Similar to the last post, this is a long format book report for A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. This dystopian tale tells of a young teen named Alex and what begins as a normal, nightly extreme violence gone wrong. One of his gang members betrays him and Alex is sent to prison. He is then selected as the guinea pig to one of the government's experiments– a way to synthetically make the teenage desire for violence disappear. By doing so the government takes away Alex's free will and his love for classical music. The novel focuses on the idea of whether it is more important to maintain the individual will of each person or focus on the good of society as a whole.
My group and I also filmed a GC around this book of which I will attach in the next blog post.
As always...you're very welcome.
Genre: Science Fiction/ Dystopian
Author: Anthony Burgess
Type: Novella
I. Main Characters
a. Alex, the protagonist of A Clockwork Orange, is self-righteous and, as natural human beings are, most preoccupied with his own well-being. He is immature throughout most of the plot, unable to understand the actual weight that lies with signing his name away to various people.
b. F. Alexander, the bookish author that aids Alex after the police beat him up, is hypocritical, kind, and suspicious. He is hypocritical because of his desire to help the greater masses but his lack of concern for each single person. He was kind to Alex when he first arrived because he saw him as an ideal but then he turned ravaging mad as he saw Alex for who he was as a person.
c. Dim, one of Alex’s old droogies, is vengeful and corrupt. He represents the manipulations of the government as he later becomes a police officer and takes revenge on Alex for mistreating him. He was untrustworthy as a friend to Alex by allowing the police to capture Alex.
d. Minister of the Interior is cold and pragmatic, his only concern is for the outcome but not the ethics of the process. He, like much of the other politicians, use Alex as a tool to achieve their own agenda.
II. Minor Characters
a. Dr. Brodsky is the doctor that is in charge of administering Ludovico’s Technique on Alex. He is either oblivious or receives joy from Alex’s suffering. He is highly self-important and truly views what he does to Alex as good, calling Alex’s inability to make his own decisions Christian-like.
b. Dr. Branom is Dr. Brodsky’s assistant. Alex instantly takes a liking to Dr. Branom for his bright blue eyes. He portrays a kind and friendly persona but nonetheless is unsympathetic to Alex’s pain. He delights in the science behind Ludovico’s Technique.
III. Setting
a. The setting of the book takes place in both a larger city and the outskirts town surrounding it. The city is where Alex and most of the action with the government and his droogs take place while F. Alexander lives on the outskirts of a small town cottage. The language spoken by the adult characters in the story is of modern English.
b. The time period is roughly 50 years in the past judging from the lack of television screens and the use of stereos. The novel was published in 1962; Ludovico’s Technique must have been considered advance for scientific innovation during the time. During the time it was published the novel would have seemed to take place in the near future.
IV. Background Context
Anthony Burgess was inspired by many aspects from his background including his religion, Catholicism, his trip to Leningrad, witnessing himself the Russian thug youths, and his disapproval of communism. Catholicism instilled Anthony the idea of the inherent evil of man. During his trip to Leningrad, he witnessed a government that served the great good at the cost of the individual. He also met some of the teen thugs, and much of their bizarre attire and ways influenced the youth in A Clockwork Orange.
V. Symbolism
a. The milk-plus that the youth drink at the Korova Milkbar before each night of havoc represents the immaturity and powerlessness of the characters. Milk is fed to the young as a form of nourishment but the milk at the bar is laced with hallucinogens, creating a corrupt and moral-less generation of youth. They are all inevitably powerless against the government, perhaps foreshadowing Alex’s stolen freedom of choice.
b. The constant repetition of dark imagery as depicted by the description of the nighttime represent the unrestrained domain of self-choice–where individuals such as Alex can be free to do as they choose. Only in the nighttime or darkness is Alex able to exercise this freedom even though in the day he faces his consequences. In the scene where Alex and the other cellmates kill the new cellmate, the prison room is dark except two red lights, and in this environment Alex is free to do as he chooses. In the daytime, however, he is betrayed by his cellmates and punished.
