he would any patient, Prior is resistant, intentionally antagonistic (even when his speech returns) and unwilling to cooperate, frustrating Rivers. Prior resents the doctor-patient relationship and senses that Rivers is hypocritical, coaching his patients to stop repressing their emotions while Rivers himself is obviously repressing something. Over time, however, Prior slowly becomes more honest with Rivers and even recovers his lost trauma memory while under hypnosis. When Prior wakes from hypnosis he is obviously distraught and in need of physical affection to ground him. However, since society generally discourages love or shows of affection between men, the closest he can come to asking for affection is holding onto Rivers while head-butting him in the chest, suggesting that such supposedly feminine affection is only permissible if mixed with masculine violence. Midway through his tenure at Craiglockhart, Prior starts dating Sarah, who becomes a safe haven and point of contact in the civilian world which he otherwise feels alienated from. When Prior is discharged from combat service because of his asthma, he goes first to Sarah and tells her he loves her, suggesting that he will enter into this new phase of his life by her side. Prior also finally expresses his admiration and respect for Rivers in their last meeting, and hopes they will keep in contact after the war.
Billy Prior Quotes in Regeneration
The Regeneration quotes below are all either spoken by Billy Prior or refer to Billy Prior. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
[Prior] didn’t know what to make of [Sarah], but then he was out of touch with women. They seemed to have changed so much during the war, to have expanded in all kinds of ways, whereas men over the same period had shrunk into a smaller and smaller space.
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Chapter 9
Quotes
“You’re thinking of breakdown as a reaction to a single traumatic event, but it’s not like that. It’s more a matter of … erosion. Weeks and months of stress in a situation where you can’t get away from it.
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[Rivers] distrusted the implication that nurturing, even when done by a man, remains female, as if the ability were borrowed, or even stolen from women […] If that were true, then there really was very little hope.
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Chapter 12
Quotes
In his khaki, Prior moved among them like a ghost. Only Sarah connected him to the jostling crowd, and he put his hand around her, clasping her tightly, though at that moment he felt no stirring of desire.
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Chapter 13
Quotes
“When all this is over, people who didn’t go to France, or didn’t do well in France—people of my generation, I mean—aren’t going to count for anything. This is the Club to end all Clubs.”
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Chapter 17
Quotes
“You’re never gunna get engaged till you learn to keep your knees together. Yeh, you can laugh, but men don’t value what’s dished out for free. Mebbe they shouldn’t be like that, mebbe should all be different. But they are like that and your not gunna change them.”
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Chapter 19
Quotes
At the moment you hate me because I’ve been instrumental in getting you something you’re ashamed of wanting. I can’t do much about the hatred, but I do think you should look at the shame. Because it’s not really anything to be ashamed of, is it? Wanting to stay alive? You’d be a very strange sort of animal if you didn’t.
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Get the entire Regeneration LitChart as a printable PDF.
Billy Prior Quotes in Regeneration
The Regeneration quotes below are all either spoken by Billy Prior or refer to Billy Prior. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
[Prior] didn’t know what to make of [Sarah], but then he was out of touch with women. They seemed to have changed so much during the war, to have expanded in all kinds of ways, whereas men over the same period had shrunk into a smaller and smaller space.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9
Quotes
“You’re thinking of breakdown as a reaction to a single traumatic event, but it’s not like that. It’s more a matter of … erosion. Weeks and months of stress in a situation where you can’t get away from it.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
[Rivers] distrusted the implication that nurturing, even when done by a man, remains female, as if the ability were borrowed, or even stolen from women […] If that were true, then there really was very little hope.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12
Quotes
In his khaki, Prior moved among them like a ghost. Only Sarah connected him to the jostling crowd, and he put his hand around her, clasping her tightly, though at that moment he felt no stirring of desire.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13
Quotes
“When all this is over, people who didn’t go to France, or didn’t do well in France—people of my generation, I mean—aren’t going to count for anything. This is the Club to end all Clubs.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17
Quotes
“You’re never gunna get engaged till you learn to keep your knees together. Yeh, you can laugh, but men don’t value what’s dished out for free. Mebbe they shouldn’t be like that, mebbe should all be different. But they are like that and your not gunna change them.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19
Quotes
At the moment you hate me because I’ve been instrumental in getting you something you’re ashamed of wanting. I can’t do much about the hatred, but I do think you should look at the shame. Because it’s not really anything to be ashamed of, is it? Wanting to stay alive? You’d be a very strange sort of animal if you didn’t.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
