1. Explain the view of youth and youth culture in A Clockwork Orange. Is it a positive or negative vision? The vision of youth culture in A Clockwork Orange is almost entirely negative, a horrifying extreme of the tendencies of young people in the early 1960s, when Burgess wrote his novel. The young people are …
Anthony Burgess had a remarkably diverse range of interests and talents. Adding to the title of novelist, he was a poet, composer, librettist, playwright, critic, essayist, translator, linguist, and teacher. Today, his most famous work is the 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange, a shocking and lyrical classic of twentieth-century dystopian literature. The writer was …
“What’s it going to be then, eh?” (Part 1, Chapter 1) The repetition of this question at the opening of all three parts of the novel is an example of the symmetrical structure of Burgess’s work. It also points to the theme of free will. At every point in a person’s life, there are choices …
Dystopia: A Future Nightmare A dystopia is a utopia turned on its head, a nightmarish society wracked by violent crime, disease, or controlled by a totalitarian government. Dystopian novels depict a society sometime in the future in which things have gone horribly awry. Their purpose is to examine current societal problems and predict how …
A clockwork orange is the central metaphor of the novel. Taken from the Cockney expression “queer as a clockwork orange,” this image denotes something truly bizarre. Incidentally, as Burgess was also aware, orang is Malay for “man,” so “a clockwork orange” literally can be taken to mean a clockwork, or mechanized, human being.In the novel, …
Alex Alex, the narrator and main character, is a fifteen-year-old menace to society. Each night he leads his gang of droogs, or pals, on sprees of “ultra-violence”—beating, robbing, and raping for fun. An only child, Alex lives in an apartment with his meek and loving parents, who appear unaware of his criminal lifestyle. Alex’s …
“What’s it going to be then, eh?” Alex asks his new droogs, Len, Rick, and Bully. Alex has gone back to his former life, this time a bit older and with a job at the National Gramodisc Archives. The gang is at the Korova Milkbar, drinking drugged milk and getting sharpened up for the night’s …
A Clockwork Orange: Novel Summary: Part 3, Chapter 7 Read More »
Part 3, Chapter 6Alex’s leap from the window does not kill him, although, as he lies on the sidewalk about to pass out from the pain, he realizes that had been his new friends’ intention all along. They wanted Alex to commit suicide so they could blame the State.Alex comes to in a hospital bed, …
A Clockwork Orange: Novel Summary: Part 3, Chapter 6 Read More »
Alex awakens from a good sleep and smells breakfast below. Wishing to know the name of this kind “motherly” soul who has taken him in, he searches the bookshelves for a copy of A Clockwork Orange. The writer’s name is F. Alexander. Alex skims through the book, finding it difficult to follow. The gist of …
A Clockwork Orange: Novel Summary: Part 3, Chapter 5 Read More »
Badly beaten and dripping with icy rain, Alex walks through the dark until he reaches a little cottage with HOME written on its gate. He goes to the door for help and is invited inside. Once inside, he recognizes the man as the writer he and his friends had terrorized on their “surprise visit” two …
A Clockwork Orange: Novel Summary: Part 3, Chapter 4 Read More »
