Teaching the Dystopic Novel at Advanced Level English Literature

(Session support notes)

Introduction
As part of
The dystopic novel evinces a strong theme common in much science fiction
and fantasy fiction, the creattion of a future time (usually), when the conditions
of human life are exageratedly bad due to deprivation, oppression or terror.
This created society or dystopia frequently constucts apocalyptic views of a
future using crime, imorality or corrupt government to create or sustain the
bad quality of peoples lives, often conditioning the masses to believe their
society is proper and just, and sometimes perfect. It can provide space for
heroism in disrupting the dystopian setting (e.g. John Savage in Brave New
World). Most dystopian fiction takes place in the future but often purposely
develops contemporary social trends taken to extremes. Dystopias are
frequently written as commentaries, as warnings or as satires, showing
current trends extrapolated to nightmarish conclusions.
Dystopia
A brief note on the etymology of Dystopia
The Oxford English Dictionary reports that the term Dystopia was first used in
the late 19th century by British philosopher John Stuart Mill. He also used
Jeremy Bentham's synonym, cacotopia. The prefix caco means the worst.
Both words were created in apposition to utopia, a word coined by Sir Thomas
Moore to describing an ideal place or society.
DYSTOPIA: definition
dys-/dus- (Latin/Greek roots: 'bad' or 'abnormal') + -topos (Greek root:
'place') = 'bad place'
eu- (Greek root: 'good') / ou- (Greek root: 'not') + -topos (Greek root: 'place')
= 'good/no place'
dystopia n. an imaginary wretched place, the opposite of utopia
utopia n. a place or state of ideal perfection, the opposite of dystopia
Some writers see the difference between a Utopia and a Dystopia often lying
in the reader/visitor's point of view: One person's heaven being another's hell.
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Common traits of dystopian fiction (source Wikipedia.com)

The following is a list of common traits of dystopias, although it is not
definitive. Most dystopian films or literature includes at least a few of the
following:
a hierarchical society where divisions between the upper, middle and
lower class are definitive and unbending.
a nation-state ruled by an upper class with few democratic ideals
state propaganda programs and educational systems that coerce most
citizens into worshipping the state and its government, in an attempt to
convince them into thinking that life under the regime is good and just
strict conformity among citizens and the general assumption that
dissent and individuality are bad
a fictional state figurehead that people worship fanatically through a
vast personality cult, such as 1984s Big Brother or Wes The
Benefactor
a fear of the world outside the state
a common view of traditional life, particularly organized religion, as
primitive and nonsensical
a penal system that lacks due process laws and often employs
psychological or physical torture
constant surveillance by state police agencies
the banishment of the natural world from daily life
a back story of a natural disaster, war, revolution, uprising, spike in
overpopulation or some other climactic event which resulted in
dramatic changes to society
a standard of living among the lower and middle class that is generally
poorer than in contemporary society
a protagonist who questions the society, often feeling intrinsically that
something is terribly wrong
because dystopian literature takes place in the future, it often features
technology more advanced than that of contemporary society
To have an effect on the reader, dystopian fiction typically has one other trait:
familiarity. It is not enough to show people living in a society that seems
unpleasant. The society must have echoes of today (see Rosenblatt; Pike), of
the reader's own experience. If the reader can identify the patterns or trends
that would lead to the dystopia, it becomes a more involving and effective
experience. Authors can use a dystopia effectively to highlight their own
concerns about societal trends. George Orwell apparently wanted to title 1984
1948, because he saw this world emerging in austere postwar Europe.
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Some examples of dystopian literature
1984 by George Orwell
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Anthem by Ayn Rand
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Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (This could perhaps be

considered a utopia, as the people in that society are certainly happy,
but it is more generally regarded by critics as a dystopian satire, as the
population is actually drugged into happiness.)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (see also the 2004 US politcal movie
echo Fahrenheit 911)
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies by William Golding (an example of a dystopia that
takes place in the present)
The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster
Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut

Some examples of dystopian films

A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrik
Blade Runner, adapted from Do Androids Dream
of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Logan's Run
Metropolis by Fritz Lang
Soylent Green
The Terminator and its sequels
12 Monkeys
Some examples of dystopias in music
Crime of the Century (1974) by the British band
Supertramp depicted and evoked the personal,
social and institutional causes and effects of alienation and mental
illness in contemporary society.
Time (1981) by ELO features tracks that may be considered dystopian
or utopian depending on your point of view.
OK Computer (1997) by the British band Radiohead.
British band Pink Floyd and its film adaptation are considered by many
to be the epitome of dystopian music. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the
Moon (1973) and many of their other recordings also explore dystopian
themes.
The Pleasure Principle (1979) by Gary Numan, ex-leader of the
Tubeway Army, continued his narratives of a robotic world in songs like
Metal.
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Commonly used dystopias

These could be used as introductory exercises for students to identify traits in
settings of well known dystopic films, to raise awareness prior to reading.

