DISCUSS THE FEATURES OF FUTURISM IN THE SOCIETY IN THE NOVEL
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE BY ANTHONY BURGESS
This essay speaks about futurism in the novel A Clockwork Orange written by
Anthony Burgess. A Clockwork Orange is the most famous futuristic novel and also is
popularized by the controversial film adaptation made by Stanley Kubrick in 1971.
What we can say about the novel? It has a lot of elements of futurism. The novel
is concerned with the conflict between the individual and the state. Typical
representatives of a society are Alex and his so called droogs. By raping women and
making the violence they are actually rebelling against the state and its policy. The most
important elements and also characteristics of a futurism in A Clockwork Orange are
violence, sex, language and art. Around these four things Anthony Burgess creates the
whole novel. When we are talking about violence it happens very often in the novel.
Level of violence is very high. Alex and his friends do all kinds and types of criminal
activity: boozing, mugging, robbing, gang fighting, raping, driving, vandalism etc.
Beside all of this we have also juvenile delinquents, prison life, the police brutality and
a forced suicide. Violence is actually the most remarkable thing about the whole book.
From one side it shows all kinds of evil young person can do and from the other side it
shows what kind of punishment young person can get by doing all that stuffs. The second element is sex or sexuality. In the novel we can say that every single action leads
to sex, but not the sex in a normal way. It is not an expression of love and intimacy but
violence, because it is a forced sex. That is a big difference, crucial in this novel. It is a
typical representation of power and violence. Basic question connected to sex in the
novel is control. Who will control and who will be controlled? Everyone, especially
Alex, is an instrument for something. In the novel The Minister of Interior sees Alex as
a lab rat for his experiment and Mr. Alexander sees Alex as an instrument to bring down
the party. Point is that, it is actually a domination of big ones over small ones. Sex,
instead of being an act of love becomes an act of brutality and domination. Very
important element in the novel is also a language called Nadsat. It is slang, combination
of Russian and Cockney English. Nadsat is a form of brainwashing and it represents
situation when a language controls others. Origin of Nadsat helps also to illuminate the
world in which Anthony Burgess lives. Combination of Russian and Cockney English
means that Burgess lives in a society represented with American capitalist democracy
and Soviet Communism. These two worlds and actually societies are not so apart, as we
might think. They are very similar and connected. In the connection to violence and sex
we have to mention art, especially music and pictures. Music in the novel is something
that moves Alex to violence. Young Alex listens to music because he loves it and
because it is ecstatic for him. But besides that, music also expresses his rebellion against
state in which he lives, and the society which has different opinion than he has. Later in
the novel music changes Alex to be ill, taking his personality and everything he loves.
In the end of the novel he again becomes healthy and enjoys in listening music,
especially classical, Mozart and Beethoven. Music also can be presented as a powerful
weapon, because for example Adolf Hitler and Nazi's used music to heighten patriotic
fevor. When we are talking about pictures they also express Alex's life. When Alex sees a picture of a young woman devotchka he gets desire of raping and sexual act. In the
picture woman is presented like an object, a doll or mannequin, what is really offensive.
Later, just like music, pictures and also movies make Alex feels ill. He does not have
control over music and pictures anymore. Now, music and art control him, just like the
government.
By using all of these elements Anthony Burgess creates a very good and popular
dystopian novel. It is reccomendable that everyone reads the novel because it is
interesting, educative and shows very strange type of a world.
