Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, in Anthony Burgess' novel "A Clockwork Orange", the protagonist "criminal" Alex is portrayed as a victim of British colonization or having to live the right way. The paper relates the purely nonsensical colonization process by which puritanical Britain believes that it can save a criminal or a nation from savagery and turn them into humans. The paper argues that, in the novel as in real life, the British government fails because identity cannot come from colonizing or the Ludovico's technique but rather from growing up and being able to see youth as something other than a piece of clockwork.

From the Paper:

"After the treatment, Alex becomes the epitome of what it means to be colonized. With no identity of his own and a confusion of being pulled between the desire to return to how he once was, but unable to break the physical inability is not uncommon to colonies who have completed their treatment. Wanting to move away from the British culture and become sovereign, there is still a physical barrier and the British culture being only they really know. Everything becomes "committed to socially acceptable acts, a little machine capable only of good." "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Abernethy, David. The Dynamics of Global Dominance, European Overseas Empires 1415- 1980. London: Yale University Press, 2002.
• Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. New York: W.W Norton and Company, 1962.Carey, Henry F.. "The Post Colonial State and the Protection of Human Rights". Asia, Africa And the Middle East. Vol.22. (2002).
• Patke, Rajeev S.. "Back to the Future: The Post-in the -colonial." European Legacy. 7 (2002): 693-6.
• Turner, Michael J.. "Raising Up Dark Englishmen: Thomas Perronet Thompson, Colonies, Race And the Indian Mutiny." Journalism of Colonialism and Colonial History. 6:1 (2005).

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