Totalitarian dystopias
As the name suggests, totalitarian societies utilises total control over and
demands total commitment from the citizens, usually hiding behind a political
ideology. Totalitarian states are, in most cases, ruled by party bureaucracies
backed up by cadres of secret police and armed forces. The citizens are often
closely monitored and rebellion is always punished mercilessly. Stories taking
place in totalitarian dystopias usually depict the hopeless struggle of isolated
dissidents. Totalitarian dystopias have, in general, dark psychological depths
and strong political qualities. Hitler's Third Reich and Stalin's Soviet Union
were real examples of such societies.
Examples: Nineteen Eighty-Four (novel; TV play; motion picture), We
(novel), Fatherland (novel; TV movie).
Nineteen
Eighty-Four

Bureaucratic dystopias
Bureaucratic dystopias, or technocratic dystopias, are strictly regulated and
hierarchial societies, thus related to totalitarian dystopias. Where totalitarian
regimes strive to achieve complete control, bureaucratic regimes only strive to
achieve absolute power to enforce laws. When totalitarian regimes tend to
found their own laws, bureaucratic regimes tend to defend old laws. The law
always seem to stand in conflict with rational thinking and human behaviour.
To change status quo, even everyday procedures, is a long and difficult
process for the citizens. It goes without saying such dystopias have strong
satirical qualities and to some extent surreal qualities as well.
Examples: Brazil (motion picture), The Trial (novel; several TV plays; TV
movie).
Cyberpunk dystopias
A cyberpunk society is essentially a drastically exaggerated version of our
own. Cyberpunk is a heterogeneous genre, but most dystopias have the
following settings: the technological evolution has accelerated, environmental
collapse is imminent, the boards of multi-national corporations are the real
governments, urbanisation has reached new levels and crime is beyond
control. Important, but not necessary essential, concepts in cyberpunk are

cybernetics, artificial enhancements of body and mind, and cyberspace, the

global computer network and ultimate digital illusion. Cyberpunk stories are
often street-wise and violent. It is debatedly the most influential dystopian
genre ever.
Examples: Neuromancer (novel; comic), Blade Runner (novel: Do Androids
Dream of Electric Sheep?; motion picture; comic; computer
game), Matrix (motion picture), Strange Days (motion picture).
Blade Runner

Crime dystopias
Crime dystopias may have different settings. These societies have been
infested with grave criminality and the authorities are about to lose control or
have already lost it. This criminality may span from street crime to organised
crime, more seldom governmental crime such as corruption and abuse of
power. The authorities often use drastic and inhumane measures to fight the
moral decay, perhaps out of desperation, perhaps out of necessity. The
society is often in imminent danger of becoming totalitarian. Crime dystopias
are not seldom political statements, usually of a radical and controversial
nature.
Examples: A Clockwork Orange (novel; motion picture), The Last Will of Dr.
Mabuse (novel; motion picture), The Escape from New York
(motion picture: part of series).
A Clockwork
Orange

Overpopulation dystopias
The population of the world has grown dramatically and the limited resources
of our planet are exhausted. Mankind is living in dispair and society is in
imminent danger of becoming or has already become social-darwinistic.
There is an enormous wealth gap between the rich and the poor, and military
and police are used to control the starving masses. There are many parallells
between overpopulation dystopias and cyberpunk dystopias, especially when
speaking of environment and urbanisation. This kind of dystopia is rather rare,
which is surprising: it may become an imminent problem in the near future.
Examples: Make Room! Make Room! (novel; motion picture:
Soylent Green), Stand on Zanzibar (novel).
Soylent Green

Leisure dystopias
Leisure dystopias are probably best described as utopias gone wretched or
failed paradise-engineering projects. In these societies, all problems have
been solved, at least officially, and all citizens are living in wealth and
happiness. Unfortunately, this is often achieved by suppressing individuality,
art, religion, intellectualism and so on and so forth. Conditioning,
consumption, designer-drugs, light entertainment and similar methods are
widely used in order to combat existential misery. Conformity is encouraged
as it makes it easier to control the population. The government's means of
control are always of a very subtle nature and open repression is basically
non-exist. Leisure dystopias are not very common nowadays, probably as
Utopia is almost extinct as concept.
Examples: Brave New World (novel; TV movie), Demolition Man (motion
picture), The Joy Makers (novel), Things to Come (motion picture).

