The Wasp Factory Analysis
He is a Sister: The Monstrous (De)Construction of the Sex/Gender Binary in Iain Banks’ The Wasp Factory
Vikki Winkler
English 498: Honours Thesis
Advisor: Dr. Jodey Castricano
March 31, 2008
If it is appropriate to define “ideology” as that which constitutes social, cultural, and political order, then perhaps it can be said that as a genre, the Gothic paradoxically both challenges and reinforces the stability of these seemingly “fixed” structures and, similarly, that it both disturbs and reifies what one deems “normal” or “natural” in western industrial society. In this way, the Gothic functions as both a noun and a verb, and can be equated to Queer Theory in that it “queers” heteronormative “truth” claims. The Gothic may …show more content…
That being said, I will argue that although the Gothic seems to perform the dual or double function of stabilizing and destabilizing ordered systems, it ultimately becomes a deconstructive tool that exposes western heteronormative, taxonomic, teleological, epistemological, and theological systems that operate discursively to construct socio-cultural “norms.” With such a dual function in mind, I will use the Gothic through Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus as a lens to examine the social, cultural, and political order of Iain Banks’s The Wasp Factory with the aim of deconstructing ideologies surrounding the “natural” and the manifestation of the Other specifically in regards to a heteronormative sex/gender system. As a Gothic novel, The Wasp Factory queers or “gothicizes” the apparent stability of heteronormativity and the structure of binary oppositions. I will argue that although the novel appears to subvert sex/gender categories, it ultimately reinforces them through his main character, Frank Cauldhame. Throughout the novel, Banks shows that the “obvious” incontestability of sex and gender as two (and only two) possibilities is an outrageous notion because there are slippages and
Vikki Winkler
English 498: Honours Thesis
Advisor: Dr. Jodey Castricano
March 31, 2008
If it is appropriate to define “ideology” as that which constitutes social, cultural, and political order, then perhaps it can be said that as a genre, the Gothic paradoxically both challenges and reinforces the stability of these seemingly “fixed” structures and, similarly, that it both disturbs and reifies what one deems “normal” or “natural” in western industrial society. In this way, the Gothic functions as both a noun and a verb, and can be equated to Queer Theory in that it “queers” heteronormative “truth” claims. The Gothic may …show more content…
That being said, I will argue that although the Gothic seems to perform the dual or double function of stabilizing and destabilizing ordered systems, it ultimately becomes a deconstructive tool that exposes western heteronormative, taxonomic, teleological, epistemological, and theological systems that operate discursively to construct socio-cultural “norms.” With such a dual function in mind, I will use the Gothic through Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus as a lens to examine the social, cultural, and political order of Iain Banks’s The Wasp Factory with the aim of deconstructing ideologies surrounding the “natural” and the manifestation of the Other specifically in regards to a heteronormative sex/gender system. As a Gothic novel, The Wasp Factory queers or “gothicizes” the apparent stability of heteronormativity and the structure of binary oppositions. I will argue that although the novel appears to subvert sex/gender categories, it ultimately reinforces them through his main character, Frank Cauldhame. Throughout the novel, Banks shows that the “obvious” incontestability of sex and gender as two (and only two) possibilities is an outrageous notion because there are slippages and