SOURCE: "The Bitter Fruits of Freedom," in The Consolations of Ambiguity: An Essay on the Novels of Anthony Burgess, University of Missouri Press, 1971, pp. 55-75.

Morris is an American critic, educator, and biographer. In the following excerpt, he compares the structure and philosophic themes of Burgess's dystopian novels, A Clockwork Orange and The Wanting Seed.

What followed from Burgess' preoccupation with the transition and ultimate death rattle of colonialism abroad and the atrophy of "self-indulgent" England at home were his two dark visions of dystopia—A Clockwork Orange and The Wanting Seed. Even the parboiled paternalism of the Empire and the synthetic socialism of the welfare state had still apparently left room—though not much—for a dialogue between the individual and society and had kept alive discussions as to what was right and what was wrong with England (The Right to an Answer, for example, presumed some...