Brave New World

Feminist dystopia
As the name suggests, feminist dystopias deal with oppression of
women. The feminist dystopia is built on patriarchal structures and the role of
woman has been diminished, e.g. to house-keeping and breeding. The
society is often totalitarian or at least crypto-totalitarian, sometimes with more
or less obvious parallells to fascism as represented in Mussolini's Italy and
Hitler's Germany. To one degree or another, all dystopias are patriarchal, but
in feminist dystopias it is explicit. This genre is debatedly one of the most
innovative dystopian genres nowadays, but have received a remarkably small
amount of attention, all too small in my opinion.
Examples: The Handmaid's Tale (novel; motion picture), Walk to the End of
the World (novel), Woman at the Edge of Time (novel), Bulldozer Rising
(novel).

The Handmaid's Tale

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Critical background for teaching about dystopias

Characteristics of dystopias

(Source: Wikipedia.com)

Dystopias usually express original and innovative ideas, thus forming a

heterogeneous genre. Still, there are some common characteristics.
Settings
Dystopian depictions are always imaginary. Although Hitler's Third Reich and
Stalin's Soviet Union certainly qualify as horror societies, they are still not
dystopias. The very purpose of a dystopia is to discuss, not depict
contemporary society or at least contemporary mankind in general. Stories
like Taxi Driver and Enemy of the State may have dystopian qualities, but they
still depict reality, however twisted the prerequisites of those stories might be.
Dystopian depictions may borrow features from reality, but the purpose is to
debate, critisise or explore possibilities and probabilities.
Dystopia is not really about tomorrow, but rather about today or sometimes
yesterday. Nevertheless, dystopian stories take place in the future in most
cases. The year 1984 may have past, but George Orwell's horror story
described a plausible future scenario when it was published for the first time in
1949 and it may still come true in a not too distant future. Interesting
exceptions from this rule are uchronias, so called What-if? stories, like
Fatherland.
Dystopias have always been a powerful rethorical tool. They have been used
and abused by politicians, thus making dystopian stories controversial. The
anti-totalitarianism in Nineteen Eighty-Four is explicit, but the anti-Reaganism
in Neuromancer is implicit. The war-ridden world in the Mad Max triology is
obviously a Dystopia, but it would be ridiculous to call it a political statement,
although one can claim it is a warning regarding the dangers of anarchy and
Social-Darwinism.
Themes
The leitmotif of dystopias has always been oppression and rebellion. In
Nineteen Eighty-Four, the pseudo-communistic party Ingsoc's oppression of
the people is obvious, but the multi-national mega-corprotions' oppression of
the people in Neuromancer is more subtle. The oppressors are usually more
or less faceless, as in THX-1138, but may sometimes be personified, as in
Blade Runner.
The oppressors are almost always much more powerful than the rebels.
Consequently, dystopian tales often become studies in survival. In
Neuromancer it is simply a question of staying alive, in Brave New World it is
a question of staying human. In Nineteen Eighty-Four it is even a matter of
remaining an individual with own thoughts. The hero, because it is usally not a

