A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian novel by Anthony Burgess, published in 1962 and later 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
Anthony Burgess (February 25, 1917 – November 22, 1993) was an English novelist and critic. He was also active as a composer, librettist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, essayist, travel writer, broadcaster, translator and educationalist. Born John Burgess Wilson in the northern English city of Manchester, he lived and worked variously in Southeast Asia, the United States and Mediterranean Europe. His fiction includes the Malayan trilogy (The Long Day Wanes) on the dying days of Britain's empire in the East, the Enderby cycle of comic novels about a reclusive poet and his muse, the classic speculative recreation of Shakespeare's love-life Nothing Like the Sun, the cult exploration of the nature of evil A Clockwork Orange, and Earthly Powers, a panoramic Tolstoyan saga of the 20th century.
Double-click on any word and see its definition from Cambridge Dictionaries Online.
Read the information below about the story, and then do a language activity. Finally, do some writing yourself.
Plot summary
Set in the near future, the book centers around the life of the fifteen-year-old protagonist Alex who, along with his gang, roams 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 rape his wife. The gang return 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 of 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.
The Ludovico technique
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 a 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 recognized as he had always worn a mask. The reader discovers that F.D. Alexander's wife has died from her injuries. F.D. Alexander recognizes 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. This is the point at which the American edition of the book ended, implying that Alex would return to his ways of violent delinquency.
The actual final chapter begins identically to the first — Alex has formed a new gang and reverted to his previous criminality. On this particular night, however, he decides not to join them and goes for a walk on his own instead. He confesses that lately he has been finding the whole lifestyle tiresome, and has even (of all things) begun experiencing latent parenting urges. In a cafe, he bumps into one of his old gang members, Pete. To Alex's astonishment, Pete is now married and has become a respectable member of society. After conversing with Pete and his wife, Alex has an epiphany, renouncing violence on the 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.
These texts comes from Wikipedia.
Wikipedia:Text of the GNU Free Documentation License
What do you think of this story? Send us your opinions.
| 
