![]() ![]() ![]() Frank, despite being an unremittingly sadistic child, wants to gain self-awareness of a sort. Stories with unhinged character-narrators position themselves for a shred of empathy if not sympathy, and The Wasp Factory is no different. ![]() Its poisoned misogyny flavours the desire to course a purposeful course, and the desire to attack and destroy perceived weakness operates as a criticism of hypermasculine perception. This idea that any kind of activity is preferable to following a preset course, including the psychotic and dangerously unhinged behavior of Frank, is a painful consequence of post-modern society. ![]() The Wasp Factory is part of the pattern because it is part of life and – even more so – part of death.” The weak and the unlucky, and the stupid. The strong make their own patterns and influence other people’s, the weak have their courses mapped out for them. Everything we do is part of a pattern we have at least some say in. Seeking to make meaning in a life isolated from conventional society, he states: The narrator and protagonist, Frank, seeks to intellectualise his torturous intentions in rural Scotland. I knew the twist already (thanks Godmother!) but I enjoyed it nevertheless. Reading this after Herland, the sense of abandonment, and its desperate consequences, struck me. The Wasp Factory is a deliciously dark tale, suitably disturbing and entirely insular in its execution. ![]()
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