Line #26 Literature/TheButcherBoy


1	[[quoteright:162:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/butcherboy_5688.jpg]]
2
3	->''"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 [[CruelAndUnusualDeath what I done on Mrs Nugent]]"''
4
5	''The Butcher Boy'' is a 1992 novel by Patrick [=McCabe=]. Set in a small town in Ireland in the early 1960s, it tells the story of Francie Brady, a delusional boy who retreats into a violent fantasy world as his troubled home life collapses.
6
7	The novel won the 1992 Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Fiction and was short-listed for the 1992 Booker Prize.
8
9	A film adaptation was made in 1997, starring Eamonn Owens (as the title character), [[Film/TheCryingGame Stephen Rea]] and Creator/FionaShaw. Sinéad O'Connor cameos as the Virgin Mary.
10	----
11	!! Tropes in this novel:
12	* AbuseDiscretionShot: [[spoiler:While staying at a boarding house, Francie Brady learns more about his dead parents as he interrogated a landlady. His father was abused as a child in an OrphanageOfFear and grew up and married Mrs. Brady and [[HorribleHoneymoon mistreats her during their honeymoon]]. The abuses aren't shown, but are told by the landlady.]]
13	* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: The Brady family are seen as this for how dysfunctional they are.
14	* AlphaBitch: Mrs Nugent, who is a {{jerkass}} neighbor who looks down on the Bradys and once mocked them comparing them to pigs.
15	* AnimalMotifs: Pigs.
16	* AssholeVictim: Played with. Francie sees Phillip Nugent as one, but the reader never actually sees him acting like an asshole. Francie is something of an UnreliableNarrator, has an irrational hatred towards the Nugents and tends to spin all of Phillip's friendliness as smarmy douchebaggery.
17	** Played straight with the snobby and judgemental Mrs Nugent.
18	* BitchInSheepsClothing: Francie accuses Mrs Nugent on being this.
19	-->''"I was thinking how right ma was. Mrs Nugent all smiles when she met us and how are you getting on Mrs and young Francis are you both well?...what she was really saying was: Ah hello Mrs Pig how are you and look Philip do you see what's coming now...The Pig Family!"''
20	* BittersweetEnding: In the film adaptation [[spoiler:a much older Francie is released from the psychiatric hospital at the end to be brought to a halfway house, where he seems to have regained his sanity at last. He has one last conversation with the Virgin Mary, who gives him a snowdrop, like the one he picked at the beginning of the film.]]
21	* BlackComedy
22	* TheCameo: Sinéad O'Connor, as the Virgin Mary. Ironic, considering her views on religion.
23	* CoolUncle: Uncle Alo is the best relative Francie ever had, until his drunk father calls him out for being a liar.
24	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Francie is quite mischievous and delusional and unaware of the world around him.
25	* CloudcuckoolandersMinder: Joe is this to Francie, calling him out everytime his pranks go too far. Eventually he gets fed up with how psychotic Francie is becoming and leaves him.
26	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: [[spoiler:Francie kills Mrs Nugent with the butcher gun in the head, then he chops her up and writes “PIG” in rooms upstairs with her insides.]]
27	* DissonantSerenity: As his sanity slips with each chapter, Francie is disturbingly chirpy and cheerful. His playful pranks begin to advance into more destructive and menacing behavior. It concludes with him [[spoiler: killing Mrs Nugent]].
28	* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Francie loses his remaining sanity after Joe distances from him. He brutally kills Mrs Nugent with a bolt gun, dismembering her corpse. He's captured and sent to a mental hospital where he writes memoirs about the murder and he attempts to forge a friendship with an inmate similar to the one he had with Joe. The film adaptation has a more positive ending, with him regaining his sanity years later.]]
29	* DrowningMySorrows: Benny is a bitter and abusive alcoholic.
30	* DrivenToSuicide: Francie's mother after he briefly runs away.
31	* DysfunctionalFamily: Francie's family. His mother is frequently abused both verbally and physically by her husband, a bitter alcoholic, and often considers committing suicide. Of course, Francie is oblivious to this and claims that his mother is "in the garage".
32	* EtTuBrute: Francie's reaction after finding out that Joe befriended Philip.
33	* EvilIsPetty: You honestly can’t get any pettier than trying to ruin your neighbor's life simple cause he has a happier family than you.
34	* FailedASpotCheck: Deconstructed and PlayedForDrama. Francie began taking care of his father after his mother's suicide, even after he stopped eating or moving from the corner of the room. [[spoiler: Which is where he eventually starved to death, but Francie failed to notice and accept this thanks to his own poor mental state.]]
35	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
36	** Francie's work as a [[TitleDrop butcher boy]]. [[spoiler: He kills Mrs Nugent in the finale.]]
37	** The LemonyNarrator in the film is very harsh and insulting towards Francie and Mrs Nugent. [[spoiler: Turns out the narrator is adult Francie.]]
