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Mental Disturbance in Patrick Mccabe's The Butcher Boy Patrick Mccabe's novel, The Butcher Boy, describes the eventful life of Francie Brady, a traumatized schoolboy in a small town in late 1950 s and early 1960 s Ireland. In examining the social and historical contexts for The Butcher Boy and States of Fear, this essay underscores the regulatory function of an institutional system that supported the State's postcolonial morality. In other words, the existence of such sites of confinement functioned as a constant reminder of the social morals deemed appropriate in post-independence Catholic Ireland. McCabe was a teenager living the hippie life around Belfast in the early 1970 s when Irish conflict turned his neighborhood into a battle field. The events that followed gave start to McCabe's writing ever since.
McCabe, in novel, reflects on what it was like to grow up in Northern Ireland. Presenting a somber view of provincial life in post-independence Ireland, The Butcher Boy reflects the ambivalent status of children residing in Ireland's industrial and reformatory schools. But, in this paper, we will inside the family life and see how the internal relations influence the life of the young person. We will consider a multitude of issues like alcohol abuse and mental disturbance that affect a family life. We will also view many problems that a boy faces while growing up in a dysfunctional family. In the process, novelists both challenged the State's restrictive practices and contradicted the State's narrative of abstraction.
McCabe's The Butcher Boy, in particular, offers a dark and satiric retelling of institutional child care. If as Paul Ricoeur suggests, "fiction gives eyes to the horrified narrator. Eyes to see and to weep, " then Francie Brady embodies the anger engendered by abuses and failures in the institutional care system. He personifies the need of survivors to liberate themselves from that anger and that past. Where did that anger come from?
This anger comes from the terrible atmosphere created in the family. For the many thousands of survivors of Ireland's industrial and reformatory schools, many of whom still live with the scars of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, the government's apology represented a crucial reality of their childhood experience and of the wrongs that were done to them. Post-independence Irish politics made everything possible to keep newly constructed national identity under control. As a product of this institutional system, Francie Brady assaults the reader with his unreliable and crazed voice in The Butcher Boy's first sentence: When I was a young lad twenty or thirty or forty years ago I lived in a small town where they were all after me on account of what I done on Mrs. Nugent. I was hiding out by the river in a hole under a tangle of briars.
It was a hide me and Joe made. Death to all dogs who enter here, we said. Except us of course. You could see plenty from inside but no one could see you. Weeds and driftwood and everything floating downstream under the dark archway of the bridge. Sailing away to Timbuctoo.
Good luck now weeds, I said. In the novel, The Butcher Boy lives during the early 1960 s, when the fear of atomic destruction penetrated in everybody's mind. 12 -year old Francie Brady was the local bully. He, with his friend Joe, delights in tormenting other kids. Meanwhile, Francie's home life is in a very bad condition.
His mother is on the verge of a breakdown and about to be sent off to "the garage" to be fixed up, and his father, "the best drinker in the town. " The family is affected by alcohol abuse. In the beginning of the novel, we can see Francie as a fairly typical product of a dysfunctional family, but it later becomes vivid that he encounters much deeper problems. The whole story is a dark tale about a boy whose hostile surroundings feed his inner anger and paranoia and turn him into a monster. The reason for such behavior lies inside and come out from the family. The Butcher Boy shows what happens when a child fights back not by improving himself, but by hurting others. Francie demonstrates the psychic and moral disintegration of a child forced to suffer each stage of the collapsing parental relationship: Ma was in a bad way now.
It destroyed you that place, can't you see that? she said. You can't even talk about it, can you? Not even after all this time!
It's no shame Benny that you were put in there! And even if it was, no shame should make you turn on your own brother like a dog! He didn't like that and he turned on her then. He said at least he never had to be took off to a madhouse to disgrace the whole family.
I knew then ma was never in any garage but I knew all along anyway, I knew it was a madhouse I just didn't want Nugent or anyone else to hear so I said it was a garage. To understand such behavior, we have to look deeply into the nature and influence of the family situation on to the mental health of children. Young people can have mental, emotional, and behavior problems that are real and painful. These problems are a source of stress for the child as well as the family. The number young people in dysfunctional families who are affected by mental and emotional disorders is frightening. It is known that one of five children or adolescents may have a mental health problem that can be identified.
Many young people have "serious emotional disturbances. " This term refers to a mental health problem that aggressively disrupts a person's ability to function socially, academically, and emotionally. Most probably, Francie suffered of conduct disorder as a part of a complicated mix of mental problems. It causes children and adolescents to act out their feelings or impulses toward others in destructive ways. Young people with conduct disorder continuously violate the human rights of others and the rules of society. The offenses that these children and adolescents undertake often get more serious consequences over time.
