Language and violence in Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange

Identifier:  TFG:6190

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TFG6190

Authors:  López Mancilla, Víctor Manuel

Abstract:
Anthony Burgess is the author of the third most well-known British literary dystopia. A Clockwork Orange is a novel with a very clear message: people need free will to be human. The main character, Alex, is a despicable human being. He enjoys inflicting pain on innocent people, he steals and even rapes children. But the reader is compelled to have sympathy for him. In this essay I will analyze the novel and how Burgess conveys this message through the use of extreme violence and the artificial language that he invented precisely for the novel: Nadsat. This language is made up of Russian words mixed up with English and Cockney. Nadsat is used in a euphemistic manner by substituting violent words for made-up ones that don’t invoke the same reaction to the reader as the original ones. My goals are to analyze how Burgess portrays Alex’s violent acts and how he uses Nadsat to hide these actions to the reader in what I call a masquerade. With this, I should make a compelling argument about how such an unforgivable character as Alex has passed down as a victim and becomes the symbol of humanity’s need of free will.