Wasp Factory
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The Wasp Factory The Wasp Factory itself is situated in the attic which Frank's father, Angus, cannot climb up to. It is an elaborate death trap for wasps, a maze based around a large old clock face, about a metre across. The resultant maze is symbolic of Franks past with the deaths of his child victims being represented. Fire at XII represents Paul and the bomb. Blyth's death by venom is represented by the 'Spider's Parlour' at IV and Esmeralda's by drowning (in Frank's urine) at VIII.
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| Frank's inventiveness in murdering wasps provides more than twelve forms of death so some are interchangeable. |
| The Factory surrounded me, the altar was at my back. I gazed round the factory's ways and corridors and chambers, its lights at the ends of tunnels, its tanks and containers and hoppers, its triggers, its batteries and threads, supports and stands, tubes and wires. (6) |
| There is death by crushing, slicing, poisoning, impalement and electrocution |
| Part of the ritual of the Wasp Factory is Frank's 'confessions' when he recites his secret crimes. |
| Frank believes that the death chosen by the wasp is predictive of the future, just as it is connected with the past. |
| The wasp chooses fire. | Everywhere I turned there was fire. The Factory had said it twice . . . Eric brought it closer all the time, too. (6) |
Frank has another altar in the cave-like interior
of a Second World War bunker. Here he carries out yet more rituals to try
to reach Eri c.
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