Regardless of his readiness to assume mastery over all things, man wants to be the master. Made in the image of God, as the Bible asserts, even the brave little toddler tries to disobey the commands of his or her parents. Frank Cauldhame has a dysfunctional family. But, it is not dysfunctional as dysfunctional families are commonly imagined as. It is an extremely weird family. Almost everybody in his family appears as a psychopath. It is not only Eric. While normal, healthy children may try to disobey their parents by refusing to eat at times – Frank is responsible for killing three children when he was a child himself (Banks). In other words, Frank has been sincere in his attempt to be like God, with the power to take life at will.
Frank is fixated on rituals, but even if he believes that the Wasp Factory as well as the Sacrifice Poles are meant to protect him, the reader cannot trust him at all. He is a murderer, and he has suffered pain in his life. He is full of hatred, but he justifies himself by explaining his behavior to the reader. Perhaps all readers would feel like psychologists while reading The Wasp Factory. After all, Frank is seriously ill. The reader cannot even pity him, for the simple fact that it is people like Frank that fill the world with the evils that are read about each day in newspapers, and watched on news channels day after day. What is even more disturbing is the fact that people like Frank try to be masters in their surroundings. The young man has expended sufficient time and energy to create his own rituals to attain mastery (Banks). The fact that he was not sent to a mental hospital with Eric shows that he was perhaps more intelligent than Eric. Frank, too, has escaped a mental asylum. But it is only the reader that knows how serious Frank’s condition is. If his story had appeared in a newspaper instead of a novel, Frank would not be allowed to feign sanity in human society.
Most troubles in the world are, in fact, created by psychopaths like Frank that would like to gain mastery over all things. Osama bin Laden serves as an example. When people like Frank speak or write about themselves, there is nothing for the listener or reader to learn, for the reason that nothing makes sense in their speech or writings. According to Frank: “I was never registered. I have no birth certificate, no National Insurance number…I know this is a crime, and so does my father, and I think that sometimes he regrets the decision he made seventeen years ago… (Banks 13-14).” This does not make any sense. If Frank does not wish to be a criminal, and he knows that his father is wrong, would he not register himself?
Organized religions refer to people like Frank and his family as devils. The Christ used to perform exorcism on people like Frank. Since Frank feels independent of human society, however, the Christ does not come to help him out, and neither does anybody else. Like bin Laden and many other psychopaths around the world trying to attain mastery over things, Frank feasts on his psychopathic thoughts. Of course, God knew about the dangers involved in making man in His own image. This is the reason why the reader must learn from Frank never to be like him. Regardless of various beliefs in religion or rituals, it is man’s responsibility to apply his reason before he can try to be a master.
Works Cited
Banks, Iain. The Wasp Factory. London: Macmillan, 1984.
