The Wanting Seed Analysis

The Wanting Seed

The Wanting Seed, a novel written by Anthony Burgess, shows that nothing of undeniable control merely imposes on the best intentions of the rational mind. Tristram is a history teacher in a future reality where the liberal government rules with a shaking finger, the population has exploded and drastically reduced the quality of life. As his community changes due to the cycle of sociological thought, in which his government revolves about, he is thrust in to a new chaotic, cannibalistic, transformed world where his only thoughts are regaining himself and the life he used to live. The three phases of the cycle are the Pelphase, the Interphase, and the Gusphase. Each phase tries to understand its community but when broken down
each is leading the community into the inescapable combination of sex and violence. The message gathered from The Wanting Seed is that the majority of people will accept rational notions in the form of moral codes or neighborly wisdom, but cold logic will never excite them or inspire the addictive passion awakened by the combination of sex and death.
Palphase, the first of the three phases, named after Pelagius, who believed in the natural goodness of mankind.
Governments operating within a Pelagian view see man as essentially good or reasonable. The belief is that, given the proper encouragement and led in the correct direction, men will act within a moral structure that benefits the entire community. Law enforcement is casual, "each floor that rose before Tristam's eyes showed boys not yet in their new classrooms, some not even scurrying. The Pelphase. Nobody tried to enforce the rules. The work got done. More or less." (24). With this lack of law enforcement in the Pelphase, the people are bound to start to take advantage of it. The people will cut corners and get away with more. Whether it is acts of violence, stealing, or any other
crime. This leads into the Interphase, respect for the ideas of the Pelphase has dwindled, and the utopia fails. The Pelagian honor system has been exploited, order is gone and anarchy appears. "The governors become disappointed when they find out that men are not as good as they thought they were" (19). People cry out for authority and protection, police brutality runs rampant. "Beatings-up. Secret police. Torture in brightly lighted cellars. Condemnation without trial. Finger-nails pulled out with pincer. The rack. The cold-water treatment. The gouging-out of eyes. The firing-squad in the cold dawn. And all this because of disappointment. The Interphase." (19). The Interphase is a drastic step from control to chaos, much more arrests appear, violence and sex becomes acceptable in the everyday society.
Although the Interphase cannot last forever, the governors become shocked at their own excessive punishment toward the people.
They relax their authority and the state drifts into the Gusphase, named after St. Augustus, who believed that man was primarily evil. The society at this point is complete chaos, cannibalism is discovered and people are killing others just for fresh food, the food companies even have the essence of man which the government buys and serves to their army. "The new books were full of sex and death, perhaps the only materials for a writer."(228). The disappointment cannot sink any further. However, the new view on the people is outstripping to reality and society behavior is better than expected and optimism appears. Eventually Gusphase reasserts back into Pelphase, and the cycle renews
itself.
The Wanting Seed is a novelization of this cycle, and Tristram's historical expertise makes him a knowing outsider as he watches the general public get swept up in the phases of the cycle. The themes showed by the author in The Wanting Seed seem far to relevant at the dawning of this seemingly new twenty first century, as land and resources waste away and the population continues to steadily raise, and the world's most powerful authorities engage in an undeclared war on an enemy whose name is only known as ‘Terror'. It is possible that the masses are being molded into support for a never-ending war, fundamental to sustain a quality of life that seems otherwise unsustainable? Conceivably, the masses won't have it any other way. Perhaps human existence is little more than sex and death, one forever requiring the other.