The Question of Outsiders as Victims: Analyzing The Wasp Factory and We Need to Talk About Kevin Anonymous 12th Grade

Throughout the novels – Iain Bank’s The Wasp Factory of 1984, and Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin from 2003 – the authors depict the protagonists as subversive outsider figures, as they each have only one friend – Frank’s Jamie, whom he can tell with ease “I killed a few rabbits” (Banks, 1990 p93) despite his usual secrecy, and Kevin’s Leonard, whom he threw “detritus onto the roadway with” (Shriver, 2011, p307). It is suggested to the readers that the young murderers Frank and Kevin are outsiders due to their innate evil; however, the reader is also invited to challenge this assertion, with the possibility of the characters as victims. Though it is more subtly suggested within the novels, this is the stronger argument, as when thoroughly analysed it is clear that Kevin and Frank are victims – of their families and of society.

The protagonists of both novels can be viewed as intrinsically malicious boys, due to the age at which their immoral behaviour begins. In The Wasp Factory, Frank decided at merely 5 years old that he “wanted to kill Blyth there and then” (Banks, 1990, p43) when his cousin “sprayed our two hutches with flame” (Banks, 1990, p43). Just a year later, he killed Blyth in a most “macabre” (Banks,...