Questions on 'A Clockwork Orange' by Anthony Burgess.

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Chapter 2 - Questions on ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Anthony Burgess

‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Anthony Burgess is about a 15-year-old boy Alex who alongside his friends enjoys ultraviolence, rape, drugs and music. They live in a dystopia where the State is corrupt and the people live in fear. The 1962 novel is controversial and much acclaimed, raising moral issues on good and evil. It examines the problems of juvenile delinquents and the possibility of aversion therapy. Chapter 2 (Part 1) of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ is an important part of the novel. In Chapter 2 the reader learns a lot about Alex and his friends, or as Alex refers to them, his ‘droogs’. (‘Droogs’ comes from the language that Alex uses in the book; it is a kind of teenage colloquial language, called Nadsat, which is used throughout the book). We also learn about Burgess and some of his opinions and learn a lot through the language used to describe what happens in Chapter 2.

    At the start of Chapter 2 Alex has just left “the Duke of New York”, after already that night taking a concoction of drugs, terrorising and humiliating an old man, robbing a local shop, attacking a drunken man and battling with another youth gang. Already the reader knows Alex and his droogs quite well and have already to some extent learnt that Alex lives in a dystopia where the world is a place of terror. It is not a shock to the reader when Alex steals a car. He says, “We backed out lovely, and nobody viddied us take off”. He has no fear and was not afraid. Whilst driving the stolen car Alex and his droogs show disrespect for all in their path. They reach a place with a sign called “HOME”, this is when Alex and his droogs stop and get out of the car.

   Next Alex describes how he politely knocks on the door of this house and politely asks to call an ambulance to help an injured friend. Alex is polite and persuasive and very different to the Alex the reader knows. After much deliberation the woman who Alex has been talking to opens the door. Alex then puts on his mask and as the door opens Alex and his droogs run in lifting up the woman and taking her along with them. What happens next is the climax of their criminal activity. They are rude to the woman and her husband; they also ruin the life works of the husband. The man is writing a book titled, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, which Alex throws all over the floor. The reader is shown how Alex really has no respect whatsoever for someone else’s life and property. He then rips the work to shreds and they all beat the man. The others then start to eat food, which is surprising as most people find food around blood and violence are not a pleasant mix. Yet for them it is which shows the reader what sot of people they are. Alex then rapes the woman. Then they cause destruction in the house and the droogs urinate and also prepare to excrete on the carpet. They then leave, drive back in the stolen car, “running over odd squealing things on the way”, as Alex puts it.

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    Anthony Burgess uses language and form to describe what Alex and his droogs have done. One way Burgess does this is through 1st person narration. Everything is written from Alex’s point of view. This means that everything we are reading is from Alex’s perspective, which at times allows the reader to side with him. For example, when he is tying to persuade the woman to open the door the reader is eager for her to do so, he says, “I could slooshy the clack clack clakcky clack clack clackity clackclack of some veck typing away”. It is as ...

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