Frank is no ordinary teenager: from the outset he casually admits that he has murdered three people: his cousin Blyth, his younger brother Paul and his cousin Esmerelda: ‘That’s my score to date. Three. I haven’t killed anybody for years and don’t intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.’ [1]
Eric
The book begins with Frank finding out that his brother, Eric, has escaped from a lunatic asylum: he is feared by everyone on the island and notoriously known as the man who sets fire to dogs. All the way through the novel, Frank indirectly refers to an ‘incident’ which caused Eric to go insane, the details of which he eventually reveals.
Meanwhile Frank gets several phone calls from his brother, who tells him he is getting closer to home. It is not clear whether Frank wants to see his brother or not, but it is clear that a strong bond exists between the two of them.
Family
Frank’s father is equally as strange as his two sons: he has what can only be likened to OCD. He has a ‘measurement book’ which contains the details of the measurements of all of the items in the house in it; Frank has had to learn the detail by heart in order to answer his father’s random questions.
Not only that, but he is a secretive man; Frank suspects that he has a secret hidden away in his study, the only place in the house Frank has never been.
Frank
But ‘normal’ life for Frank goes on; he spends his days attending to his sacrifice poles, building make-shift flame throwers and pipe bombs, practicing shooting with his catapult and waiting for the Wasp factory to tell him something important.
The Wasps
The Wasp factory is comprised of an old clock face which is inside of a glass box: each number on the clock face will lead the wasp inside the factory to a different death, including burning, crushing and drowning. Frank believes the factory will tell him something about the future.
The Wasp Factory
The novel is Frank’s story; it is his journey through past and present. He reminisces about how the murders he has committed, his disability, his beliefs and thoughts about things.
The Wasp Factory is a gothic novel which concerns itself with death, self-deception and ultimately, the misuse of power. As such it manages to be controversial and outrageous, yet full of black humour. The Wasp Factory is provocative, sharp, shocking and fascinating.
[1] Banks, I., The Wasp Factory’, Great Britain: Abacus, 1990, p.49
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