38	* GreenEyedMonster: The ''actual'' reason for Francie's hatred toward the Nugents.
39	* HorribleHoneymoon: Francis's parents went to a boarding house on their honeymoon before he was born. Mr. Brady also used the opportunity there to abuse her.
40	* IHatePastMe: [[spoiler: Upon seeing his decisions from an observer's point of view, Francie eventually has little but large amounts of disdain for the choices his past self made, occasionally berating him despite knowing he can't hear. He still retains his hatred for Mrs Nugent though.]]
41	* ImprovisedWeapon: [[spoiler: Francie kills Mrs Nugent with a butcher's bolt gun, no less!]]
42	* IrrationalHatred: Francie develops one towards the Nugents, blaming them (especially Mrs Nugent) for every bad things that happens in his life. It's implied he's actually jealous of them for being a happy and stable family, something the Bradys will never be.
43	* LemonyNarrator: The film has a bizarre sarcastic narrator, snarking at Francie's misadventures and encouraging him to do bad things (like in the defecating scene). He also amuses himself by insulting the characters, especially Mrs Nugent. It's later revealed the narrator is [[spoiler: adult Francie]].
44	* LivingEmotionalCrutch: Joe is this to Francie, especially in the film. When Joe get's fed up with Francie's increasing psychotic behavior and becomes friends with Phillip, he snaps.
45	* LongingForFictionland: Francie loves fantasising about [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking alien takeover, atomic apocalypse, and the Virgin Mary]].
46	* MatureWorkChildProtagonists: The book's protagonist, a young Irish boy named Francis Brady, who goes into madness.
47	* MoodWhiplash
48	* NeverMyFault: Francie tends to blame the Nugents for all the bad things going on in his life, even when they were provoked by his own bad decisions. When Joe decides to cut all ties with Francie and befriend Phillip instead, Francie deduces it's all the Nugents' fault and [[spoiler: kills Mrs Nugent as "retribution".]]
49	* NorthernIrishAndNasty: Francie Brady lives in a small town in Northern Ireland and his parents had never really got along. He becomes jealous of his neighbors the Nugents and started doing nasty things on them. For example he stoled Phillip Nugent's comic book collection. Another time Francie broke into their house and messed it up. [[spoiler: Then the most horrible act Francie Brady had done was he killed Mrs. Nugent for taking his best friend Joe away from him.]]
50	* OfCorpseHesAlive: At some point Benny dies because oh his alcoholism. Francie is unaware of this (due to his increasing SanitySlippage) and thinks he's just sleeping until the police enters his home to discover the corpse has been decomposing for a while.
51	* [[spoiler: OffWithHisHead: How Mrs Nugent dies.]]
52	* PrecisionFStrike: The Virgin Mary, of all people, gets in one.
53	-->'''Mary''': ''For fuck's sake, Francie.''
54	* SanitySlippage: And it gets FromBadToWorse.
55	* SelectiveObliviousness: Francie pretends not to notice how dysfunctional his parents are. Later he just can’t accept that his father has died because of his alcoholism and goes out of his way to convince himself that he is just sleeping a lot because he's drunk, and that the foul smell everybody complains about (and which he pretends not to notice) must be from a dead animal.
56	* TheSixties
57	* SocialServicesDoesNotExist: Subverted, as they do. Not that they do much ...
58	* SoundtrackDissonance: Especially in the film. For example that cheerful tune after Francie defecates on the floor of the Nugent's house.
59	* StrongFamilyResemblance: In the film adult Francie looks just like his father, but with red hair. Both are played by Stephen Rea.
60	* TemptingFate: [[spoiler: At the end of the film, when an older Francie comments on how he has regained his sanity and will not be up to his old shenanigans anymore, the Virgin Mary appears to him once again. He's not amused.]]
61	-->'''Francie''': ''No more aliens or chopping up or any of that old shite. If anyone thought Francie Brady was getting in trouble again, they're wrong. Trouble, no thank you. So there it is, Francie Brady, butcher boy, the end.''
62	-->cut to the Virgin Mary appearing
63	-->'''Francie''': ''Oh fuck, oh Mother of Jesus.''
64	* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness
65	* VillainProtagonist: By the end of the story Francie has become one.
66	* {{Yandere}}: Francie's obsession with Joe as he begins to pull away. The obsessive desire to get their friendship back to what it used to be brings him to violence repeatedly, eventually causing him to [[spoiler: break into the Nugent's house and smear their walls with feces, attempt to murder Phillip for stealing Joe away from him, and break into Joe's new school so he can "break him out", though Joe has no desire to leave and is afraid and disgusted of Francie himself. Rather than confront his own actions, Francie blames Mrs Nugent for the whole thing and kills her]].

Context Literature / TheButcherBoy