Analysis

Angus has been very hurt by women in his life. Both wives leave him. Frank or Francis is actually Frances, a girl. Out of Angus' rage at women, he uses the dog mauling as an opportunity to rid his life of women. Frank could never see his birth certificate because it would reveal that he is a female. Unfortunately, his father teaches him to hate women, even though he finds out in the end that he is a woman.

Growing up all those years thinking he is a male who has lost his sex organs and is thus emasculated, Frank turns to murder to prove his manhood. He has no purpose in life—he will be an adolescent forever and can never procreate. In the end when Frank accepts that he is a woman, he realizes that the anger, fear, secrecy, mutilations and the murders were all unnecessary. He learns that the Wasp Factory is a fraud. He had gone down a corridor that he thought had sealed his fate only to ultimately learn there is a totally unimagined path he will now be traveling.