heroine, often faces utter defeat or sometimes Pyrrhic victory, a significant

feature of dystopian tales.
As the citizens of dystopian societies often live in fear, they become paranoid
and egoistical, almost like hunted animals. Dystopian citizens experience a
profound feeling of being monitored, shadowed, chased, betrayed or
manipulated. The factors which trigger this paranoia may be very evident and
explicit like in Brazil or more diffuse and implicit like in Blade Runner. The
most extreme example of paranoia is probably the Thought Police and the
thoughtcrime concept in Nineteen Eighty-four. As a result of this fearful
atmosphere, dystopian heroes are not seldom monsters in many respects.
The dehumanisation of society may also be connected to the benefits and
hazards of technological progress. Cyberspace cowboys refer to their bodies
as "meat" and blade runners hunt artificial, but completely sentient beings like
animals. In Dystopia, the borderline of humanity is often blurred and the very
concept of humanity distorted.
Finally, dystopian stories tend to explore the concept of reality. Rick Deckard
in Blade Runner is not sure if he is a human being or a bio-mechanical
replica. Case in Neuromancer sometimes cannot distinguish cyberspace from
reality. Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four is forced to learn that two plus
two make five. In many dystopian tales the people in general and the heroes
in particular get manipulated beyond reality.
Aesthetics
Dystopian stories frequently take place in landscapes which diminish people,
like large cities with mastodontic architecture or vast wastelands devastated
by war and pollution. Dystopian societies are usually, but far from always,
battered and worn-out. They may be colorless like Nineteen Eighty-Four or
kaleidoscopic like Blade Runner, but always visually obtrusive.
For uncertain reasons, dystopian movies often use film noir features like dim
rooms, rain wet asphalt, disturbing contrasts, symbolic shadows etc.
Unproportionaly much of the action takes place during night in many
dystopian stories. Possibly, this reflects the thematic relationship between
dystopian fiction and film noir.
Generally speaking, the environment plays an active role in dystopian
depictions. The environment is not only a fancy background, but emphasises
the message. A prominent example is Blade Runner: there can be no doubt in
the viewer that USA has become completely commercialised and that the
world is in a state of terminal decay.
I receive lots of recommendations from visitors, which is much appreciated.
Indeed, many a new dystopia has come to my attention. Quite a few dystopias
have a tendency to reappear, though. Thus, I thought it could be
advantageous to add a list of all dystopian depictions I'm already aware of.
I have received quite a few somewhat confused letters concerning this list, so
a couple of clarifications might be in order.

A majority of the works in the list are not true dystopias, by any definition.
This list should not be regarded as the ultimate list of dystopias, but rather
as a smorgasbord of works containing dystopian elements.
Although one can claim that every utopia is a relative dystopia, only
utopias with clearly dystopian tendencies, e.g. the meritocracy and
eugenics in Plato's The Republic, are included. Without this limitation, the
list loses its raison d'tre.
Many, and I stress many, of the works in the list are recommendations
from Exploring Dystopia's visitors. Needless to say, I can't examine all
these recommendations thoroughly, and some of them are bound to be
questionable.
The instrumental definition for this list, as well as the whole site, can be
found on the Dystopia: definition page. Please read this definition before
you make a recommendation or question a work on the list.

Finally, I don't lay claim to present a complete list, so recommendations and

corrections are most welcome. Titles marked with an asterisk (*) are dystopias
I have never actually read or seen, but which I have found in other lists or
been recommended by visitors. In most cases, I have at least a vague idea of
the intrigues and settings.
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Background knowledge of different dystopias

Where do A-level students study dystopic novels?

Current exam. specifications outline the course requirements, content and
these dystopic themes:
AQA Specification A

for

A2 Examination

The areas of fiction set in dystopias are in extrapolation of contemporary

themes of crime into future settings.

Unit 5 - Literary Connections

(2 texts compared: at least 1 prose)
Three areas are set for a choice of study:
Literary Themes (History in Literature or A Womans Struggle)
Time and Place (Visions of the Future)
Ways of Telling (Reflections or Minds under Stress)
Time and Place
EITHER Visions of the Future
Riddley Walker Russell Hoban (Picador) and
A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess (Penguin Classics)

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What should A-level students be learning through dystopic novel study?

Students should develop informed, critical and personal readings of literary
texts. The curriculum remains focused on a notion of a literary canon. Three
principles underpin what is meant by informed, critical and personal readings
Personal readings
Students will give individual interpretations of the novels meaning, not
passive, second hand opinions
Students will bring knowledge of the origins of the dystopic settings and
themes (e.g. Stalinism in Animal Farm) echoed in the text in order to
interpret its messages or satire
Critical readings
Students will reflect upon how their own 21 st century interpretations may
differ form contemporary readings by comparing historical and social
difference
Students will show knowledge gained from peripheral historical and social
study that may not be instantly accessible; this knowledge may be different
on different occasions and may change when assumptions through
discussion
Students will show understanding of multiple meanings from different
readings of a text that can co-exist and are complex
Informed readings of literature in context
Students will use knowledge of cultural and historical influences in which
literary texts are written and are understood. They will acknowledge and
balance their understanding of a texts cultural origins
At A2 students readings should be informed enough to evaluate the
significance of relevant cultural and historical influences. So they might show
they know how a dystopic text, such as A Clockwork Orange indicates
the significance of crime, culture, social conditioning and punishment in
constructing the social order of the late 1950s/early 1960s
Anthony Burgesss experiences of crime and his wifes injuries after a
criminal attack
pivotal episodes in the novel that develop the characters through literary
language (narrative and dialogic voices)
how the novel is received in the 21st Century, and how it may have been
received in the 1960s. This may recognize different views on social order
and conformity; these will show awareness of different literary critical
perspectives (e.g. Freudian and Pavlovian interpretations of behaviour).
In all this study students should become independent readers, with an
emphasis on their being able to explain their interpretations and support them
with close internal textual reference and with informed thinking from other
critical sources, be that literary criticism, historical knowledge and/or cultural
knowledge.
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Background work to intoduce working with a dystopic novel

