ABSTRACT
In the extended works of Patrick McGrath, characters are often defined by their inability to maintain a coherent sense of self, often forming an impression of characters struggling to preserve their own identity while the very structures on which such are built crumble due to repressed trauma. Yet within these novels, identity is not merely a construct to be collapsed but is observably utilized as a tool through which the impending destruction of the self may (be attempted to) be mitigated or, in some manner, appeased. Characters such as Sir Hugo and Edward Haggard, of The Grotesque (1989) and Dr Haggard’s Disease (1993) respectively, in fact, attempt to establish a new persona over an external figure in order to appease specific past traumas, while others, such as Constance Schuler in Constance (2013) and Harry Peake in Martha Peake (2000), actively attempt to rewrite and redefine the self, much to the same end. This essay explores the means by which McGrath’s characters perform these identity manipulations and the way in which McGrath’s characters manipulate the identity of both self and others in an attempt to move beyond the traumas which hinder them in a search for a potential apotropaic to the undermining effects of trauma.
