This thesis, drawing from the Gothic paradigm, attempts to complicate and supplement the revisionist reading of Patrick McCabe¡¦s The Butcher Boy (1992). The novel tells the murder story of Francie Brady, a troubled Irish boy who slaughters his Anglicized neighbor like a pig. Critics have aligned the novel with the revisionist attempt to debunk nationalist meta-narrative. They have also associated the sensational plotline and grotesque imageries in the novel with the Gothic tradition. Revisionism and Gothicism, therefore, are two established reading strategies to The Butcher Boy. Both ideas, however, are used by critics with certain unease, for both terms are under much critical debate. Moreover, in the end of the novel, McCabe astutely eschews moral judgment on Francie¡¦s horrific deed. Francie¡¦s first-person narrative also allows the reader to sympathize with the young murderer. In this regard, McCabe keeps a sympathetic undertone in the murder story, which a simplistic revisionist reading cannot fully account for. This thesis, bringing the two critical paradigms together, argues that McCabe¡¦s use of Gothicism is crucial to understanding his complicated re-visioning of Ireland in the 1960s.
Through historicizing the Gothic fiction, the thesis underlines the idea of ¡§antiquarianism¡¨ to explicate the historical background of the novel¡XIreland at the turn of the 1960s when the Republic underwent a transformation of national ethos, from conservative nationalism to modernization. I contend that while the novel is critical of the waning nationalism, it is also suspicious of Ireland¡¦s relentless modernizing project. From a cultural dimension of the Gothic, the thesis foregrounds the relation between Gothic imagination and racial discourse. In this light, I intend to demonstrate that the recurrent image of ¡§pig¡¨ in the novel is a Gothicized racial stereotype of the Irish people. Through Francie¡¦s struggle with the pig image, the thesis examines Irish people¡¦s negotiation with their often derogatory racial stereotype. Finally, resorting to the Gothic device of ¡§double bind,¡¨ I attempt to expound McCabe¡¦s underlying sympathy for the homicidal and suicidal boy, who is depicted as both victim and murderer, both pig and butcher.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0714112-211120 |
| Date | 14 July 2012 |
| Creators | Wu, Yen-chi |
| Contributors | Kao, Wei H., Lin, Yu-Chen, Yang, Yi-Ling |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0714112-211120 |
| Rights | user_define, Copyright information available at source archive |
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