The majority of Naked Lunch does not follow any clear structure, chronology, or geography.[57] Instead, it abruptly jumps between a series of loosely-connected episodes (called "routines" by Burroughs), which can be read in any order.[58] Although the novel is book-ended with a realistic crime story, most of these routines are abstract and surreal, blurring any distinction between fantasy and reality.[59][1] These routines are sporadically interrupted by parenthetical asides, which comment on or clarify the text. For example, when describing a scene as taking place "...under silent wings of the Anopheles mosquito," Burroughs adds the parenthetical "(Note: This is not a figure. Anopheles mosquitoes are silent.)"[60][61] This structure builds on that of Burroughs' incomplete previous novel Queer, which began as a conventional narrative before fragmenting into its own series of episodic routines.[62]
The novel describes Interzone's four political parties: the Liquefactionists want to physically dissolve and absorb other people, the Senders want to control other people's minds via telepathy, and the Divisionists want to endlessly replicate themselves. These parties each represent threats to individualism, and are opposed by the fourth party, the Factualists, to which Lee belongs. The novel is especially critical of the Senders, describing them as "the Human Virus", interested in control solely for its own sake, and the root cause of "poverty, hatred, war, police-criminals, bureaucracy, [and] insanity".[63][64] According to Thomas Newhouse, the novel is postmodern and parodic, forging complex conspiracies by combining tropes from detective fiction, science fiction, and horror fiction. These conspiracies underlie the core struggle between authoritarian, bureaucratic control, epitomized by Dr. Benway, and individual freedom, represented by the Factualist Party. AJ and Lee, both Factualists, fight back against these systems of control with violence and absurd humor. However, Burroughs undermines these characters' heroism: AJ and Lee work for Islam Inc., which has unclear goals of its own, AJ may be a double agent, and Lee is himself controlled by addiction.[65]
Burroughs mostly arranged the novel's chapters following the "arbitrary" order in which he received the galley proofs, but he consciously moved the "Hauser and O'Brien" chapter to the end, creating a frame narrative in which William Lee evades "the heat" of the law.[5] Lee's escape from the agents at the end of the book is portrayed as "spiritual and linguistically radical" freedom.[3]
The novel's first chapter retells events previously described in Burroughs' semi-autobiographical first novel Junkie, but with a new character called "the fruit", who serves as a parody of the implied reader of Junkie; the fruit presents himself as hip and street-smart, but Lee mocks his naivety and plans to sell him catnip by claiming it's cannabis.[66] Other routines are also based on Burroughs' real life, such as Lee's visit to the County Clerk[67] and his addiction to Eukodol.[68]
These routines emphasize addiction, especially to heroin, which can be read as a metaphor for broader social problems and obsessions.[69][1][57] David Ayers interprets heroin as Burroughs' "paradigm" for understanding systems of control.[3] However, Frank McConnell argues that Naked Lunch is straightforwardly about heroin addiction in itself, and should not be read as symbolic.[59] Lydenberg argues that Burroughs' parenthetical asides challenge the reader's instinct to "evade" the darkness of the book by treating its disturbing elements as symbols or allegories, and instead show that Burroughs insists on a literal reading.[61]
The novel has been described as "an essentially nihilistic work"[70] and "consistently hostile, contemptuous, forcefully hateful [...] without joy."[71] Robin Lydenberg suggests that the novel advocates "a violent rejection and undermining of the entire dual system of morality."[72]
Burroughs' writing aims to provoke disgust.[73] The novel contains many explicit sexual scenes, emphasizing "sterile, inhuman, malevolent" acts of castration, sodomy, pederasty, and sadomasochism;[74][75] in particular, the novel features recurring imagery connecting hanging with orgasm.[76][77] Many "routines" involve body horror, especially grotesque transformations of humans into insects or amorphous blobs.[74] Many of the novel's grotesque images revolve around consumption: people are described as animals like vampire bats and boa constrictors, trade giant centipede meat, and depend on monsters called Mugwumps, who "secrete an addicting fluid from their erect penises which prolongs life by slowing metabolism".[78][79] In one of the novel's most famous chapters, a man teaches his anus to talk, only for it to take over the rest of his body, including his brain. Tony Tanner sees this routine as a paradigm for Burroughs' general theme of humans decaying into lower forms of life.[80] Burroughs himself considered the scene a metaphor for ever-expanding bureaucracy.[12]
Naked Lunch has sometimes been classified as dystopian science fiction in the tradition of Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four.[81][82] Marshall McLuhan considered the novel an "anti-Utopia" response to Arthur Rimbaud's Illuminations.[83]
