66 pages • 2 hours read
Anthony BurgessA Clockwork Orange
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1962A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Language: From Slang to Shakespeare
The singular importance of language in this novel, especially the Nadsat slang, cannot be understated. Influenced primarily by the Russian language and the Cockney dialect, according to the author, the slang used by Alex and his droogs reflects their sense of themselves as distinct and separate from the older generations—notably, the generations that promulgated and fought disastrous wars. They are also the generations who attempt to exercise authoritarian control over said nadsats. Thus, the use of a dialect heavily peppered with slang terminology (see Index of Terms for some definitions) functions as a psychosocial defense mechanism, a linguistic armor behind which the disaffected teens can hide. When Alex happens upon Pete and his new wife near the end of the novel, his language marks him: “‘Did you used to talk like that too?’” Pete’s wife asks while giggling at Alex (215). Alex’s continuing use of Nadsat slang both alienates him from the rest of society and indicates that his development has stalled. While Pete has matured, Alex remains stuck as “little Alex,” a violent and wayward teen.
Not only does this highly codified slang represent a generational divide, but it also serves as an indicator of class. Nowhere is this clearer than when Dr. Brodsky and Dr. Branom initially interact with Alex. Dr. Brodsky declares Alex’s manner of speaking “’[q]uaint’” (132), which is essentially a way to patronize Alex and dismiss the legitimacy of his chosen language. Dr. Branom further defines it as “‘[o]dd bits of rhyming slang [. . .] A bit of gypsy talk, too. But most of the roots are Slav. Propaganda. Subliminal penetration’” (132). By associating Alex with marginalized groups, the doctor implies that Alex has been indoctrinated by foreign (read: Soviet) propaganda, delegitimizing his lingo and, by extension, his autonomy. It is also notable that the two doctors discuss Alex’s manner of speaking while he is strapped to the chair in the theater room, as if he were not present, as if he were not fully human.
Alex and his gang also employ forms of elevated language, using “thee,” “thou,” and “thine” as if they were Shakespearean performers or denizens of the Elizabethan era. This creates a dialect that is melodic and baroque, like the music that Alex so dearly loves. Alex’s habit of addressing his droogs and his imagined audience alike with the phrase “O my brothers” rings with religious echoes, a self-conscious mimicking of the King James Bible. This reveals an earnest righteousness underlying Alex’s sensibilities. He wants to bring his audience around to his side, to emphasize the wrongs committed against him and attain some kind of sympathy and understanding that he has heretofore not found.
Music
Alex’s enduring passion for music is evident from the very beginning of his story. After the first night of violence that the reader witnesses, Alex returns home and wants only to listen to his music—in this case, it is a “new violin concerto by the American Geoffrey Plautus” (38), though his favorite composer is Ludwig van Beethoven. As soon as the notes come “rolling through [his] guts and out again crunch[ing] like candy thunder,” Alex experiences pure joy: “I was in such bliss, my brothers” (39). He admits that the music is better “than any sythemesc Bog or God [i.e., drug-induced visions]” (39). However, what Alex envisions while he listens to this beautiful, blissful music are horrifying acts of violence: “There were vecks and ptitsas, young and starry, lying on the ground screaming for mercy, and I was smecking all over my rot and grinding my boot in their litsos” (39). He goes on to imagine raping attractive women, masturbating in time to the music; the denouement of the concerto is literally orgasmic for Alex. For him, music is synonymous with violence and violation. Thus, the one element of his story that might humanize him for the reader—his love of this culturally significant and cultured music—actually alienates his audience further.
When Alex skips school, he reads an article in the newspaper about the problem with “Modern Youth” (48). This article suggests that if young people were exposed to high culture, they may change their disrespectful and violent ways. In other words, they may be more like the previous generations: upstanding and law-abiding citizens. Alex finds the idea laughable: “Civilized my syphilized yarbles. Music always sort of sharpened me up, O my brothers, and made me feel like old Bog himself” (49). Just like the spiked milk he consumes at the Korova Milkbar, the music heightens Alex’s violent sensibilities and spurs him to bolder criminal action. He feels as powerful as God when swept up in its emotional wake.
When Alex undergoes the experimental treatment at the hands of Dr. Brodsky, the visual medium is the primary conduit for the “cure.” But then, Dr. Brodsky and his team shows Alex unspeakable images while playing his beloved music. Alex breaks under this new torture, screaming at his tormentors, “Stop! [. . .] Stop, you grazhny disgusting sods. It’s a sin, that’s what it is, a filthy unforgivable sin, you bratchnies!” (130). Alex is so offended at the use of music in his punishment that he breaks down: “It’s not fair I should feel ill when I’m slooshying lovely Ludwig van and G.F. Handel and others. All that shows you’re an evil lot of bastards and I shall never forgive you, sods” (133). This leaves the reader to ponder a conundrum. Stripping Alex of his love of music is akin to stripping him of his humanity, certainly. It also, however, divests him of a powerful tool he wields to wreak destruction, even death.
