Synopsis: Set in the “not so distant future”, A Clockwork Orange follows the story of a juvenile delinquent Alex and his gang of three friends or “droogs”. Alex and his droogs commit heinous crimes after dark. One night, after breaking into an old lady’s house, the police are called and Alex is caught while his droogs escape. In prison, Alex hears of a new experimental program, aversion therapy, known as the Ludovico Technique that the state is going to use on criminals. Going through with this program, although dangerous, will reduce Alex’s prison sentence and soon he will be back on the street.
Genre: This book has been classified as many different genres, namely; Science fiction, Satire and dystopian crime film.
History and facts: The
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The book was written in 21 chapters all equally divided into three parts. The number 21 symbolised Alex’s growth
(www.shmoop.com; A Clockwork Orange Introduction) it serves as a form of closure for readers. When the book was released in America, the publisher took out the 21st chapter and the book was released as 20 chapters. The reason for this was thought to be because the
American publisher felt that the book would have ended on an “ambiguous note”, had it finished with Burgess’s intended 21 chapters (IMDb; Frequently Asked Questions answered) . Kubrick’s film was adapted from the book published in the United States.
Burgess was not pleased with this “interference”, however, he accepted the change (IMDb;
Frequently Asked Questions answered). Burgess said that he had been receiving requests for permission to adapt his book into a stage play “for 28 years”. “[Other’s versions] were usually so abysmally bad that I was forced eventually to pre-empt other perversions with and authoritative rendering of my own” (Burgess, A; http://www.anthonyburgess.org/ ; 01). With these thoughts in mind, in 1986 Burgess published A Clockwork Orange: A Play with