Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy takes place during the last years of the First World War and focuses on the work of the fictionalized Dr. W. H. R. Rivers who treats soldiers at Craiglockhart War Hospital. The issue of shell shock and the protest of the war on moral grounds call into question established notions of masculinity and cause individual crises of values and identity. I explore the contemporary expectations of masculine behavior and contrast them with the experiences of the novels’ characters, analyzing the various roles they take on. The prominent motif of the sacrifice is addressed in my thesis as well, along with the dehumanization soldiers experience in the face of the war’s destruction. I focus on Rivers as a character and show his journey of gaining a close identification with the shell-shocked soldier, while simultaneously recognizing his professional influence and the need for a large-scale shift of perspective related to society’s expectations of masculinity. Such codes are quite pervasive and, as the novels suggest, change may only be brought about through the consideration of experiences across memory, generations, and cultures.