The Wasp Factory

Plot

The story is told from the perspective of 16-year-old Frank Cauldhame. Frank lives with his father on a small island in rural Scotland, and has not seen his mother in many years. There is no official record of his birth, meaning his existence is largely unknown.

Frank occupies his time with rituals and maintaining an array of weapons (a small catapult, pipe bombs and a crude flame thrower) for killing small animals around the island and the coast line, and building dams. He goes for long walks to patrol the island, and occasionally gets drunk with his only friend, a dwarf named Jamie, in the local pub. Otherwise Frank has almost no contact with the outside world. He is haunted by the memory of a dog attack in his youth, which resulted in the loss of his genitalia. He resents others for his impotence, particularly women. This is in part due to the mauling coinciding with the last time he saw his absentee mother, who had come back to the island to give birth to his younger brother, leaving immediately after.

His older brother Eric escapes a mental institution in the opening of the book, having being arrested some years prior for setting fire to the town's dogs and terrorizing local children by force-feeding them maggots and worms. Eric often calls Frank from phone boxes to inform Frank of his progress back to the island. Eric is extremely erratic and their conversations invariably end badly, with Eric exploding in fits of rage. Frank is confused as to whether or not he is looking forward to seeing Eric, but it is clear Frank loves his brother dearly.

The "Wasp Factory" that the title refers to is a mechanism put together by Frank, made from a huge clock face, salvaged from the local dump, encased in a glass box. Behind each of the 12 numerals on the clock face is a trap which leads to a different ritual death (for example burning, crushing, or drowning in Frank's urine) for the wasp that Frank puts into it via the hole at the centre of the clock face. Frank believes the death "chosen" by the wasp predicts something about the future. The Factory is in the house’s loft, which Frank’s father cannot access because of a leg injury. There are also “Sacrifice Poles”. The bodies and heads of animals, such as mice that Frank has killed, are stuck onto the poles for the purpose of attracting birds which will fly away and alert Frank of anybody approaching the island's borders. It is revealed that when he was a lot younger, he killed three of his relatives; two of his cousins and his younger brother. He also exhumed the skull of the dog that castrated him and uses it as part of his rituals.

Eric is described as having been extremely sensitive before the incident that drove him mad: a tragic case of neglect in a hospital where Eric was a volunteer when studying to become a doctor. While attempting to feed a brain-damaged newborn with acalvaria, Eric notes that the child is unresponsive and smiling, despite usually appearing expressionless. The child’s skull is held together by a metal plate over its head. Eric checks underneath the plate to find the child's exposed brain tissue infested and being consumed by day-old maggots.

Frank’s father is distant and spends most of his time in his study, which he keeps locked at all times. Frank longs to know what is inside the study and attempts to gain access to it each time his father leaves the house. Frank is used to being lied to by his father, who seemingly often does it purely for his own amusement or interest.

At the end of the novel Frank is alerted of Eric's imminent return when he sees a dog that has been burned alive and discovers Eric’s camp site; This knowledge incites Frank’s father to get drunk and then forget to conceal the keys to his study, where Frank discovers male hormone drugs, tampons and what appears to be the remains of his own genitals in a jar. Frank, who hates women, assumes that his findings mean that his father is actually female. During the ensuing confrontation with his father, Eric returns and attempts to destroy the house and island with explosives and fire but is not successful. After Eric flees, the father explains that it was Frank who was born a female; the hormones had been fed to him by his father since the dog attack in an experiment to see whether Frank would transition from female to male. The remains of his genitals were fake and it is suggested that his father’s reasoning for doing this was to distance himself from the women he felt had ruined his life.

In the closing pages Frank finds Eric, half asleep, seemingly calm. Frank sits with him and considers his life up to this point and whether he should leave the island.

Literary significance and criticism

The book was initially greeted with a mixture of acclaim and controversy, due to its gruesome depiction of violence. While this is mostly against animals, Frank also recollects killing three younger children. The murders are described in an honest and matter-of-fact way, often with grotesque humour. The Irish Times called it "a work of unparalleled depravity."

A 1997 poll of over 25,000 readers of The Independent listed The Wasp Factory as one of the top 100 books of the 20th century.

Adaptations

In 2013, the Australian producer and composer Ben Frost directed an opera adaptation of the Iain Banks' novel, in which Frank is represented by three female singers.

Release details