A Clockwork Orange Dystopian

A Victim of the Modern Age

In 1959 John Anthony Burgess Wilson discovered he had approximately one year to live. The doctors told him he had a brain tumor and he was certainly terminal. Given this horrifying news, he took up his life-long passion of writing full-time. With the odds against him, Burgess’s life exceeded the one year he had left and he wrote eleven novels between 1960 and 1964. Under his new pseudonym, Anthony Burgess, which he adapted because of his disapproval of using the same name he used in the military, he wrote some of the most influential cult hits of the 20th Century. One of his most famous works, A Clockwork Orange, is a very grim and dark tale written within the first few years of his full-fledged writing career. This

In A Clockwork Orange, the main characters would operate in accordance to the counterculture mindset. On their night of debauchery and mayhem, the protagonists take a wrong turn and end up in the midst of Billyboy and his droogs, a rival gang leader and his followers. A vicious fight breaks out with no real cause that results in numerous injuries (Burgess 21). At the conclusion of their evening, they ride home on a train and take enjoyment out of the senseless destruction they cause to the seats and windows (32). Through the actions of the characters he embodies the actions and careless mentality of the youth generation. It is easy to see that Alex and his friends steal, vandalize, prey on helpless victims, and thrive on chaos; however, Alex’s real capabilities for evil soon become very evident. This is when they break into a house for fun, and not only do they trash the home and mercilessly beat the married couple living there, they also rape the wife while the husband watches (Burgess 26). Not only was Burgess’s wife raped in the same fashion, the husband/homeowner in the story is also a writer and is even composing a book called A Clockwork Orange (27). Represented through Alex, Burgess makes this obvious relation to his own life to show the evil that the youth culture is capable of committing. It is an immense task to portray such an awful memory in such detail; yet, Burgess’s use of sophisticated and creative language is how he can accurately and sufficiently describe his often petrifying experiences in