A Clockwork Orange

A detailed Summary of A Clockwork Orange


A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess tells a story about a young man and his choices of freedom. The book asks the question "is it better to have someone constantly do the right thing, or to have the freedom of choice to do the right or wrong thing". The author shows the affect of society on a human who has been institutionalized and let back into society. The author of the book goes on to show how the protagonist copes with society under his given conditions.

"Georgie let go of holding his goobers apart and just let him have one in the toothless rot with his ringy fist, and that made the old veck start moaning a lot then, then out comes the blood, my brothers, real beautiful." (Page 7) This had been an occurrence that took place when the protagonist was walking down the street with no apparent intention of harming anyone. This occurrence shows the time in Alex's life where he is able to make decisions on his own, weather he chooses for those actions to be morally appropriate or not is up to his discretion.

"He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. He ce


The examples stated above have shown how the life of Alex represents the cycle of a clock in the way that it starts at one point and then ends up at that point once again. Another way that a clock could have represented Alex's life is the way that the pendulum of the clock works. The swinging of the pendulum could have been the cause-and-effect relationship of Alex's life in the occurrence of his immoral decisions, and the reforms that occurred because of them. A dominant theme used in the novel is the repetition of the phrase: "So what's it going to be then, eh?" (Various) at the beginning of a few sections throughout the book. This shows the redundancy in the world around Alex that he in turn answers to. This theme could also be associated to a clock in the way its repetition occurs as would the cycle of a clock.

"More and more these days I had been just giving the orders and standing back to viddy them being carried out. So Bully cracked into him er er er, and the other two tripped him and kicked him." (Page 182) Alex has now gone back to the same routine that he had when he was younger.

A- /British Literature /Mrs. Weirbach/

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Some common words found in the essay are:
Anthony Burgess, alex's life, reform alex, cycle clock, occurrence alex's life, real choice, er er, life alex, occurrence alex's,

Approximate Word count = 777
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels

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