VI. Writing Style
An important aspect of the narrator’s voice is the “nadsat” slang the youth gangs speak in. This characterizes them from the other “goloss” of the adults. When Alex wants to impress or trick an adult he takes on a polite and over-the-top archaic speech of renaissance poetry. The way Alex speaks is what ultimately reveals his identity to F. Alexander, hinting that he was one of the rapists during that fateful night (fateful indeed).
VII. Theme
The novel revolves around the question of whether the greater good of the people is more important than the individual’s freedom. Burgess expresses his own opinion that no matter how lowly the individual is, it is inhumane to strip him of his freedom of choice. The novel addresses this by ultimately allowing Alex to realize good for himself as he comes to mature and rid of thug activities. The inhuman state of which Alex was succumbed to, powerless to even control his own body, puts the individual in the position of an animal.
VIII. Structure
Alex is speaking as a storyteller from the future, reciting the incidents that happened in his youth. His speaks plaintively if the “nadsat” is translated. The events happen chronologically, separated into three major parts: his freedom, his physical confinement, and finally his mental confinement. Each part begins in a similar way with the question of “What’s it going to be, eh?”, but each time different as the individual retains less and less of his own free will.
IX. Quotes
a. “What’s it going to be then, eh?”: This is a question of whether or not you want to take up the freedom of a choice, in other words, if given the freedom, what will the choice be. The signatures Alex signed where ironic because regardless of whether he signed or not he was to still be used by people. The choice to do violence was Alex’s own and this quote represents his slow but steady loss of individuality.
b. “Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.”: Burgess believed that sin is inherent in mankind; it cannot be forced upon him. When it is forced, the individual is depraved of choice and is no longer defined as a man. This represents the work as a whole that the government should not strip the individual of rights for the good of society.
c. “But what I do I do because I like to do”: Alex’s choice to commit violent acts was by his own determination. In addition, his choice to cease the same violence is for his own reasons as well. This quote is representative, once again, of the value on individual choice over good of society.
d. “He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice” When Alex was on stage in front of the Minister, Governor, etc, he was no longer a human of reason but the sickness guided his actions so that in order not to fall over sick he had no choice in what he wanted to do but to do what would allow him to survive. These basic survival instincts compare him to the similarity of an animal, incapable of reason.
X. Summary
Alex, a fifteen year old teen is the self-proclaimed leader of his gang. He and his friends commit violent acts of rape, assault, and damage to the older generation each night. After a falling out with one of his friends, Dim, he and his friends prepare to rob an old lady. Dim takes the chance to enact revenge on Alex by whipping him unconscious so that Alex awakens to be arrested by the police. One night Alex and his prison mates accidentally kill one of the new cellmates; the blame was all placed on Alex and the Minister choose Alex to be the guinea pig for Ludovico’s Technique. Alex undergoes the procedure much under his will after he realizes what the government was doing to him and tries to escape but fails. Soon after he associates sickness with violence and so he is unable to commit violence of any short.
Alex returns home to find that a tenant named Joe has taken his room and even his place as a son. Frustrated, he runs away. He goes into a bookstore hoping to find out how to commit suicide, but runs into an old man he once assaulted. Several old men beat Alex up as Alex is now unable to defend himself. The police arrive and by chance Dim and one of Alex’s old enemies are now cops. They take him to the outskirts of town and beat him. Alex drags himself until he comes to the house of F. Alexander, a political dissenter and writer. He helps Alex recover but develops suspicions as he remembers Alex’s voice as one of the boys who killed his wife. Alex is then used by political dissenters to throw over the government. He is given a room to live where in the dissenters manipulations, Alex throws himself out of the building, placing him in the hospital for a week.
His condition is reversed and he is then used by the Minister to regain popular approval. In the final chapter he creates another gang but he is no longer interested in violence and craving for a family of his own.
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