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- The title refers to the Cockney saying "as queer as a clockwork orange". It means that something appears to be natural on the outside, but on the inside, it is actually artificial. The primary topics the novel deals with are the relationship between evil and free will, the state's role in human affairs, and what it means to be human.
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Dec 17, 2021 · What does the title A Clockwork Orange, really mean? Stanley Kubrick's movie is based on the dystopian novel by British author Anthony Burgess of the same name.
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A Clockwork Orange, novel by Anthony Burgess, published in 1962. Set in a dismal dystopian England, it is the first-person account of a juvenile delinquent who undergoes state-sponsored psychological rehabilitation for his aberrant behaviour. The novel satirizes extreme political systems that are based on opposing models of the perfectibility or in...
The novel opens in a totalitarian society where violent youths abound. Alex, the protagonist, has a passion for classical music and is a member of a vicious teen gang. He and his droogs (friends) engage in drug-fueled orgies (milk spiked with narcotics is the drug of choice), and their random acts of brutality—particularly against defenseless people—are detailed with enjoyment in Burgess’s made-up slang, Nadsat. At one point the group breaks into a cottage, beating a young writer and gang raping his wife, who later dies. When an attempted robbery goes awry and Alex murders an elderly woman, he is sentenced to 14 years in prison. He gradually adjusts to life behind bars, but one night he and his cellmates beat a new prisoner, who dies. Alex is chosen to undergo an experimental program called the Ludovico’s Technique, a brutal form of aversion therapy that includes Alex watching films of Nazi atrocities. The treatment causes him to become physically sick if he even thinks about committing a crime. It also results in Alex disliking classical music. While government officials deem the procedure a success, the prison chaplain, who had befriended Alex, questions the ethics of removing one’s free will. According to the chaplain, good behaviour should be a choice.
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Alex is released from prison, but his behavioral conditioning has left him harmless and defenseless. Among those that exact retribution are former gang members who have become policemen. Badly beaten, Alex ends up at the cottage of the droogs’ earlier attack, but the writer, F. Alexander, does not recognize him. Instead, he is sympathetic when he learns of the teenager’s aversion therapy and wants to publicize his story in order to turn public opinion against the government. However, after coming to suspect that Alex was involved in the brutal assault, he tries to make Alex commit suicide, which he plans to blame on the government. Locked in a room and forced to listen to Beethoven music, Alex jumps out off a window but survives. While he is hospitalized, the doctors undo his conditioning, and Alex ultimately reverts to his former behaviour. In the final chapter of the original British edition, Alex has grown tired of violence, and, after seeing an old friend who has left the gang, he renounces his amoral past. This chapter—which some consider unconvincing—was removed when the novel was first published in the United States.
Upon its release, A Clockwork Orange received mixed reviews. While some complained about its violence and language, others noted that the novel raised important ethical questions, such as whether it is better for a person to decide to be bad than to be forced to be good and if forcibly suppressing free will is acceptable. While its initial sales we...
The title refers to the Cockney saying "as queer as a clockwork orange". It means that something appears to be natural on the outside, but on the inside, it is...
May 26, 2020 · One of the most original and endlessly thought-provoking dystopian novels of the whole twentieth century, A Clockwork Orange (1962) is Anthony Burgess’ best-known novel. But what is the message behind this curious novel?
A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian satirical black comedy novella by English writer Anthony Burgess, published in 1962. It is set in a near-future society that has a youth subculture of extreme violence.
- Anthony Burgess
- 1962
As Anthony Burgess writes in the introduction (entitled " A Clockwork Orange Resucked ," hee hee) the title refers to a person who "has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State."
Apr 6, 2023 · A Clockwork Orange is about a young man with violent tendencies who undergoes treatment at a government facility after being arrested. The aversion therapy he experiences briefly changes his...
