The image of the Pig in "Butcher Boy" by Patrick McCabe

Résumé du document

What are the meanings of the image of the pig and what different ideas does it enable to support and to highlight ? Besides, how does the main character react to this image and what impact does it have on him ?
After reminding the classical meanings expressed by the image of the pig, I will study the personnification of the main character as a pig and will look more precisely into the metaphor of the pigglet (in the slaughterhouse) which to me represents Francie's projection.
I will finally try to describe and analyze the evolution of Francie Brady's relation towards the image of the pig, a comparison which progressively becomes an obsession by which he is haunted and which deeply affects him. This is one of the thread to the understanding of the novel...

Extraits

[...] This act can in a way also be seen as a kind of unconscient revenge. This is at any rate another important step leading him to his descent into Hell. The image of the pig to which Francie is compared seems to have a major impact on his behaviour and on his morale. Not only has he been abandoned and has he lost all the people for whom he cared, but he is very deeply affected and traumatized by this pejorativ and hurtful comparison which is depreciative, humiliating and debasing. [...]

[...] Hmmm ? ( ) Or maybe you didn't know you were a pig. Is that it ? Well, then, I'll have to teach you . I'll make sure you won't forget again in a hurry. You too Mrs Nugent ! The butcher boy, Picador p. [...]

[...] The image of the pig in this context aims at underlining the Nugent's pathetic behaviour. It represents them as docile animals dominated by Francie and obeying his humiliating orders : they are indeed compelled to do their business just like animals would do which is of course a very degrading and embarrassing situation. The second important image in which Mrs Nugent is compared to a pig, isn't this time the fruit of a dream : in the scene of her murder at the end of the novel, the narrator explicitely portrays her as a pig being killed by a butcher : she is killed in the same way that's to say the butcher boy uses a gun and captive bolts, the same weapon he is used killing pigs with. [...]

[...] The problem seems to be linked to other people's opinion. What matters is how Francie is perceived and considered by the small town, by the others : his honour, his pride and his image are put at stake. As Mrs Nugent says while insulting the Brady Family at the very beginning of the novel, the whole town knows they are pigs. Moreover, Francie seems very upset to discover that Mrs Nugent had probably always behaved hypocritically towards them and that her smiles were fake. [...]

[...] This image is promoted by a few people in the novel but they affect Francie so much that this becomes an obsession. Francie isn't directly described as a pig : the starting point of this pejorative image is expressed by Mrs Nugent and targets Francie Brady's father at first and then includes the whole family (Pigs, sure the whole town knows that). Moreover, at the end of the novel, the woman of the boarding house where Brady's parents spent their honeymoon calls his father a pig. [...]