Reading Iain Bank's The Wasp Factory as a Critique of Modernity

Abstract

In my thesis paper I intend to read Iain Banks’ novel entitled The Wasp Factory as a critique of modernity and rationality. Before elaborating on the subject, a few details must be discussed in connection with the novel. The first detail might be considered “technical” since it serves only one purpose: it explains the need for using footnotes perhaps a little bit more extensively than it would be absolutely necessary. The reason for doing this is the novel’s intertextuality. The narrator mentions that Angus gave his son two novels, The Tin Drum by Günter Grass and Myra Breckinridge written by Gore Vidal. (Banks 51) Since Frank never actually read the novels these are in fact clues for the audience foreshadowing what is about to happen. There are several similarities between Banks’ novel and the other two ones which would have broken the logic of this text and therefore only had place in the footnotes... (Introduction)