Anthony Burgess defined a ‘clockwork orange’ as a person who ‘can only perform good or only perform evil – meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice, but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State’. In other words; a person who by all physical characteristics seems a free individual, but can not think for himself. By that definition, I feel that Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange can be considered a reactionary novel. The novel is in fact a reactionary statement in relation to many of the social and political issues which were present during the time of the novels creation. Many of Burgess’ views that are presented in the novel are very much radical, however, the overall idea and emphasis of the novel is focused on society’s current situation and the current view regarding ‘free will’ and individual choice.
Roman Macha states that:......
Join Now or Login to view the rest of this paper.
Approximate Word Count: 2138
Approximate Pages: 9 (260 words per double-spaced page) |