The Wasp Factory: A dark study of human identity

By Jay Scully

 To many people, modern life is steeped in isolation. As people, we are desperate for a connection, and many feel that they are deprived of it. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks’ debut novel, is told from the perspective of Frank Claudehame, a sixteen year old boy living on a Scottish island. Apart from his crippled and obsessive-compulsive father, he is the sole ruler of his world, a role he relishes. 

When the story begins, the state has no official record of Frank’s existence, so he is free to spend his days as he wishes. He uses this freedom to engage in violent and fetishistic rituals, by which he assures himself of his power. He is entirely isolated from the outside world. Not only does he not legally exist, but his occasional trips into Porteneil, the small village connected to the island by a land bridge, are marred by his reputation. The people of the town fear him, not because of his violent misanthropy, but because of his brother. His older brother, Eric, was once a bright and sensitive boy who wished to become a doctor. This dream was shattered after suffering a breakdown following his discovery of maggots in the brain of an infant with acalvaria he was caring for. Following his breakdown, he took to force feeding the kids of the town fistfuls of worms, as well as lighting dogs on fire before eating them. Frank is totally divorced from human connection, but he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t rely on relationships to assure himself of his value; he achieves self-conception via his shamanistic rituals. 

He is desperate to feel powerful. While less sophisticated sociopaths may simply torture and kill animals for the fun of it, Frank has a pragmatic reason, at least in the context of his warped worldview. He keeps track of his island with his “Sacrifice Poles”. He routinely kills and decapitates animals, and keeps their heads in his “Head Bag”. He does this so he can skewer them on the Sacrifice Poles. The carrion attracts birds, which will startle and fly away if someone approaches the island, thereby alerting Frank. He built a complex mythology around himself, all for the purpose of justifying his desire to kill. One of his favorite pastimes is dam building. He regularly builds a dam, constructs a miniature town, and blows up the dam with one of his homemade pipe bombs. He derives a deep, almost spiritual satisfaction from watching his actions lead to mass destruction of a world he has complete control over. He engages in these childlike games of pretend because, since they operate on rules he created, he has utter control. Frank also derives pleasure from the ability to control water. He tells of how he came to realize that you cannot stop water from flowing, so you must gently corral it to flow where and how you like. This process is deeply important to him. 

At the beginning of of Chapter Three, he states:

“My two greatest enemies are women and the sea.”

He resents the ocean because he cannot control it; it represents the limitless power of nature, fully beyond mortal ken. Like many violent, narcissistic men, he resents women as well. 

Frank reveals to the reader that he had killed three people by the time he was ten years old. Throughout the events of the book, he never expresses any desire to kill anyone else, and describes it as “a phase I was going through.”

Frank is obsessed with control. He needs some way to predict and adapt to the events of his life before he is caught off guard. He accomplishes this through The Wasp Factory. In the loft of his room, up the ladder his crippled father could never climb, is his impenetrable sanctum. Here lies The Factory, the titular mechanism he uses to predict things, so he need not fear the unknown. At the center of The Factory is a huge clock face. Frank sets a wasp free on the face, and watches as it selects a number. Each number on the clock is a door which leads to a ritual death. He believes that whether the wasp burns, is eaten by a spider, drowns in Frank’s urine, or meets any number of other ends will tell him something about what’s to come. He acknowledges that The Factory is fickle; it rarely gives a straight answer.

The Wasp Factory is a study of identity and how human beings attempt to compensate for their perceived losses. Despite its nuanced and thoughtful take on these topics, the book was released to wide controversy. Because of its stark, sometimes borderline comical depiction of violence, some have regarded it as morally corrupt. The Irish Times called it “a work of unparalleled depravity”, and this sentiment still exists to this day. In 1997, The Independent included The Wasp Factory on its list of the top 100 books of the twentieth century, but conversation around the book, especially on the internet, still mostly consists of arguments of the book’s moral faculty. 

Those who haven't read the book themselves, or did so with little thought, are often quick to judge it as nothing more than a swift, childish spat of violence, meant to entertain the brainless masses. Specifically, some have indicated that they believe the book to appeal to the short attention spans and juvenile interests of the very young. As with many boundary pushing pieces of art, juvenoia influences an instinct to deem the book somehow degenerate. As the book forces you to come to terms with, things change. In 2013, following Iain Banks’ announcement that he had been diagnosed with cancer and did not have long to live, The Irish Times published a new article; a retrospective, of sorts. It views Banks’ work very positively, emphasizing the humanistic empathy present in all his work, no matter the bleakness of the subject matter.  In reality, The Wasp Factory is a remarkably thoughtful and profound character study concerning a figure who is, though exaggerated to horrific extremes, emblematic of the insecurities and fears of so many living in the modern world.