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What Is A Clockwork Orange A Dystopian

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In his life, Anthony Burgess never had anything handed to him. He had to work for what he wanted. Although he wanted to be a musician, the University of Manchester would crush that dream, leaving him with his consolation prize of being an English major. This chain of events would lead to Burgess deciding to become an author, leading him to pen his most famed novel A Clockwork Orange. Throughout the novel, Burgess would implicate the youth as the troublesome faction, with Alex, the sadistic anti-hero, taking pleasure in callous crimes. Although the dystopian classic discusses numerous problems in the violent world, Burgess continually returns to how characters in the novel would rather choose to be a wicked person instead of being forced against …show more content…

Burgess’s writing is not meant for all readers, as violent crimes occurred in nearly every page. In an article titled REWINDING A CLOCKWORK SELF: DISINTEGRATION AND UNITY IN THE BRITISH LITERATURE OF THE 60S: THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK AND A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, written by Ioana Baciu from the University of Iași, Baciu describes how the main theme of the novel was man’s lack of free will and choice. Although the Ludovico technique appears to have cured Alex in part 2 of the novel, that was not the case, “Alex is not reformed – physical discomfort prevents him from raping or killing, but his vile intentions remain” (Baciu). When a person is coerced into acting a certain way, the line is blurred with whether or not the person is still taking actions that they normally would if they had full volition of their mind and body. Instead of giving Alex the mental care that he needed, the government decided to scrap the violence out of Alex’s mind. By denying Alex the choice of willingly renouncing violence, the authorities are forging “a mechanical creation”, whose name is replaced by prison authentication number 6655321 (Baciu). Initially, Alex thought that the process of the Ludovico technique would be simple, and that he would be released shortly after the treatment, but instead, Alex would lose his pleasure in committing acts of violence. During the decade of A Clockwork Orange being published, the Cold War was at its climax, and the Cuban Missile Crisis was a historical event that was about to occur. Burgess would look at the events that were occurring around him and discuss how the Soviet Union’s spread of communism was a crime, but that the country would rather spread their political agenda to neighboring countries rather than become a member of the favorable European

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