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A Clockwork Orange

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<tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">200px</td></tr> <tr><th>Country</th><td>United Kingdom</td></tr><tr><th>Language</th><td>English</td></tr><tr><th>Genre(s)</th><td>Science fiction</td></tr> <tr><th>Media Type</th><td>Print (Hardback & Paperback) & Audio Book (Cassette, CD)</td></tr><tr><th>Pages</th><td>192 pages (Hardback edition) &
176 pages (Paperback edition)</td></tr><tr><th>ISBN</th><td>ISBN 0-434-09800-0 (Hardback edition) &
ISBN 0-14-118260-1 (Paperback edition UK)</td></tr>
A Clockwork Orange
AuthorAnthony Burgess
PublisherWilliam Heinemann (UK)
Released1962
This article describes the novel by Anthony Burgess. For other uses of the term 'Clockwork Orange', see 'Clockwork Orange (disambiguation)'. For the Stanley Kubrick film, see A Clockwork Orange (film)

A Clockwork Orange is a speculative fiction novel by Anthony Burgess, published in 1962, and later the basis for a 1971 film adaptation by Stanley Kubrick.

Contents

[edit] Plot introduction

[edit] Explanation of the novel's title

Burgess wrote that the title was a reference to an alleged old Cockney expression 'as queer as a clockwork orange'. ¹ Due to his time serving in the British Colonial Office in Malaya, Burgess thought that the phrase could be used punningly to refer to a mechanically responsive (clockwork) human (orang, Malay for 'person').

Burgess wrote in his later introduction, A Clockwork Orange Resucked, that a creature who can only perform good or evil is 'a clockwork orange—meaning that he 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.

In his essay "Clockwork Oranges"², Burgess asserts that 'this title would be appropriate for a story about the application of Pavlovian, or mechanical, laws to an organism which, like a fruit, was capable of colour and sweetness'. This title alludes to the protagonist's negatively conditioned responses to feelings of evil which prevent the exercise of his free will.

[edit] Layout of novel

The novel is separated into three parts of seven chapters, each part has a different setting or motive for the main character, but keeps to certain conventions across three parts. For example, each part begins with a character repeating the phrase 'What's it going to be then, eh?' over and over, and in each part the main character, Alex, has a new set of friends (droogs) that ultimately betray him for their own gain.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Alex's world

Set in a hypothetical future, the book tells the story of the life of its fifteen-year-old protagonist Alex who, along with his gang--Dim, George and Pete--roams the streets at night, committing crimes for enjoyment. The story begins with Alex and the members of his gang (or "droogs" as he calls them) sitting in the Korova Milk Bar drinking drug-spiked milk to put them in the mood for "a bit of the old ultra-violence". They then proceed to go out and assault a man leaving a library; then an old homeless man; then they fight a rival gang, steal a car, and break into the house of F. Alexander, where they assault him and rape his wife.

The gang returns to the Korova Milk Bar, where Alex hits one of his gang members, Dim, as punishment for Dim's rude behaviour towards a woman who was singing a line from the fictitious Friedrich Gitterfenster's opera Das Bettzeug' (Alex having a passion for classical music). This sparks off a tense moment between the two gang members, setting the stage for a confrontation.

Upon awakening the next day, Alex decides he is too tired to attend school, so he falls back to sleep and sleeps until he is woken by Dr. P. R. Deltoid, his post-correctional advisor, with whom he then has a conversation. After this, he goes to pick up a copy of Beethoven's symphony No. 9 from a music store where he engages in a suave, convincing conversation with two beautiful young teenage girls whom he encourages to come with him. The pair, along with Alex proceed to his residence where a rapidly charged orgy involving various sexual positions takes place between the youth combined in part with Kubrick's direction and idea of speeding up the film to a dizzying 2 frames per second. If edited and played at normal speed (29.5 FPS), the scene would last roughly around 25 minutes, however, considering the modifications performed, it only lasts about a minute and a half, if that. The scene is also synchronized to an amazing electronically synthesized rendition of "William Tell Overture" by Wendy Carlos.

After this he falls asleep again, and when he wakes up he finds that his droogs have come to his block of flats to see him. The gang members, especially Dim and George, are feeling that Alex is not being fair (this attitude is in the main a result of Alex's hitting Dim in the Korova the night before), and implicitly threaten Alex with revolt; so Alex fights them to re-establish his control of the gang.

