Anthony Burgess

A Clockwork Orange is a controversial work in which the setting is in a futuristic society in which, political powers have subsided and lawlessness, violence, and youth gangs terrorize the people. Free will is the cost that Alex De Large must pay in a society that is so dominated by violence. Anthony Burgess, in his novel A Clockwork Orange, contends that unless man freely chooses to reject the attraction of violence, rehabilitation and conditioning only works if man's free will is destroyed. At one point or another a person has experienced the appeal of violence. Violence has its ways to make people want more, similar to an adrenalin rush. Alex, who is the narrator, tells the story through the first person point of view. Alex and his Droogs…

This past month, I read the novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. After choosing this piece, I did a little research on the author and his work. To my surprise, A Clockwork Orange is a classic novel that has been widely acclaimed. In 1971, the novel was even translated into the film industry by Warner Brothers Company. The movie skyrocketed book sales throughout the world and thus the film adaptation cemented the book even further to the top of the acclaimed reading list. Anthony Burgess…

our society. Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, and Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, were both novelists who produced books that fell victim to censorship, being banned for their artistic and realistic views. Offering both controversial and persistent protests against societal issues, Fahrenheit 451 and A Clockwork Orange foster impactful messages that changes the way the reader perceives the world. Anthony Burgess wrote A Clockwork Orange with three questions in mind- “Is…

Kevin Le Hernandez English III K -1st 26 January 2015 Psychological Advances Causes More Corruption In the novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, many different types of sciences are associated with it such as neurology, sociology and social psychology. Psychology can be defined as the study of the human mind and its function in a given environment. The story starts off with the protagonist, Alex. With his gang, he roams around the streets robbing, beating men, and raping women. One of…

Though primarily known for his novel A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess was accomplished in many literary pursuits. Besides being a novelist he was also a poet, composer, playwright, and a critic. With a literary career that spans over three decades he has published dozens of literary pieces and hundreds of musical composition. Much of the influence for these writings came from his early life and his experiences as a young adult. A Clockwork Orange was the first non-school assigned novel I…

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…

traditional hero archetype. Although often the antithesis of the archetypal protagonist, the antihero gains begrudged sympathy and an extent of understanding from the reader that separates itself from the concept of the antagonist. Despite belonging to two different literary eras, and being published more than a century apart from one another, Matthew Lewis’ The Monk and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess both present their main characters, Father Ambrosio and Alex…

Clockwork Orange, a novel by Anthony Burgess, there appear to be two sides, a “good” side in the form of religion, and a “bad” side in the form of the State, a totalitarian government. However, there is not a clear juxtaposition between the two sides. Despite the fact that Catholicism is thought of as being an institution of the highest morals, and efforts are being made by the State to eradicate behaviors that are deemed detrimental to society, there are no noble institutions or characters in…

“It may be horrible to be good,” the church pastor tells Alex in the novel A Clockwork Orange (Burgess 55). Dystopian writings typically follow this sentiment; a society promotes an all powerful government at the expense of the common people. After World War II, dystopian novels explored the possibility of instilling such dystopias in the cities affected by the war. George Orwell’s 1984 and Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange both portray London as a post-war dystopia; however, the authors’…

The novel A Clockwork Orange, written by Anthony Burgess, was originally published in 1962. It is a dystopian novel where the future is overrun with violence and crime. The main character, Alex, commits horrible crimes, such as rape and murder, with his group of friends. After breaking into a house, Alex is arrested and undergoes an experiment called Ludovico’s Technique while in jail. He can no longer make bad choices, and feels sick when he thinks about committing a crime. He is vulnerable,…