Chapter 21

On my group’s 2nd to last meeting, a couple of the members had already finished reading A Clockwork Orange. When I read the book’s introduction, it mentioned that this copy of the book included an illusive 21st chapter that wasn’t a part of the book’s original printing. The two members who read the last chapter warned me that it made the book worse. I decided to be my own judge.

That being said, the 21st chapter does make the book worse. It contradicts the entire idea of the dystopia. In contrast to 1984, where the most beautiful thing about the dystopia was that it was impossible to fix things, A Clockwork Orange’s final chapter shows hope for improvement. But not only that, it tells of hope for Alex’s improvement. One of the main things we learned this year in English about telling stories was that it’s always better to show what happened then to just tell it. Unfortunately, Burgess does just that, going on for several pages in a vivid explanation of how Alex changes inside.

I don’t fundamentally disagree with the idea of the chapter. The introduction provides some clever parallelism to the first chapter and gives the book a very hopeless, full-circle kind of feel. However, it is far too blatant in its explanation that Alex has changed. Had the book ended in a witty way after Alex found himself unable to take pleasure in his usual cruelties, the idea would be present, but not shoved in the readers face. The problem with this unmitigated presentation is that it contradicts how nuance-y the ideas of good and evil are. Throughout the book, the line between good and evil, positive and negative actions, is constantly being smudged, to the point where it’s nearly impossible to tell what falls into which category. The final chapter ruins this nuance, saying that hurting people is bad and getting married and starting families is good. And maybe they are, but the point when Burgess draws this line is the point when he removes the reader’s ability to choose for himself what the book means.