:''This article describes the novel by Anthony Burgess. For other uses of the term , see '
Clockwork Orange (disambiguation) '.
'' is a
1962 Dystopian Science Fiction Novel by
Anthony Burgess , as well as the basis for the
1971 Film by
Stanley Kubrick .
It is one of Burgess's "terminal novels", written to provide posthumous income for his wife after Burgess was allegedly diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour.
Burgess wrote that the title was a reference to an old
Cockney expression "As queer as a clockwork orange."
¹ Due to his time serving the British
Colonial Office in
Malaya , Burgess thought that the phrase could be used punningly to refer to a mechanically responsive (clockwork) non-human (orang,
Malay for "person"). The Italian title, "Un'Arancia ad Orologeria" was interpreted to refer to a grenade. 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 ."
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.
Set in the near future, the book centres around the life of the fifteen-year-old protagonist
Alex . Alex and his gang roam the streets at night, committing crimes purely for enjoyment. The crimes described in the book increase in severity from assault, to robbery, to arson, to a fight with rival gang, to a break-in at the house of F.D. Alexander, where the gang rapes his wife. The gang returns to a bar where Alex hits one of his gang members, Dim, as punishment for Dim's rude behaviour towards a woman who was singing a bit of opera (classical music being Alex's other passion, apart from violence). This sparks off a tense moment between the two gang members, setting the stage for a confrontation.
The next day, after fighting Dim and George to re-establish his control of the gang, Alex agrees on Pete's suggestion to rob a house in a rich part of town. Alex tries to persuade the woman living in the house to open the door. The woman refuses and 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, but he manages to knock her out with a silver statue he had previously taken. As he runs out the front door he is struck by Dim, who runs off with the rest of the gang just as the police arrive. At the police station we learn that the woman has died.
In prison, 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. He manages to become the first patient. The Ludovico 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. At the end of the treatment Alex is unable to carry out or even contemplate violent acts without crippling nausea.
He is released from prison, but upon returning home he is rejected by his parents. Dejected, Alex contemplates suicide 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, who, accompanied by his friends, exacts his revenge. Alex is unable to strike back and the police are alerted. The police arrive, but they turn out to be his old cohort Dim, as well as Billy Boy, the former leader of a rival gang. They take Alex, beat him up, and dump him by the side of the road out in the country.
Alex stumbles to the nearest house for help, which turns out to be that of F.D. Alexander, whose wife Alex had raped and beaten earlier in the book. At first Alex is not recognised as he had always worn a mask. The reader discovers that F.D. Alexander's wife has died from her injuries. F.D. Alexander recognises Alex from the newspaper reports surrounding the Ludovico technique, as well as some comments Alex makes; he alerts some friends of his who are interested in proving that such government-sanctioned conditioning should not be supported. Seeking a reaction that will validate their opinions, they lock Alex in a room and play the fictitious "Symphony Number Three of the Danish veck Otto Skadelig" at full volume. The piece is loud, violent, and emotional, and as such it produces the same nauseating effects on him as did the films he was forced to watch during his rehabilitation. 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.
The final chapter begins identically to the first - Alex has formed a new gang and reverted to his previous criminality. But on this particular night he decides not to join them and goes for a walk on his own instead. In a cafe he bumps into one of his old gang members, Pete, who is married and has become a respectable member of society. Pete's wife giggles at Alex's rhetoric, and asks Pete "why does he speak like that?" After conversing with Pete and his wife, Alex has an epiphany, renouncing violence on 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.
Although the book is divided into three parts, each containing seven chapters (twenty-one 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 US until recently. The
Film adaptation which was directed by
Stanley Kubrick follows the American version of the book, ending prior 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.
(Analysis)
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
Russian words,
English slang and words invented by Burgess himself. It serves two functions: firstly, 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. Secondly, 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.
See Also: List of cultural references to A Clockwork Orange
Both the story and individual elements have had a strong influence on
Popular Culture in general and
Popular Music in particular.