Once he is confident of his position as gang leader, Alex agrees to George's suggestion to rob a house in a rich part of town. When they arrive at the house, Alex tries to persuade the old woman living there to open the door. The woman refuses and without Alex realising, calls the police as a precaution. He gains access to the house through a window, but is confronted by the defiant woman, who defends herself with unexpected strength. As he reaches for a bust of Beethoven, she scratches his face, and he slips in a saucer of milk which the woman had placed on the floor for one of her many cats. This leads to a brawl between Alex and the woman, in which Alex knocks her out.

When he hears the police arriving, Alex tries to make an escape, but his so-called friends betray him, and Dim lashes Alex across the face with a length of chain, leaving him dazed and blinded. The police arrest him, beat him into a car, and take him to the police station, where they beat him again for being uncooperative. P. R. Deltoid arrives and informs Alex that the old woman has died and then spits in his face. Exhausted, Alex gives in and confesses to every crime he has committed since leaving his last correctional school.

[edit] The Ludovico technique

Sentenced to fourteen years for murder, Alex gets a job as an assistant to the prison chaplain. He feigns interest in religion, but amuses himself by reading the Bible for its lurid descriptions of "the old yehoodies (Jews) tolchocking (beating) each other", and imagines himself taking part in "the nailing-in" (the Crucifixion of Jesus). Alex hears about an experimental rehabilitation programme called 'the Ludovico technique', which promises that the prisoner will be released upon completion of the two-week treatment, and will not commit crimes afterwards.

Partially by virtue of taking part in the fatal beating of a cellmate, Alex manages to become the subject in the first full-scale trial of the Ludovico technique. The technique itself is a form of aversion therapy, in which Alex is given a drug that induces extreme nausea while being forced to watch graphically violent films for two weeks. Among the films shown are propaganda films such as Triumph of the Will, which includes Alex's beloved music of Beethoven. At the end of the treatment, Alex is unable to carry out or even contemplate violent acts without crippling nausea. He can't listen to the Beethoven music he loves, either, as the treatment has caused him to experience nausea even by simply listening to the music.

[edit] After prison

Alex gets his release, but upon returning home, finds that he is not welcome: his personal belongings have been confiscated (sold, so that the money made might go towards the care of the cats of the woman Alex murdered, amongst other victims), and his parents have taken in a lodger, Joe. Dejected and suddenly with no place in the world, Alex begins to contemplate suicide in a way that will not be painful or cause any more nausea - and visits the public library in order to discover what sort of poison he might take to end his life. There he is spotted by one of his former victims, the librarian, who, accompanied by his friends, exacts his revenge (this is referred to as the aged attacking the youth). Alex is unable to strike back for an overpowering fear of sickness over being beaten - the police are alerted. The police arrive, but turn out to be his old cohort Dim as well as Billyboy, the former leader of a rival gang whom Alex fought earlier. Alex is taken out onto the edge of town and is beaten harshly - left alone in the desolate nothing of the outskirts of the city.

Alex stumbles to the nearest house for help, which turns out to be that of F. Alexander, whose wife Alex had raped and beaten earlier in the book. At first Alex is not recognized as he had always worn a mask during crimes. Though as he stays with his guest, it becomes clear that F. Alexander begins to suspect something: memories of names that Alex accidentally mentions, etc. The reader discovers that F. Alexander's wife has died, apparently through sickness though her still living husband insists that it was her rape that killed her, when she died several months later. Because of his grief, F. Alexander has become obsessed with bringing down the State that has failed him, and, upon hearing Alex's tale, intends to use him as a tool against the government; being an example of the terrible things that the State are capable of. It is unclear as to whether they lock Alex in a room and play the fictitious "Symphony Number Three Of The Danish Veck Otto Skadelig" at full volume as revenge or not - though it does seem extremely likely that their intention was for Alex to be in great pain after listening to the music that induces his sickness - seems as they shared F. Alexander's obsession of proving that such government-sanctioned conditioning should not be supported.

The piece, "Symphony Number Three Of The Danish Veck Otto Skadelig", was played during the Ludovico experiment, and so produces the same nauseating effects on him as would acts of violence. Unable to stand the pain, Alex throws himself out of the window to try to kill himself. He survives the fall with broken bones and wakes up in hospital, informed that his tormentors have been arrested and the Ludovico treatment reversed. (This is the point at which the U.S. edition of the book ended, implying that Alex would return to his ways of violent delinquency.)

