A Clockwork Orange Analysis

Great Essays
Register to read the introduction… Analysis of Burgess’s childhood confirms the psychoanalytic theory that Alex and his fictional experiences within A Clockwork …show more content…
The book has 21 chapters, which, as Burgess explained in the introduction, “…is symbolic of human maturity […] since at 21 you get to vote and assume adult responsibility” (“Introduction” x). In the first chapter, we meet Alex as the childish Id. By the end of the book, Alex has embraced the Id, been forced into the Superego, and then relapsed back to the Id. Though he is older, Alex continues to speak the language of the teens, nadsat, which is a bunch of slang that turns words with serious definitions into sing-song play words. When Alex runs into one of his old droogs, his friend has a wife and is no longer talking in nadsat. Alex begins thinking about his life and how his childhood is gone. The fact that Alex never had a true childhood makes him afraid to grow up and stop his old ways of “ultraviolence” and “the old in-out”. Alex overcomes this fear, and gives the reader an explanation of why his story must end. In the last few pages of the book, Alex realizes that “[e]ighteen [is] not a young age” and he “…should find what [he] really want[s]”, ending his epiphany feeling surprised and full of pride when he says, “I was like growing up” (Burgess …show more content…
Detroit: Gale, 1998. Student Resources in Context. Web. 10 Mar. 2012.
"Anthony Burgess." Newsmakers. Detroit: Gale, 1994. Student Resources in Context. Web. 10 Mar. 2012.
Banks, Gordon. “Kubrick’s Psychopaths.” Society and Human Nature in Stanley Kubrick’s Films. July 4, 2010.
Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. W.W. Norton & Company Inc. New York: 1962.
Burgess, Anthony. “Introduction.” A Clockwork Orange. W.W. Norton & Company Inc. New York: 1962.
Clune, Anne. "Anthony Burgess." DISCovering Authors. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 11 Mar. 2012.
Daniels, Don. “A Clockwork Orange.” Sight and Sound, 1973.
“Introduction.” Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. W.W. Norton & Company Inc. New York: 1986.
"John (Anthony) Burgess Wilson." DISCovering Authors. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 11 Mar.

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    “American Romanticism was the first full-fledged literary movement that developed in the U.S. It was made up of a group of authors who wrote and published between the years 1820 and 1860, when the U.S. was still finding its feet as a new nation.” It’s understandable that when people hear the word romanticism, they think of love and romance. However, the word “romanticism” actually comes from a movement that changed the way in which various literary writers (and artists) expressed themselves, how they viewed the world around them, and how they conveyed cultural and moral values.…

    • 1494 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Fall Written Report Elliott Touikan FMST-322-2173-A Instructor: Rosanna Maule Friday, December 4, 2017 Concordia University Elliott Touikan Instructor: Rosanna Maule FMST-322-2173-A 4 December 2017 Fall Written Report: A Clock Work Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971, 136’) A Clock Work Orange is a 1971 film directed by Stanley Kubrick adapted from the novel of the same name by Anthony Burgess. It follows the story of a teenager named Alex. He along with his three friends, which he calls droogs, robbed, rape and pillage the town every night, come home and start over again.…

    • 1501 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    During this second set of readings, five authors caught my attention for their writing styles, historical relevance, relatability, creativity, and originality. During the first sets of readings after Barlow, Tecumseh and his speech “The White Men Are Not Friends to the Indians" caught my eye. Personally as a minority myself, I felt that I could relate to him to a slight degree and understand his perspective on his uphill battle against the Americans. I also felt that his speech itself was empowering because of the sense of unity and camaraderie he created with his words between the Indian people by using lines such as, "we must smoke the same pipe" (Tecumseh 517) and using their common spiritual beliefs and describing their relatable misfortunes caused by the Americans to create various bridges between the other tribes. However, I found Tecumseh 's situation as a whole tragic, since he died in battle leading his army against the Americans…

    • 1276 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Should everybody write?” This is the question and title of Dennis Baron’s essay about the writers of today compared to the writers of the past. He provides examples of the first instances of writing used for communication in presenting the clay tokens that merchants used for tracking inventory. He then discusses popular opinions about writing from historical greats such as Socrates and Mark Twain. Baron provides commentary on both sides of the issue and how the development of new technology has always been the catalyst for change. During the course of the evolution of writing, Baron relates that “authorship” was an honor that was limited to only a select few.…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As children begin to mature, they must establish their own beliefs. Accepting mistakes, discovering individual identity, and losing childhood ignorance are key obstacles when growing up in society. In the coming-of-age novel, A Separate Peace, Gene Forrester, at the Devon Boarding School, encounters these challenges when conflicts arise as a result from his friendship with Phineas, “Finny”. However, the intensifying pressures of external conflicts force Gene to grow even more than normal; since the story takes place throughout World War II, the conflict creates even more tension, stress, and necessity to develop in the novel. Throughout A Separate Peace, John Knowles conveys that in order for one to move beyond past mistakes and mentally mature,…

