Study Guide

The Wanting Seed Part 4, Chapter 5

By Anthony Burgess

Part 4, Chapter 5

Tristram continues on towards Lichfield, and when he reaches the town, he finds a huge carnival going on.
Tristram joins a crowd that has gathered to watch a parade. The parade is highly sexualized and silly, and everyone involved seems to be having a lot of fun.
Some members of the parade are carrying a large pole (a May Pole) that symbolizes a phallus, and as the parade moves into the nearby fields, the men bury the pole ceremoniously in a large hole dug into the ground.
Tristram joins in with the dancing and feasting around the site of the buried pole, and eventually wanders off into the furrowed fields with one of the local women.
At midnight, a group of local men compete for the honour of having sex with the queen of the parade, and a number of other ritual pairings are organized.
Eventually, everyone falls asleep peacefully in the fields after a long night of feasting and reveling.
At dawn, Tristram wakes, "kiss[es] his new friends goodbye," and continues on his journey north (4.5.7). Well, that was weird.