Examples include lying, theft, aggression, and vandalism. Children and adolescents with conduct disorder usually have little care or concern for others. Current research has revealed numerous estimates of the number of young people with this disorder. The primary reason for this disorder can be found deeply in the family conditions. Such disorders usually are settled in early life periods. If such parent problems start early in childhood, the impact becomes terrible and lays huge black spot on to persons behavior and attitude for the whole of his / her life. 1 Marital conflict is common in alcoholic homes, and heavy use of alcohol is related to men's physical violence against women.
In comparison to families of relapsed alcoholics, families of recovered alcoholics report fewer family arguments and a decline in marital violence. Marital conflict also increases the likelihood of familial risk factors such as parent -- child conflict. There is a high incidence of parent - child aggression in alcoholic families, and the occurrence of child abuse has been found to increase the risk for adjustment problems in children of alcoholics. Further, several studies have implicated marital conflict as a mediating variable in the associations between parental alcoholism and child problems, although this is not well-established. In addition, a recent study has found inter parental aggression to be a partial mediator of father's alcohol problems and their sensitivity toward their infants. Marital and adult-child conflict are stressful for children, and most adjustment problems exhibited by children who are exposed to high levels of marital conflict and adult-child aggressions are similar to those experienced by children from alcoholic homes.
Thus, it is reasonable to expect that family conflict would mediate associations between parental drinking problems and children's adjustment. It is recognized that many mechanisms including environmental and biological factors partially account for the associations between exposure to parental alcoholism and children's adjustment. Mental health disorders in children and adolescents are caused by biology, environment, or a mix of both. Examples of biological factors are genetics, chemical imbalances in the body, and damage to the central nervous system. Many factors in a young person's environment can affect his or her mental health, such as exposure to violence, extreme stress, and loss of an important person. The exposure to violence and extreme stress well characterizes the conditions of living in a dysfunctional family.
As we already mentioned, one in five adult Americans lived with an alcoholic while growing up. These children are at greater risk for having emotional problems than children whose parents are not alcoholics. Children of alcoholics are four times more likely than other children to become alcoholics. Most children of alcoholics have experienced some form of neglect or abuse, without counting the condition of constant exposure to stress. Mental disturbance comes as the result of such conditions in the family.
If we take the statistics, we will see a terrifying picture that alcoholism loads on the society. Nearly 10 % of adults have been married to or had a marriage like relationship with an alcoholic or problem drinker. 50 % to 60 % of all alcoholics have at least one alcoholic parent. In 90 % of reported child abuse cases, alcoholism is indicated. Children with alcoholic parents are twice as likely to become alcoholic themselves as children from nonalcoholic families.
Children of alcoholics were seen, on the average, twice as many times by school psychologists or counselors than children of nonalcoholic parents. These children were more likely to be suspended from school and three times more likely to be expelled. In younger children from alcoholic homes, there is a higher frequency of stuttering, unreasonable fears, bedwetting and temper tantrums. The younger the child the more severe the pathology like rage, shame, confusion, guilt, fear when active alcoholism is prevalent. Children from alcoholic families are more likely to fail in marriage, employment and their ability to support themselves. In all areas of family problems; placement, runaways, dropout due to pregnancy, mental neglect, delinquent behavior, children of alcoholic parents have a significantly higher incidence of involvement. 2 If you grew up in an alcoholic, drug addicted, or another type of dysfunctional family system you were probably affected by the consequences of living in an abusive home environment.
Exactly the same thing happened to our main character in The Butcher Boy. He was put in conditions which he could not escape. The environment created his hostile attitude. It is said that it is necessary to change the environment to acquire a chance for escaping the consequences of mental disturbance. With new awareness and knowledge, it is possible to make new choices about how to live the current life by discovering and changing conscious and unconscious behavioral patterns that cause the problem. For Adult Children of Alcoholics and individuals from other dysfunctional families, there is often a mistaken belief, formed in childhood, which affects every part of our lives.
As children, we fought to survive the destructive effects of alcoholism, drug addiction, or other forms of abuse, and began an endless struggle to change our troubled family, into a loving, supportive one. We reach adulthood believing we have failed, unable to see that no one can stop the traumatic effects of family dysfunction. Following naturally from this pervasive failure are self-blame, shame and guilt. These self-accusations ultimately lead to self-hate. Accepting our basic powerlessness to control alcoholic and other forms of abusive behavior and its effect on the family is the key that unlocks the inner-child and lets re-parenting begin. We must confront "denial, " mourn the early loss of security, trust and love; and learn skills for re-parenting ourselves with gentleness, humor, love and respect.
Moving from isolation is the first step the Adult Child makes...
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