Does the Truth set you Free?
Imagination as a disabling and enabling force in Neil
Jordan’s The Butcher Boy and Jim Sheridan’s In America.
Imagination: triggered by, and the
cause of, trauma
2 examples from the Irish film industry
where imagination becomes detached
from/a substitute for reality
 This happens due to love, loss,
disillusionment and depression and can
lead to mental trauma
 Resort to imagination in the forms of
escapism, self-deception, fantasy, and an
inability to confront reality

Mór Anguished – Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Mór, firmly under lock and key
In her own tiny mind
(2” x 4” x 3”)
of grey, pinkish stuff
(here be the wounds
that drown the flies
While other flies survive
To make their maggots
On the carrion fringe)
The magpies and the crows
That come at evening
To upset their guts,
“every one’s enclosed
In their own tiny hells.”
The small birds
Scatter and spread
When she flings up at them
A sod of earth.
“Listen, in God’s name,” she begs
Rogha Dánta, trans. By Michael
Hartnett
The Butcher Boy
Dir. Neil Jordan used Mary to show the ‘mixture of
paranoia and paralysis, madness and mysticism’
present in Ireland at the time
(Qtd. In Cullingford 193)
‘not a source of comfort but a
malevolent hallucination, a
fragmented image of
imprisonment and
disconnection’
(Cullingford)
In America
‘if you can’t touch
somebody
you created how can you create
somebody that will touch anybody?...
Acting Johnny. And bringing something to
life, it’s the same thing. That’s why you
can’t get a job acting Johnny, because you
can’t feel anything’
“Imagination Inflation” Stephanie J. Sharmann et
al., The American journal of Psychology (2004).

‘with each imagining they create more
perceptual detail. As a result the imagined
event becomes increasingly like memory
for a genuine experience and subjects
become increasingly likely to confuse
imagination and reality’
Magic Realism
Magic Realism: Imagination at the level
of form

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

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Mateo – primal and alien, ‘Other’
Cross under water to get to city – sense of the
unreal
Looks at camera and says ‘this isn’t real’
3 Wishes
Camera PoV shots
Halloween
Love and Loss

Love object - ‘images of his lost emotional life, the
absence of mothering and friendship’
(Cullingford)
Love & Loss: catalysts for imagination and
escapism
 Mother figure
 Search for identity
 Emotional crippling hinders Johnny’s acting

‘Such Nostalgia Turns Sour’ (Scaggs)
Places Mother on a pedastle
 ‘It wasn’t always like this’ (Francie’s Father)
 Pop Culture saturation and aspiration




loses sense of identity when
he looses sense of his past,
becomes ‘Francie Pig’
each new loss/revelation
breaks him down
Truth and Freedom
Confrontation with/realisation of the truth for
Francie proves devastating – becomes a slave to
his primal view of the world
 Francie’s Imagination lets him escape the truth
momentarily but makes the eventual
confrontation more traumatic
 Disillusionment
 Paralysis and emotional stasis

Cultural Memory
Aisling/Fís
And Freedom, ooh Freedom.
Well that’s just some people
talking.
Your prison is walking
through this world alone…
You’d better let somebody
love you before it’s too late
Mary as perverted Aisling
 Love object
 ‘dramatic loss of identity
and meaning’ (Eyerman)
 Identifies himself in
opposition to Ms Nugent

Narrative Authority
Frame within a frame and PoV shots
destabilise Narrative authority
 Christie’s camcorder, Francie’s visions
 Narrators
 The media and the making of modern
memory

Family
Familial support makes Johnny’s confrontation
with the truth a liberating experience
 Both protagonists are unwilling to accept the
loss of a family member
 Stable family ultimately helps Johnny recover
 ‘don’t worry Da, I won’t let them near us. See, I
love you Da.’

Conclusion and Catharsis
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Francie
Mary/his own
subconscious guides
him towards disaster
Disabling: Paralysis,
can’t accept reality,
when he sees it it’s
through his own
emotional lens
Enabling: allows him to
deal with a troubled
home life




Johnny
Escape from
trauma/repetition
Redemption,
death/sacrifice, renewal
Disabling: emotional
paralysis, makes
trauma more intense
Enabling: ultimately
Cathartic. Family &
financial support
Bibliography
Cullingford, Elizabeth. “Virgins and Mothers: Sinéad O’Connor, Neil Jordan and
the Butcher Boy.” The Yale Journal of Criticism 15:1 (2002): 185-210
Eyerman, Ron. “ The Past in the Present: Culture and the Transmission of
Memory.” Acta Sociologica 47:2 (2004): 159-169
Gibbons, Luke. Field Day Esays: Transformations in Irish Culture. Cork: Cork
Univeristy Press, 1996.
“Limerick Rural Survey: Third Interim Report, Social Structure.”
Maynooth, 1962.
McCabe, Patrick. The Butcher Boy. Dublin: Paperview in asociation with
the Irish Independent, 2005.
Newhall, Beth. “‘Ebony Saint’ or ‘Demon Black’? Racial Stereotype in
Jim Sherridan’s In America.” in Film History and National Cinema:
Studies in Irish Film 2. Ed. John Hill, Kevin Rocket. Dublin: Four
Courts Press, 2004. 143-153.
Ní Dhomhnaill, Nuala. Selected Poems: Rogha Dánta. Trans. Michael
Hartnett. Dublin: New Island Books, 2004.
Scaggs, John. “Who is Francie Pig? Self-Identity and narrative reliability
in The Butcher Boy.” Irish University Review 30:1 (2000): 51-58.
Sharmann, Stefanie J., Gary, Maryanne, Beuke, Carl J. “Imagination
Exposure and Imagination Inflation.” The American Journal of
Psychology 117:2 (2004): 157-168.
Winkelman, Donald M. “The Butcher Boy.” Western Folklore. 21:3
(1962): 186-187.
Filmography
The Butcher Boy. Dir. Neil Jordan. Perf. Stephen Rea, Fiona Shaw,
Eamonn Owens. Warnerbros, 1997. DVD.
In America. Dir. Jim Sheridan. Perf. Paddy Considine, Samantha Morton,
Sarah Bolger, Emma Bolger, Djimon Hounsou. 20th Century Fox,
2002. DVD.