at A2
Unit 5 - Literary Connections
Time and Place
Visions of the Future
Anthony Burgesss A Clockwork Orange
Introduction
A Clockwork Orange (1962) provides a still bleak vision of a violence-ridden
future. It shadows one murderous, Beethoven-loving fifteen-year-old gang
leader Alex in a complacent and conformist society. Roving bands of
delinquents fight, steal and rape to assert their freedom against the conformity
of a clockwork society. It is the classic tale of a grim and
terrifying future told through the eyes of Alex.
Written in a first person narrative of Alex the fifteen year
old boy and leader of a gang, his Droogs. He and most of
his gang members speak in an argot that Burgess
himself created, basing it most of of Russian words. This
artificial language owes much to Burgess's uninhibited
experimentation with language.
Strong themes of A Clockwork Orange are manipulation
and control; these are part of its cultural context. Anthony
Burgess comments on the changes he saw taking place
in 1960s Britain. He wrote the first draft in 1960, when he
was diagnosed with a brain tumour and told he only had a year to live. During
this time, he wrote five and a half novels, working under a self-imposed
discipline of 2,000 words per day. A Clockwork Orange was the half novel.
Having survived the year's notice, Burgess came back to it, determined to
complete the visionary book. He was interested in the cultural changes taking
place around him: the advent of coffee shops, the influence of pop music and
the emerging power of teenage gangs.
He focuses on a time in the 1970s when teenage violence was a recognised
social problem, forcing the government to turn to techniques of negative
reinforcement (conditioning/brainwashing).
In 1961, he went on holiday to Russia, when it occurred to him to create a
language that would be a mixture of Russian and English, like a Red Square
meets Shakespeare and Mods rhyming slang. He called it nadsat: Burgess's
Russianised English slang/argot was to be used by teenagers - a phonetically
enjoyable dialect, perhaps the neologism of the future, much like Orwell's
Newspeak in 1984. With words like horrowshow (good), slovos (words), rot
(mouth), zoobies (teeth), cancers (cigarettes), gulliver (head), guttiwuts

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(stomach) and pretty polly (money) - you can begin to see the different types
of language that Burgess has drawn upon.
Possibly the most ironic is the word Bog for God, where the repetition of the
consonant G/g can still be heard. The status of being a proper noun is
preserved, but contempt is created through the meaning and associations we
have with the word "bog", only increased through such an apparent
relationship with the original term.
Not surprisingly the name of the narrator is significant in terms of its
derivation: a-lex means without, or outside of, the law. This provides a useful
insight into Burgess's success. He subverts what we already know. He makes
us refer to what we know to be the truth and questions it, practising the
technique on us - we become Pavlov's dogs.
One significant example from early in the book has Alex and his droogs
(fellow gang members) tease, rape and attack a couple in their home. This
happens in Chapter 2 when Alex is only 15 years old but, importantly, at a
point for the reader when nadsat is still relatively new. I read this passage with
my students and what we found resulted in a very interesting discussion. It
was not the nadsat use that was shocking or seemed to be reflecting the
violence taking place, it was the use of Standard English. There seemed to be
a number of reasons for this, reasons Burgess presumably intended to
intellectually engage the audience in such a way that Alex could not be too
alien.
Initially the readers are passive observers, not participant to the rape. But,
when they come across phrases in Standard English and realise what is
actually taking place, they feel shock, but not enough to stop reading,
because they are then waiting for the next piece of Standard English - our
shared language - as though completing a puzzle.
Unsurprisingly a frightening element is the fact that the reader also becomes
aware, and not at any specific place, that they have understood the nadsat.
We looked through and tried to identify the exact place - but could not.
Impact? We relate to Alex; we understand his language; he is not alien. You
can see why Burgess was so furious when the original American edition
carried a glossary. As a group, we discussed in detail the impact this would
have on the reader and how it would change your whole relationship with the
book, most especially with Alex. With a glossary, you don't trust your own
understanding of words in their context.
Looking up words in a glossary would acknowledge that Alex speaks in
another language - his rebellious teenage Argot - rather than an exiting
culmination of a distortion of different languages, word meanings, slang and
historicism. Alex refers to his friends as "O my brothers" and dresses in
apparel that would place him comfortably in court during the time of
Shakespeare and Marlowe.

