A Clockwork Orange

Abstract

Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange (1962) is a dystopia set in a near-future English city ruled by a totalitarian State. Apart from the ultra-violent youth, most citizens have fallen into passive, apathetic complacency. The main character, a teenager named Alex, recounts his brutal adventures in which him and his “droogs” rape, maim, and murder people. After being arrested and put into prison, Alex narrates his experiences with his State-sponsored psychological rehabilitation. At the centre of this narrative stands the moral dilemma “Free Will versus ‘A Clockwork Orange’”. The phrase “A Clockwork Orange” appears within the book as the name of F. Alexander’s controversial text against the aversion therapy that Alex undergoes. This treatment renders criminals unable to think about violence without experiencing extreme pain themselves, thus removing a significant amount of their free will. In this way, the treatment turns individuals into “clockwork oranges”. Readers are left solve the dilemma by themselves: is it fair to reintroduce a criminal to society by removing the free will that drove him to act hideously? Or is it more moral to lock him in prison, where he remains violent and sadistic, but mentally free? In addition, the book is in part written in “Nadsat”, a ‘slang’ used by teenagers, created from scratch by the author himself.