~description how this novel mentions other incidents and subject matter outside
the world of literature and criticism~
- 1983 - Prometheus Award (Preliminary Nominee)
- 1999 - Prometheus Award (Nomination)
- 2002 - Prometheus Award (Nomination)
- 2003 - Prometheus Award (Nomination)
- 2006 - Prometheus Award (Nomination) {Link without Title}
- Excerpts from the first two chapters of the novel were dramatised and broadcast on BBC TV's ''Tonight'' programme, 1962 (now lost, believed wiped)
- 1971 Film by Stanley Kubrick .
- 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.
- The allegedly Cockney phrase ''A Clockwork Orange'' is totally unknown to history: the first recorded use of it is Burgess's title. Quoted in a '' Rolling Stone '' article, Burgess claimed to have first heard the expression "from a very old Cockney in 1945."
- 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.
- This was one of Burgess's least favourite of the books he wrote, and he thought it was overrated.
- Because in ''A Clockwork Orange,'' the author F. Alexander wrote a book entitled ''A Clockwork Orange'' and it is his wife who is attacked by the droogs, it seems likely Burgess directly inserted some of his own feelings and characteristics into the novel in the form of this character.
- The novel is broken into three parts, each with 7 chapters, said to be a reference to Shakespeare's 7 ages of man (one theme of the book is maturity/aging)
- The book was partly inspired by an event in 1943 , when Burgess' 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 problems ³ . 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.
- 1962, UK, William Heinemann (ISBN 0434098000), Pub date ? December 1962, Hardcover
- 1962, US, W W Norton & Co Ltd (ISBN ?), Pub date ? ? 1962, Hardcover
- 1963, US, W W Norton & Co Ltd (ISBN ?), Pub date ? ? 1963, Paperback
- 1965, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN ?), Pub date ? ? 1965, Paperback
- 1969, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN ?), Pub date ? ? 1969, Paperback
- 1971, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN 0345026241), Pub date ? ? 1971, Paperback
- 1972, UK, Lorrimer, (ISBN 0856470198), Pub date 11 September 1972, Hardcover
- 1973, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (ISBN 0140032193), Pub date 25 January 1973, Paperback
- 1977, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN 0345273214), Pub date 12 September 1977, Paperback
- 1979, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN 0345314832), Pub date ? ? 1979, Paperback
- 1983, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN 0345314832), Pub date 12 July 1983, Unbound
- 1986, US, W. W. Norton & Company (ISBN 0393312836), Pub date ? November 1986, Paperback
- 1987, UK, W W Norton & Co Ltd (ISBN 0393024393), Pub date ? July 1987, Hardcover
- 1988, US, Ballantine Books (ISBN 0345354435), Pub date ? March 1988, Paperback
- 1995, UK, W W Norton & Co Ltd (ISBN 0393312836), Pub date ? June 1995, Paperback
- 1996, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (ISBN 0140188827), Pub date 25 April 1996, Paperback
- 1996, UK, HarperAudio (ISBN 0694517526), Pub date ? September 1996, Audio Cassette
- 1997, UK, Heyne Verlag (ISBN 3453130790), Pub date 31 January 1997, Paperback
- 1998, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (ISBN 014027409X), Pub date 3 September 1998, Paperback
- 1999, UK, Rebound by Sagebrush (ISBN 0808581945), Pub date ? October 1999, Library Binding
- 2000, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (ISBN 0141182601), Pub date 24 February 2000, Paperback
- 2000, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (ISBN 0140291059), Pub date 2 March 2000, Paperback
- 2000, UK, Turtleback Books (ISBN 060619472X), Pub date ? November 2000, Hardback
- 2001, UK, Penguin Books Ltd (ISBN 0141008555), Pub date 27 September 2001, Paperback
- 2002, UK, Thorndike Press (ISBN 0786246448), Pub date ? October 2002, Hardback
- 2005, UK, Buccaneer Books (ISBN 1568495110), Pub date 29 January 2005, Library Binding