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The brutality depicted in A Clockwork Orange emerged after an assault on

Burgess's first wife Lynne in 1943 by American GI's in London, that resulted in
the loss of their expected child. The movie version of the novel, directed by
Stanley Kubrick in 1971, encountered heavy criticism - some of its violent
scenes were said to have inspired real-life violence by gangs of hoodlums and was eventually withdrawn by its producers and distributors.
The film Conspiracy in which Nazi officials meet to decide the fate of Jews
refers to it as cleansing. Another example of extremist euphemism is Orwell's
vision of thought police. Many other such euphemisms exist in literature and
their ironic impact can be slow to work on a reader but devastatingly corrosive
of our sensitivities, replicating the conditioning portrayed in the novel.
Alex's cure in the book is reclamation treatment, which involves being
drugged, having his eyelids taped open, Beethoven playing (the music he
loves to daydream violence to) and being made to watch violent scenes over
and over again. He then begins to associate violence with being sick. The
wonderful irony of this is that he cannot even contemplate suicide. He goes to
the library in search of ways to kill himself but cannot stomach the violence.
He turns to the Bible for solace and comfort but is sick at the violence he finds
there.
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A note on names
Meaning assigned to the name "A Clockwork Orange"
Burgess wrote that the title came from an old Cockney expression "As queer
[i.e. strange] as a clockwork orange", but that he had found that other people
read new meanings into it.
Some have found a secondary meaning of an organic entity, full of juice and
sweetness and agreeable odour, being turned into an automaton. The youth
of Malaysia, where I had lived for nearly six years, saw that orange contained
orang, meaning in Malay a human being. In Italy, where the book became
Arancia all' Orologeria, it was assumed that the title referred to a grenade, an
alternative to the ticking pineapple.
(From the prefatory note to A Clockwork Orange: A play with music,
Century Hutchinson Ltd., 1987)
The Name of the main character, Alex
The name of the antihero is Alex, short for Alexander, which means 'defender
of men'. Alex has other connotations - a lex: a law (unto himself); a lex(is): a
vocabulary (of his own); a (Greek) lex: without a law. Novelists tend to give
close attention to the names they attach to their characters. Alex is a rich and
noble name, and I intended its possessor to be sympathetic, pitiable, and
insidiously identifiable with us, as opposed to them.
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Brief synopsis for classroom use

Set a few years in the future, the book follows the career of fifteen year old
Alex. His main pleasures in life are classical music, sex of all kinds, and
random acts of extreme violence ("ultraviolence" in Alex's idiom). He tells his
story in a teenage slang called "Nadsat", which mixes Russian with English
slang.
Eventually Alex is caught and "rehabilitated" by a program of aversion therapy,
which, though rendering him incapable of violence (even in self-defence), also
makes him unable to enjoy his favourite classical music as an unintended side
effect.
The moral question of the book is that Alex is now "good", but his ability to
choose this has been taken away from him; his "goodness" is as artificial as
the clockwork orange of the title.
Eventually Alex falls foul of some of his former victims, and the political fuss
that ensues results in the state removing his conditioning; he gleefully returns
to his early habits but finds he has lost the taste for it. The 20th chapter ends
the original American edition on a dark note, with Alex listening joyfully to
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and eagerly anticipating his return to creating
havoc.
At this point some editions of the book end, but there is a 21st chapter which
was dropped at the time of US publication. Burgess claims that the original
American publisher dropped his final chapter in an effort to make the book
more depressing. The intended book was divided into three parts of 7
chapters each, which added up to be 21, a symbolic age at which a child
earns his rights (when the novel was written). There is controversy as to
whether the 21st chapter makes the book better or makes the book worse. In
the 21st chapter, which takes place a few years after the 20th, we find Alex
realising that his violent phase is over, but that it was inevitable.
A few of the old characters are reincarnated as new friends of Alex. He thinks
of starting a family, while thinking that his children will be as violent as he was,
for a time. The line "What's it going to be then, eh?" recurs throughout the
book, and the first chapter of each of the three parts begins with the line.

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