Write a considered treatment of Frank's behaviour in Iain Banks' "The Wasp Factory" and conclude whether he is insane or sane but suffering from a condition.

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Write a considered treatment of Frank’s behaviour and conclude whether he is insane or sane but suffering from a condition.

In this essay I am going to look closely at the depicted character and the relevant scenarios in which he appears. I am going to consider the character Iain Banks is attempting to display and conclude; based on my summary of the writer’s intentions whether or not the character is insane. I feel that the writer’s perception of the fictional character is paramount because he is the creator and therefore should possess the ultimate understanding. I am however not able to medically analyse frank for obvious reasons so I will therefore limit my conclusion to insanity or sanity but suffering, with no further explanation of what the character may be suffering from. Throughout this essay the definition of insanity should be understood to mean clinically insane and thus incapable of rational thought, differentiation between reality and imaginary worlds and the ability to live within a society adequately.

The novel is written in the first person, which gives us an unprecedented insight into the characters mind and its workings. Frank dabbles in the realms of imagination with such examples including his various wars and damn building. Both of which display vindictive and to some extent sick qualities with the destruction of the imaginary often symbolised by physical inanimate objects. However this is not necessarily an insane act. Imagination and make-believe is something we encourage in the young as a way of establishing mental processes and distinguishing between reality and figments of our imagination. It can therefore be said that Frank is immature and has yet to materialise into the adult we would expect someone of his age to be. This is a common occurrence in people who are mentally challenged or retarded and it has been suggested this could be due to the inability of their minds to evolve as the average mind does. So it is therefore highly arguable whether or not Franks playing is the result of mental disorder or the lack of appropriate stimuli to entice his mind out of this childlike state. It is possible that Frank would mature into a state of socially acceptable normality with the aid of outside influence. His socialising is restricted in a sense by the lack of a school-based education and by his isolated location. It may be as a result of this that he has found it necessary to indulge in his imagination as a form of entertainment and that it provides a replacement for friends, colleagues and other acquaintances. I therefore conclude that Frank’s obsessive use of imagination is merely a form of entertainment, replacement, lack of stimuli or an appropriate combination of the aforementioned but not insanity. Although he displays cruel and violent tendencies in his otherwise child like play it doesn’t imply insanity. This behaviour is more commonly associated with murderers and in particular serial killers, which Frank arguably is. Therefore his imagination, playing, childlike tendencies and vindictive acts do not contribute to the evidence suggesting he is insane.

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Another aspect of insanity has been defined as the inability to distinguish between reality and the imagination. Frank himself admits to us that he is aware of the difference between reality and his imagination. He distinguishes between the two when considering beginning a war; deciding it would not be a good idea to occupy himself with an imaginary war considering the conflicts taking place in reality. Surely the best judge of sanity is the individual in question. I therefore conclude on the basis of self-assessment that frank cannot be insane. However it is also arguable that by considering himself ...

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