Frank Cauldhame's Gender Crisis In The Wasp Factory

The deciding of what is reality and what is fiction is enough uncertainty to exhaust a person to believing anything to be real despite understanding what they believe is not quite right. Banks plays with the definition of reality and fiction with Frank’s gender crisis in ‘The Wasp Factory’. What is it to be male? To be female? And are we really defined by our sex as much the more intricate details of who we are like our sense of humour, our interests, our beliefs and the decisions we make. Frank becomes an example of this question when he chases masculinity despite being as genetically opposite from male as is possible. This paradox that is Frank Cauldhame is weaved discretely but often throughout the text: ‘I sat for a while, scratching my