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Compare and contrast ways in which Banks and Butterworth present isolation and alienation in The Wasp Factory and Jerusalem
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This essay compares The Wasp Factory and Jerusalem.
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29/6/221. Compare and contrast ways in which Banks and Butterworth present isolation and
alienation in The Wasp Factory and Jerusalem.
Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem and Iain Banks’ The Wasp Factory explore different
manifestations of isolation and alienation; in the end, revealing seclusion as ultimately
unsustainable for the protagonists. Butterworth’s play Jerusalem, set in the fictional Wiltshire
village of Flintock, which follows the fall of ‘hero’ 1 Johnny Byron. Johnny resides within a
liminal space, Rooster’s Wood, providing local teenagers with an environment to experiment
with drugs and alcohol. To begin with Butterworth’s play commences with the protagonist’s
liminal space being threatened by an eviction notice from the adversarial council. These
tensions allude to the housing boom of the 2000s 2 as the council aims to establish a new
estate in his woodland. This initial encroachment on Johnny’s environment sets up the
ensuing narrative that illustrates Johnny’s alienation from collective society and his defiant
pursuit of isolation and self-sufficiency. Whilst Jerusalem is set in the south of England,
Banks’ gothic text is set on an island in rural Scotland in 1981. In a 2008 interview with The
Guardian, Banks claimed that the gothic novel was influenced by his own childhood pursuits
of “making bombs” and “giant catapults” 3. Frank, the novel’s protagonist, is alienated from
the local community because he exercises control over his insular world guided by
idiosyncratic ‘ritual’4 .Both Butterworth’s drama and Banks’ novel explore how indulgence
in transgressive behaviour contributes to the protagonist’s alienation and isolation. Notions
of alienation are reinforced through the setting and environment in both texts, which
underline a physical distance between the protagonist and wider society. Furthermore,
familial dynamics permeate both texts exacerbating the notions of isolation. However, the
unsustainable courting of isolation and alienation ultimately forces the protagonists to
confront reality.
Both Butterworth and Banks emphasise the protagonist’s isolation and alienation through the
depiction of setting. Johnny Byron resides within a stationery “mobile home 5” insulated by
the surrounding “wood”6. Unlike Johnny, who has more autonomy over where he lives, Frank
1
(Butterworth, 2021)
2
(Pettinger, 2018)
3
(Banks, 2008)
4
(Butterworth, 2021)
5
(Butterworth, 2021)
6
(Ibid)
1
, 29/6/22
unavoidably lives in his father’s home situated on an “island” 7. In Jerusalem Johnny’s home
stands in a “permanent state […] at the back of the clearing 8”. Butterworth’s staging “at the
back of”9 emphasises Johnny’s environment being physically distant from everyone else.
Furthermore, the use of “mobile”10 home is ironic as it suggests movement, but Johnny
remains stagnant and in a state of arrested development. In addition, Jerusalem adopts
Aristotle’s Dramatic Unities particularly the unity of space as the play exists in a single
physical space, Rooster’s Wood. Butterworth’s fixed physical setting allows the play to focus
on the implications of self-imposed isolation such as Johnny’s. Similarly, Banks suggests
Frank’s home is physically distant as the home resides on an “island” 11. An island typically
connotes feelings of isolation and detachment as they are physically disconnected from the
mainland. Therefore, the physical setting of an island suggests a physical boundary that
distances Frank from the outside world contributing to his alienation and estrangement.
Butterworth elaborates on Johnny’s environment focusing on the home’s surroundings that
reinforce the notion of isolation. Johnny’s mobile home is surrounded by “lots of junk. […]
an old record player […] an old American-style fridge […] empty bottles […] an old
windchime”12. Butterworth’s noun choice of “junk” 13 implies Johnny’s environment appears
disorderly and inhospitable, which contributes to his alienation from the wider community as
his isolated environment does not conform to the orderly and homogenised conventions
presented by the “new estate”14. Rooster’s Wood arguably represents a redundant space.
However, Hemming argues that “Rooster’s Wood is the obscene excess without which the
community cannot function” suggesting Johnny’s environment provides balance between
modernity and traditionalism15. Butterworth’s use of the semantic field of waste arguably
alludes to and “confronts […] the world economic crisis of 2008 […] and looming
environmental catastrophe”16 as suggested by Sean McEvoy. Thus, Butterworth posits Johnny
as a kind of anti-hero battling against the problematic onslaughts of modernity. In addition,
Butterworth’s juxtaposition of “Rooster’s Wood17” and the “new estate”18 emphasises the
7
(Banks, The Wasp Factory , 1984)
8
(Butterworth, 2021)
9
(Ibid)
10
(Ibid)
11
(Banks, The Wasp Factory , 1984)
12
(Butterworth, 2021)
13
(Ibid)
14
(Ibid, pg. 15)
15
(Carney, 2013)
16
(McEvoy, 2020)
17
(Butterworth, 2021)
18
(Ibid, pg. 15)
2
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