Life Class By Pat Barker

Many events occurred during the WWI and it was indeed a learning point for lots of people including leaders, nations and authors among many others. One such person is Pat Barker in her novel, “Life Class”. She goes back to the topic of WWI which has continued to spark a lot of interest over the years, most notably among many writers both in the past and during her time. She presents an artful inventiveness on poets’ lives and other compatriots that unfolded into a fierce concentration on the horrors that were seen during that war and the psychological consequences that came afterwards.

Following a number of intriguing although lumpy novels set in these modern times, it is very evident that the audience that the WWI resonates with this author’s work in “life class” has an organic power and sweep of narration that are not found in most of her works full of modern settings.

Development of the story

The main characters in “Life Class” and are students attending the Slade School of Art found in London. These students study under the tutelage of one pronounced Henry Tonks. Among them is Elinor who is the center of charisma especially about the love triangle. This character appears to be loosely based on one Dora Carrington; a very creative painter is yearning to end up being a Bloomsbury assistant. Her suitor, one Neville appears to be loosely founded on Christopher Nevinson – an art student who worked with medical corps and in the end became famous due to his war paintings.

Life class exemplified

Ms. Barker has a tactile ability to raise the rotten horror of the trenches and most particularly concerning the trenches as well as the field hospitals with little applicability in defining the day-to-day life in the contemporary Britain. Maybe it is for the reason that her ability to narrate her works are spurred through the kind of galvanic developments that were brought up in the Great War. There were a lot of cultural and social changes that assisted in bringing up a period of irony, doubt and modernism.

Maybe this is that historical study and the application of historical images that somehow give ballast and weight to the imaginations seen in her stories. Life class is a representative of a time of major earthquakes touching on the social and cultural behaviors of many people and it is exactly an image of the society in that sense.