The Butcher Boy: How effective is McCabe in presenting Francie Brady's disturbed mental state?

The extract begins on page 165 with the words “But there was nothing much else I could do.” and continues to the end of the chapter.

McCabe presents Francie's mental descent into chaos in a sinister and poignant manner. This achieved primarily through his construction of the first person narrative in a stream of consciousness style. This is observed best when Francie stands listening to the "rain gurgling" that night and then confronts Mr Purcell "bleary eyed" the next morning. This sudden abrupt shift alerts to Francie's mental instability. He's clearly been standing voyeuristically watching their house with no comprehension of time. This should alert us immediately to the unreliability of Francie as a narrator. He imagines he can hear Mrs Nugent whispering "who is it, who is it", but this only heightens the ironic discrepancy between his fantasy and the exterior reality. His thoughts are evidently defined by a crazed paranoia.

McCabe effectively appropriates the direct speech of Mr Purcell into Francie's, intensifying the notion that Francie is unable to distinguish between his internal reality and external reality. "He just kept saying what party", the absence of speech marks denies Mr Purcell autonomy in the text and suggests the egocentric nature of his narrative. Francie imagines what he wants to hear, "I knew by the way he looked at me", this only generates a deeper sense of pathos as it makes clear for Francie's desperation for understanding and acceptance.

The spatial organisation the text furthers the impression that Francie's mental state is deteriorating. He is presented as being on "the far side of the road", on a dark and empty street. McCabe effectively depicts a tableau of an insider/outsider. We feel the physical isolation mirrors Francie's mental detachment. Francie's mental disintegration is stressed yet further through the breakdown in the grammatical structure. From "I think that was it..." to "tell me lies", is a large slab of text completely void of punctuation. This lack of punctuation is indicative of Francie's lack of thought process. The febrile recollection of events is suggestive of how Francie cannot control his flow of memories.

This insight into his mental instability is structured to be preceded by a scene highlighting his flippant attitude towards violence. This is indicted by the aggressive but casual use of expletives, "got three of the bast**ds". His response "what do you think of that boys" is reminiscent of comic book clichés. This comical approach to violence is worrying considering his increasingly sinister preoccupation with the Nugents. The anaphora of "if only", suggests he pins all his problems upon the actions of the Nugents. We worry he may retaliate to being victimised by the Nugents in the same way he lashes out at flies.  His unhinged behaviour towards Mr Purcell indicates he could be fully capable of this.