Blood
Alex’s passion for violence extends to a fetishistic attachment to blood, or krovvy, in his Nadsat parlance. Spilling blood—often vulnerable, innocent people’s blood—both excites and soothes Alex. It washes over him like a physical release, a climactic event laden not only with pleasure at the violent energies of his prowess but also with clear psychosexual intent. During the book’s first violent encounter, Alex and his gang attack an older man carrying library books. When Dim hits the man in the face, Alex thinks joyfully, “then out comes the blood, my brothers, real beautiful” (10). Later that night, while robbing the convenience store, Alex attacks the female proprietor with a crowbar, and “that brought the red out like an old friend” (14). Alex is obsessively attached to the flow of blood.
Again, while invading the writer’s home on the same, epically violent evening, Alex enjoys the sight of the writer’s blood dripping on the carpet: “our dear old droog the red—red vino on tap and the same in all places […]—started to pour and spot the nice clean carpet and the bits of his book that I was still ripping away at” (27). Not only is blood the great equalizer—everyone bleeds the same, Alex suggests in his corporate metaphor—it is also nothing less than a pal, a friend, on equal footing with Alex’s own droogs. In addition, part of the appeal for Alex is blood’s capacity to stain the decency of civilized society (that “nice clean carpet”), as well as ruin high-brow cultural production (“the bits of his book”). Blood is part and parcel of Alex’s rage-filled revenge on polite society and cultural authority.
Later, ironically, Alex’s obsession with blood morphs into an obsession with his own blood. After undergoing several sessions of Ludovico’s Technique, where he is forced to watch horrific scenes of violence while pumped full of chemicals that make him ill, Alex has terrible dreams—or, at least, a terrible reaction to his usual violent fantasies. After dreaming of attacking and beating a young woman, Alex himself is attacked in the dream by a group of young men defending her. He tries to fight his way out of the dream: “Then I was dratsing my way back to being awake all through my own krovvy, pints and quarts and gallons of it, and then I found myself in bed in this room. I wanted to be sick” (128). Dr. Brodsky’s treatments turned an object of pleasure into a thing of terror. Blood appears again after Alex attempts suicide by leaping out a window. When he awakes from his coma, he sees “red red krovvy dripping from a jar upside down” (195). Here, blood becomes a symbol of life as the blood transfusion sustains Alex—just as it once did, psychologically speaking.
Clockwork Orange: Mechanical Men
The novel explores the concept of the “clockwork orange” throughout; obviously, this is the symbol that provides the title of the book. Burgess has much to say about what this phrase symbolizes in a brief introduction. He discusses the concept of “free will,” which a man “can use [. . .] to choose between good and evil.” However:
If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange—meaning that has the appearance of an organism lovely with color 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. (ix)
That is, while Alex appears “cured” after undergoing Ludovico’s Technique, he ceases to be fully human (“lovely with color and juice”) because he cannot actually make moral choices for himself. As Burgess goes on to say, “[i]t is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil” (ix). Burgess makes this point abundantly clear by providing the controversial final chapter. Alex’s parents have no sway over him, and the State, ultimately, cannot exercise its authority with impunity. The only change that Alex ever makes comes from within.
In a metafictive turn within the novel, Alex and his droogs encounter the writer, F. Alexander, who is penning a book or essay entitled, “A CLOCKWORK ORANGE” (26). The writing concerns itself with authoritarian control and government overreach: “The attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness […] to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, to this I raise my swordpen—” (26-27). F. Alexander anticipates exactly what will happen to Alex under the tormenting eye of Dr. Brodsky. Alex eventually understands what the writer was attempting to expose. After Alex undergoes the treatments and is put on display for government officials and other authorities, the powers that be discuss his fate—in front of him as if he were not present and has no say over his own destiny. Finally, Alex breaks: “‘Me, me, me. How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I like just some animal or dog?’ [. . .] I creeched louder still, creeching: ‘Am I just to be like a clockwork orange?’” (145). Alex finally understands what has been done to him. He can only perform as a fully developed human being; he cannot be one. His humanity—his free will—has been ripped away from him. Indeed, the book as a whole is concerned not just with Alex and his fate, but also with the authoritarian forces the author sees in the State as it replaces religion as the guiding influence over people’s lives.
