Dr McGrath’s disease: radical pathology in Patrick McGrath’s neo-Gothicism

Abstract

Patrick McGrath is not the first, nor will he be the last, of the Gothic writers to display a fascination with images of pathology and mental dissolution. These grim motifs have populated the genre since its inception, their prevailing popularity attributed alternately to the modern malaise of Schadenfreude, or their symbolic significance as the radical antagonists of constrictive convention and order. An advocate of the latter theory, Linda Bayer-Berenbaum proposes that ‘a fascination with disease and decomposition represents a liberation from the confines of beauty’ (Bayer-Berenbaum, 1982: 28), a symptom of the insurgent topos which she ascribes to Gothicism as a whole: Gothicism allies itself with revolutionary movements because it cannot tolerate any restriction of the individual, and thus Gothicism is not merely revolutionary but anarchic in its sympathies. As all forms of order disintegrate, the Gothic mind is free to invade the realms of the socially forbidden. (43) The term ‘Gothic’, as any student of the genre is aware, has a theoretical richness and complexity which defies monolithic definitions. That being said, Bayer-Berenbaum’s alliance of Gothic pathology with the anti-establishment is none the less provocative and provides an interesting catalyst for our discussion.

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