[The American edition of A Clockwork Orange] contains no word whatsoever to inform its readers that the last chapter has been deleted…. (p. 21)

My analysis of the technical-satiric patterns of the complete novel constitutes a low-keyed argument that the complete novel is superior to the truncated version….

The major contention of my argument—fair warning—is that the last chapter makes of A Clockwork Orange a better novel than Burgess may realize he has written. (p. 22)

[The ethical premise that "A man who cannot choose ceases to be a man"] can be taken as both the explicit and implicit thematic content of the novel only if one assumes, as Burgess's comments lead one to assume, that A Clockwork Orange is merely a didactic novel with conventional satiric aims, a piece of conventional-formula satire whose explicitly enunciated norm provides the standard by which the satirist condemns the denial of...