Benbecula recounts the story of triple murder in 1857 by Angus MacPhee, a young labourer with a mental disorder, on the remote Hebridean island of Benbecula. The story is narrated by Angus’s brother Malcolm MacPhee. Benbecula is one of the Darkland tales which are fictional reconstructions of real events in Scotland’s past.
The storyteller’s burden
The first paragraph of Benbecula begins:
“My name is Malcolm MacPhee. If you’re wondering why it falls to me to tell this tale, it is for no other reason than this – I am the only one left.”
From the outset storytelling is presented as a burden, not a release.
In the second paragraph Malcolm tells us why:
“My brother Angus did to death my father, my mother and my aunt, all in the most brutal and purposeful fashion.”
There’s no suspense around who the perpetrator was. Instead the suspense is located in Malcolm’s mental collapse under the weight of responsibility for Angus – and the struggle to keep his own identity separate.
“I did not want to be like Angus…he was no better than an animal”.
Over the course of the novel Malcolm’s narrative becomes increasingly disturbed, so it is often unclear whether he is sane or not. But sometimes his delusional state is unmistakable.
He wanders into his neighbour’s houses in the night and moves things about, perhaps seeking normality, he calls his house “the skull house” believing he is the brain in the skull. At one point after the killings Malcolm thinks he and Angus live within the same skull.
Malcolm MacPhee
The use of the first person narrator could encourage the reader to feel sympathy with Malcolm. Indeed there is much to sympathise with. It is invariably Malcolm who is approached by the islanders about Angus’s menacing behaviour and the duty of safeguarding the community is concentrated in him.
After the deaths his siblings leave, so he becomes hopelessly vulnerable. This is starkly conveyed in the sinister ritual of an islander Mrs MacLeod coming to help him bathe.
But despite Malcolm’s vulnerability our sympathy is held at arm’s length. He is aggressively forthright and sometimes violent; he only just suppresses carnal ideas of forcing himself on Mrs MacLeod, and his narration is often unreliable.It’s never certain whether this is due to attempts to hide his more shameful thoughts, or whether it is his deepening breakdown. We are skilfully drawn into Malcolm’s world and repelled from it in turns. In Malcolm’s world we may sense the shadowlands of Angus’s mental condition.
The Gothic Lens
Elements of the Scottish Gothic tradition play out in the remote setting of the island, the tropes of Angus as bestial, the horror, the unrelenting bleakness, and the themes of breakdown and dual identity. These are often found in Scottish Gothic novels, such as James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. We see events through Malcolm’s eyes and so become confused with him, creating a sense of mystery.
But In a late chapter Malcolm lightly derides expectations of violence:
“I do not suppose that many among you would have the least interest in the incident…were it not for the fact that they serve as a prelude to violence…and you may rest easy that I do not mean to disappoint you.”
The narrator presents himself in collusion with the reader’s (presumed) bloody instincts. In so doing any reading of events as macabre and supernatural is undermined.
Hardship as horror
It seems to me that the prevailing theme of Benbecula is socially critical. It’s a portrayal of mental breakdown in a poor community. The narrative style is both atmospheric and pared back, reflecting the quality of life on the haggard island. Many of the islanders are engaged in near fruitless work which barely allows them to subsist. When Angus menaces young women, MacDonald “Inspector of the poor” and a “frock coated arsehole” suggests to Malcolm that Angus be “committed” at the family’s request, knowing full well the family can’t afford the fees.
There is no financial support made available. So Malcolm is forced to take charge of Angus, under the threat of severe measures if he doesn’t. This involves the family shackling Angus. Their position displays the awful moral choices available to impoverished people. Later we find out the parish would have given funding if the doctor, MacLean, had committed him.
In the aftermath of the killings the siblings are shunned by the community.
“Such acts as my brother committed are not commonplace in our corner of the world and the stench of it lingers as the reek cleaves to the thatch.”
Angus is eventually locked up in Perth Prison being found not guilty by reason of insanity. The socio-economic reality is that if funding had been made available earlier Angus could have been incarcerated before he got to the point of murder (albeit incarceration carries its own problems).
The author’s afterword
The novel makes no pretence to be a factual account of events. However, the afterword contains an interesting account of the historic documentation Macrae Burnet deployed in his research. There is one striking alteration of focus between the author’s discussion and Benbecula, which may lead readers to reflect differently about the novel. So if you do read Benbecula – and it rewards reading – I strongly recommend not skipping the afterword.
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