The actual final chapter begins identically to the first; Alex has formed a new gang and reverted to his previous criminality. On this particular night, however, he decides not to join them and goes for a walk on his own instead. He confesses that lately he has been finding the whole lifestyle tiresome, and has even (of all things) begun experiencing latent parenting urges. In a café, he bumps into the last of his old gang members, Pete. To Alex's astonishment, Pete is now married and has become a respectable member of society.

After conversing with Pete and his wife, Alex has an epiphany, renouncing violence on the one hand, but on the other concluding that his behaviour was an unavoidable part of youth, and that if he had a son, he would not be able to stop him from doing what he himself did.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Differences in the American Publication

Although the book is divided into three parts, each containing seven chapters (21 being a symbolic reference to the British age of majority at the time the book was written), the 21st chapter was omitted from the versions published in the United States until recently. The film adaptation, which was directed by Stanley Kubrick, follows the American version of the book, ending prior to the events of the 21st chapter. Kubrick claimed that he had not read the original version until he had virtually finished the screenplay, but that he certainly never gave any serious consideration to using it.

[edit] Literary significance and criticism

The book, narrated by Alex, contains many words in a slang dialect which Burgess invented for the book, called Nadsat. It is a mix of modified Slav words, Cockney rhyming slang and words invented by Burgess himself. It serves various functions: first, Burgess, while wanting to provide his young characters with their own register, did not want to use contemporary slang, fearing that this would 'date' the book too much.

Second, the novel graphically describes horrific scenes of violence, which would be shocking even by today's standards, so Nadsat is used as a 'linguistic veil' to distance the reader from the action on the page. Third, the Soviet Union being a big political power at the time, Burgess wanted to show that its culture had influenced slang, just as English influences other languages because of the U.S. being a big political power. One of Alex's doctors explains the language to a colleague as "Odd bits of old rhyming slang; a bit of gypsy talk, too. But most of the roots are Slav. Propaganda. Subliminal penetration."

Nadsat was a large point of criticism [citation needed]; some loved the idea and found it to be "genius." Others felt that it made the book inaccessible.

[edit] Awards and nominations

  • 1983 - Prometheus Award (Preliminary Nominee)
  • 1999 - Prometheus Award (Nomination)
  • 2002 - Prometheus Award (Nomination)
  • 2003 - Prometheus Award (Nomination)
  • 2006 - Prometheus Award (Nomination)[1]

[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

[edit] Trivia

  • The allegedly Cockney phrase 'a clockwork orange' is virtually unknown to history: the first recorded use of it is Burgess's title. Quoted in an article in Rolling Stone, Burgess claimed to have first heard the expression 'from a very old Cockney in 1945'. The 1967 novel The Owl Service by Alan Garner has the phrase used by a Welsh boy as if it were common slang.
  • Burgess claimed that he had typed the title A Clockwork Orange, and then sat down to think of a story to go with it. One early idea apparently involved a strike or riot among apprentices under Elizabeth I.[citation needed]
  • The book was partly inspired by an event in 1943, when Burgess's pregnant wife Lynne was robbed and beaten by four U.S. GI deserters in a London street, suffering a miscarriage which further resulted in chronic gynaecological problems³. According to Burgess, writing the novel was both a catharsis and an 'act of charity' towards his wife's attackers - the story is narrated by, and essentially sympathetic to, one of the attackers, rather than their victim. Alex's age at the end of the novel is the same age that the Burgesses' miscarried child would have been at the date of publication, had the child survived the attack on Lynne.[citation needed]
  • In A Clockwork Orange, the author F. Alexander writes a book entitled A Clockwork Orange and his wife is attacked by Alex and his droogs. It seems likely Burgess drew inspiration for this scene from the above-mentioned attack on his wife.
  • The novel is broken into three parts, each with seven chapters, said[citation needed] to be a reference to Shakespeare's seven ages of man (one theme of the book is maturity/aging)
  • The last name of the fictitious Danish composer Otto Skadelig in the 20th chapter means "damaging".
  • The Ludovico Technique was named for the Latin form of Ludwig, as in Ludwig Van Beethoven
  • Alex's Gang has a small part in Tenacious D In: The Pick of Destiny

[edit] Release details

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • A Clockwork Orange: A Play With music. Century Hutchinson Ltd. (1987). An extract is quoted on several web sites: [2], [3], [4].
  • Burgess, Anthony (1978). Clockwork Oranges. In 1985. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-136080-3 (extracts quoted here)
  • Vidal, Gore. "Why I Am Eight Years Younger Than Anthony Burgess," in At Home: Essays, 1982-1988, p. 411. New York: Random House, 1988. ISBN 0-394-57020-0.

[edit] External links

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