In his discussion of the novel, Harris describes this "manliness" as becoming, for Barker's characters, an "unrealistic militaristic-masculine ideals"; practices such as the deliberate repression of emotion consume the novel's characters and create psychological instability, as well as being the cause of extensive discrimination during the war. Harris highlights how this thematic treatment fairly represents how the question of masculine identity effected Sassoon and other shell-shocked World War I soldiers. Harris also describes Barker, as author, and Rivers, as a period innovator, demonstrating how the use of therapy on soldiers offers an opportunity to shape and rethink this model of masculinity.Harris 294–295. The idea of reintegrating emotions, in relation to questions about the nature of masculinity, are an important part of the novel; Barker focuses on the same type of emotional reintegration that historians have identified in River's actual methods for treating victims of the war.Harris 296–301
