Anthony Burgess's novel 'A Clockwork Orange' (1962) is famous for its dark exploration of free will and state control. However, many readers in the United States were unaware for decades that the book originally had 21 chapters. The American publisher insisted on cutting the final chapter, believing that a darker, more nihilistic ending would be more commercially successful. In the original British ending, the protagonist Alex eventually grows tired of violence and contemplates a peaceful life and fatherhood. Stanley Kubrick’s famous film adaptation was based on the American version, which ends with Alex unchanged. Burgess was deeply unhappy with the cut, as the number 21 was symbolic of 'coming of age.' This literary discrepancy created two very different interpretations of the story’s moral message regarding the capacity for human change.