    • 1114 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Evaluating the presidency of Jefferson Davis is somewhat of a difficult task. When determining how effective a President was while in office, one has to look at many different aspects, as there is so much they have to do. A president who was a great military leader might be remembered poorly if he wasn't able to pull his country out of economic hardship, just as a president who was able to recover his country from depression might be if he lost a lot of men in an unsuccessful war. The problem with Davis’s presidency was that he was really only a wartime president, and the responsibility of repairing the country he led fell on the hands of Lincoln and Johnson.…

    • 1630 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Bartholomae, D. (n.d.). Inventing the University. Retrieved January 18, 2017, from http://wac.colostate.edu/jbw/v5n1/bartholomae.pdf David Bartholomae enters the text in a supportive tone, expressing the importance of properly addressing the audience in which a writer intends draw in. Bartholomae appears to be directing his feedback from his professional experiences towards other novice writers who can benefit from his expertise.…

    • 284 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Layers of Fiction Symbolism is represented by levels of pragmatic and figurative meaning. As an example, in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman incorporates the very wallpaper to represent this idea. The wallpaper displays more than just symbolism; it also shows the time period and theme of the story. These elements of fiction are also supported by the first person narration in helping the reader understand and analyze the text. This combination helps to show the relationships of the protagonist, overall setting, and theme of the story.…

    • 1046 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    At the University of California, Davis, of the 196 plagiarism cases referred to the disciplinary office last year, a majority did not involve students ignorant of the need to credit the writing of others. “And it’s O.K. if you put words out there without getting any credit.” The notion that there might be a new model young person, who freely borrows from the vortex of information to mash up a new creative work, fueled a brief brouhaha earlier this year with Helene Hegemann, a German teenager whose best-selling novel about Berlin club life turned out to include passages lifted from others. “Today’s students stand at the crossroads of a new way of conceiving texts and the people who create them and who quote them,” she wrote last year in the book “My Word!:…

    • 298 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Analysing Essay Deconstruction The quality, format, and use of communication conventions determines the effectiveness of a formal literary essay. In the essay Studying Literature in Grade 12, by Mrs. Phillips, the text demonstrates an example of a improper persuasive essay. This is shown through the content, incorrect language conventions, MLA citation and plagiarism, as well as the essay structure. Without these details one cannot achieve an effective essay.…

    • 1004 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Clockwork Orange Nadsat

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Burgess uses the “Nadsat” phrase, “O my brothers”, throughout the novel in order for Alex to speak directly to the reader as if they were his friends, creating a sensation of complicity (Nixon, 2009:6). An actor, playing an anti-hero character, may materialize less repellent through the use of language. In “A Clockwork Orange”, Malcolm McDowell is portrayed as an anti-hero character, but Kubrick uses language – in a first person narrative – for the viewer to create a feeling of complicity towards Alex for he, throughout the film, conveys honesty as soon as he speaks directly to the viewer (Ciment, 1982). Additionally, the reader and the viewer of “A Clockwork Orange” feel part of Alex’s squad and subculture instead of judging him for his appalling acts of…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Al Young's Life And Work

    • 319 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Al Young was born on may, 15, 2005, in Ocean Spring, Mississippi, he is a American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and professor, he is currently 78 years old, on May, 15, 2005 he was named Poet Laureate of California by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, an Austrian-American actor, producer, businessman, investor, author, philanthropist, activist, politician, and former professional bodybuilder. Al Young grew up in the rural South of villages and small towns, and in urban, industrial Detroit. From 1957 to 1960 he attended the University of Michigan. He wrote 5 novels, 2 cheap books, 5 musical memoirs, and 8 full poems of his work.…

    • 319 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The literary canon is a list of books chosen by scholars that displays the books that have been influential to western culture. The books chosen have been placed under this list because they contain important information that has impacted America. The controversial part of these “canonized” books is that they have been selected by “important” scholars. The system of canonizing a book lacks the diversity that the western hemisphere has, therefore, not all the western cultures are being represented. Representation is key to accuracy within history, in order to capture the essential history of the American literature.…

    • 1696 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Freedom of choice is vital as without it one becomes lifeless and void of all things that make them human as shown in Anthony Burgess’s novel, A Clockwork Orange. Pineapples are delicous and I love eating them. Pokemon is the greatest thing to ever come to existence. If Pokemon never existed I would not be who I am today.…

    • 59 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    While traveling home after he catches the marlin, several sharks begin to eat the marlin. Just as Christ attempts to resist his opponents and fails, Santiago vigorously attempts to fight the sharks off but ultimately cannot. However, neither Christ nor Santiago are discouraged, as shown when Santiago reasons, “A man can be destroyed but not defeated” (Hemingway 103). Both men know that they are still victorious as they are more capable than their opponents and will be able to achieve their destiny after Santiago and Christ are mentally and physically destroyed, respectively. They understand that out of these dreadful situations will emerge a rush of virtue and worthiness.…

    • 1459 Words
    • 6 Pages
    • 6 Works Cited
    Great Essays