Previous Research Findings FRANK’S FAILURE IN OVERCOMING IDENTITY CRISIS AND ITS IMPACT TOWARD HER PERSONALITY: A PSYCHOSOCIAL ANALYSIS TOWARD BANKS’THE WASP FACTORY.

22 Franks lives in a certain island in Scotland with her father, Angus Cauldhame. Even though Franks is a legitimate daughter of Angus, Frank has no birth certificate and social insurance card, her father never registers her. Also, as instructed by her father, Frank always answers to people that she is Angus’ nephew and not his daughter. Frank’s father is protective toward Frank, he always do all the cooking and cleaning. He also tells Frank to choose who she interact with. Her father also has a secret room in their house that is forbidden for Frank. She knows that he is doing some secret experiments because Frank’s father is a scientist before. Just like her father, Frank also has her own secrets. Frank has been secretly killing small animals and insects in order to perform strange ritual and she is also responsible for the deaths of three children in her family. Frank always performs her strange ritual in the third floor loft of her house. She creates her own device which she named The Wasp Factory. The device is enclosed in a glass and is similar to a clock with each number represents different torturing tools. Frank routinely catches small insects and puts the insects into The Wasp Factory, the insects then will move into certain number in the device that lead them into miserable death such as eaten by ants, burned to death, bitten by a poisonous spider and other cruel ends. By doing this Frank believes that each death is an omen that somehow can answer all the questions she has. Those bizarre behaviors are the product of Frank confusion in finding her self-identity. The cause of Frank’s confusion is her father, it is known from the story 23 that her father is a man full of lies. The lies are all successful and Frank continues to believe that she is actually a boy who loses his genital during a childhood accident. There are other factors as well. Her father has been secretly puts male hormones into her foods. Frank also has an older brother who is locked in asylum throughout his life, Frank also has a secluded life and her only friend is a dwarf named Jamie who also hides the fact the she is actually a girl. These problems of finding her true identity really drive her into the corner of her mental stability. With no one to supports her, she continues to live as a fake little boy cursing her own miserable life. It is not until age of 17 she learns that she is actually a girl from her father.

E. Framework of Thinking

The subject of this research is Iain Banks’ The Wasp Factory. The story of The Wasp Factory is rather dark and filled with violence, the main issue of this story is the problem of self identity suffered by Frank, the main character. To be specific, the problem of Frank’s self-identity lies in the confusion of finding her true gender. Frank is a girl who lives believing herself is a boy. She also despises the society where she lives in. As a result of those problems, Frank turns into a devious child with wicked personality. The focus of the researcher is to find out the factors that causes Frank’s problem in acquiring self-identity and also to identify the impacts of her problems toward her personality. The researcher uses the theory of Erikson’s psychosocial 24 development which focuses on the problem of acquiring self-identity explained through the series of eight developmental stages of life. The conceptual framework of the research can be seen below.