A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (Book Summary and Review) - Minute Book Report

This is a quick book summary and analysis of A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. This channel discusses and reviews books, novels, and short stories through drawing...poorly. New Minute Book Reports are posted every week.

This is a story about a teenager named Alex who lives in Britain during a time when gangs of boys rule the streets at night. Alex is the leader of a small gang who robs houses by pretending to be travellers in need. In fact, they enter the house of a writer, beat him up, and rape his wife.

However, as the gang tries to rob an old lady, the police are summoned and Alex is left behind to take the fall.

Alex is sentenced to prison for an extended time, in which he tries to find a way to get out early. He hears of a new experimental treatment that is supposed to cure criminals of their desire for criminal acts.

Alex is chosen to be the first prisoner to be put under this new treatment and is taken to a special facility under the watch of Dr. Brodsky.

They tell him that he will be watching a series of films and at first he's very excited about this. They give him a shot and strap him to a chair before watching the films. However, the films are disturbing, often showing people getting killed. Alex begins to feel sick each time he sees these horrible acts. This continues over a two-year period.

But over this time, Alex's behavior and thoughts change. He wants to no longer think about doing bad things because he doesn't want to feel sick. At the end of the treatment, he is shown off to government officials and the press and is pronounced cured.

When Alex is finally released, he goes home, but finds that his parents have brought in a tenant. After running away from his family, he decides that life is too hard and he wants to commit suicide. He goes to the library to read up on a good method, but is beaten by old men because he can't fight back due to his treatment.

When the police arrive to break up the fight, Alex recognizes one of the officers as one of his old friends. However, the officers take him out to the country and beat him.

With nowhere else to go, Alex stumbles back to the house of the writer that he had beaten all those years ago. The writer takes him in and cares for him, recognizing that Alex can be used to overthrow the government.

But the pressure is too much and Alex jumps out the window, nearly killing himself. He awakes to find that he is in a hospital. The government restores his old personality and they give him a good job.

After fully recovering, Alex is back on the street with a new gang and running the same tricks. However, something in him changes and he doesn't feel like robbing others. In the end, after reflecting on his life, Alex recognizes that he is growing up.

One of the unique characteristics of this story is the use of slang by the narrator. As there is no dictionary or formal translation, readers are thrown into a narrative that is almost a foreign language. However, over the course of the story, readers should be able to pick up on the definitions of words quite easily as the words are used often enough and given proper context.

Repeated images of milk and snow represent the pure, or goodness, in Alex's corrupt world. These images, as well as the dialogue, create the ethical debate on whether goodness should be an act of choice.

In the story, it is argued that this choice is ultimately what makes us human. That without the choice, we would be clockwork oranges: something that appears to be organic on the outside, but is mechanical on the inside.

And this story also attempts to figure out what the best way is to deal with our "badness"? Do we suppress badness with sick and ill feelings or can we naturally become good?

As Alex's personality is returned to normal at the end of the story, we can see that goodness can come naturally to people if given time. That the choice for goodness and badness is a person's right and that if badness is truly their dominant trait, then at least everyone will know that it was their own decision.

The conclusion of the story seemingly introduces a new Alex, an Alex who begins to grow out of mischief and recognizes that his life is changing. The author sets up Alex's path of maturity by starting the story with a youthful Alex of just fifteen years old, but this maturity is further pushed by the closing chapter, which, by the way, did not originally appear in the American version of the story.

But what this "new ending" does for readers is present an ending of change and encourages readers that they, too, will reach a point where childish behaviors just don't seem as interesting. It's important to remember that this maturity happens at different times for different people.

Through Minute Book Reports, hopefully you can get the plot and a few relevant discussion points in just a couple of minutes.

Music by WingoWinston from newgrounds.com.

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