Frank Cauldhame
The narrator of the book, Frank is a 16 year old with an incredibly vivid imagination. He takes us through the novel from his perspective, gives us a tour of the island on which both his father and he reside. Morbidly fascinated with death and the power behind it, Frank spends most of his time on the island killing small animals and sacrificing them to the eponymous 'Factory' to hold back what he sees as his mortal enemies, Women and The Ocean itself. He is extremely distrubed from an attack he received as a child from an old family pet, in which his testicles were removed, he holds his biological impotence against Women. Frank represents Banks' possible mistrust with organized religion, and stands as an example of what it can become if left unregulated. He displays, aside from his clear mental health problems, an uncanny ability to stay calm and calculated in the face of usually overwhelming circumstances. He claims responsibility for three deaths, that of a family friend, a cousin and his own brother and rationalises these as a 'stage he was going through'.
Eric Cauldhame
Eric is Franks older brother, once sound of mind and now an inmate at a mental health institution. He was placed shortly after an extremely traumatising incident occurred at his old job in a hospital, where he witnessed a child suffering with Alcavaria to have maggots underneath the plates which were keeping it's skull together. He is from then-on regarded by Frank as an ever looming presence in his life, an example of what could possibly have happened to Frank if didn't see himself as stable and rational. Eric is known by the authorities to have set fire to stray dogs while alive, something which was part of his admission to the mental health institution. He begins the novel with having escaped, and frequently calls Frank on the telephone barking and skwarking and taking in gibberish.
Angus Cauldhame
Father to both Eric and Frank, and mostly referred to in the book as 'My Father' by Frank, Angus is an incredibly odd and eccentric man with an incredibly dark secret. He is physically crippled from an incident with his ex wife, the mother of Frank and Eric, in where she ran him down with a motorcycle whilst trying to leave the house after giving birth to and abandoning as younger brother. Angus is sly, strange and mistrusting of anything Frank does, and clearly knows that his 'son' is capable of beyond normal teenage mischief. He frequently challenges Frank to measuring competitions or random trivia, to make himself feel superior and keeps to a study where he drinks heavily, a place in which Frank would love to access. He has an overt mistrust of women, which become a crucial plot point of the book, and represents Banks’ idea of Patriarchal rule.
Blyth Cauldhame
Blyth is a cousin of Franks, and son to their Uncle James (fathers side). He is a thuggish bully, spiteful and loathsome, who comes to stay on the island with his father. An incident in which he burns Eric's pet rabbits alive creates the catalyst for Frank to commit his first murder. The next year he comes to stay on the island with his father, Blyth has lot a leg below the knee due to what is described as a ‘road accident’, in which another boy was killed. Blyth’s complete reluctance to accept his new artificial limb as well as any remorse for the young boy who died gives Frank a sub contextual argument that killing him is ok. He continues to be a bully yet strangely liked by Frank, who probably finds his lack of empathy fascinating, and is killed when Frank places an Adder in his artificial leg. This death is the first of three, and the ease in which Frank escapes any blame is probably the reason he continues.
Paul Cauldhame
Paul is a younger brother from both Eric and Frank, who may or may not be the legitimate child of Angus. His mother rode her motorcycle to the island to give birth to Paul, only to abandon him again days later. He is sweet in nature, and innocent. Frank believes that the birth and Paul and the death of his 'nemesis' Old Saul, the family dog that bit him, coincided some kind of with shamanistic spirit swap, and that Paul is a the embodiment of Old Sauls spirit. Frank kills him for what he claims are 'fundamental reasons'. Frank takes Paul to the beach, where there was an unexploded WW2 mine, which Frank shows him and instructs to hit with a stick. Paul, not knowing any better, does so and dies in the resulting explosion. Paul is the only Death relating to Franks curious religious aspects, as the only one that he attempts to seriously rationalise.
Esmerelada
Esmeralda is a cousin to Frank, and is killed by him for no discernable reason other than to possibly complete it to a number 3, 'rounding it off'. She is again quite unlike Frank, and is trusting and pleasant in nature, and shown to be a fragile soul. Frank plans her death meticulously, and ties her to a large kite he built after taking her to the coast. She is swept out to sea, and Frank spends the next few hours preparing his explanations to his father and authorities. He recognizes Esmeraldas death as the last one he shall ever plan to be a part of, and doesn't ever give a real reason for it.
