Symbolism In The Nadsat
Alex is the leader of his gang, has a privileged place in it to enjoy hurting, controlling every detail. Nothing escapes his approval in his misdeeds, and he and the rest enjoy being violent. Gets a unique pleasure to see blood, that is linked to music. Both make him feel an indescribable pleasure when he hits someone. Music is used against him in Ludovico treatment as aversion therapy of violence, and is associated to negative feeling that hurts and makes him feel physically ill (Classical conditioning: stimulus-response).
At the same time he can behave with their parents or doctors at the rehabilitation center, in order to get what they want, which is to have power over others.
They speak Nadsat, teen slang symbol of authority, ie in …show more content…
the context of "A Clockwork Orange”, Alex and his droogs don’t talk weird, if not the reader if he doesn’t blend with social context.
The Nadsat is a core element of their personality and shows his way to face the world, as Geoffrey says Shapless ( Clockwork Education: The Persistence of the Arnoldian Ideal Postmodern Culture 4.3) "is an obvious and direct element"
With the same object, Alex wears peculiar clothing, that determines its rank within the gang.
This is when they wear masks to enter somewhere to steal and Dim uses clown’s one.
Alex has a direct confrontation with Dim and shows his status within the group beating him: "Dim's got to learn his place. There has to be a leader. Discipline there has to be, right?” (ACO p.29) He loses his position in the group when Dim betrays him and hands him to the police. Alex would be an outsider in the society of adults, but in the teen world has an important position.
In the final chapter (not included in the American version) Alex reflects on mortality and maturity: "Yes, brothers, my son. And now I felt this bolshy big hollow inside my plot, feeling very surprised too at myself. I knew what was happening. I was like growing up. Youth must go” (ACO p.190 ) Being returned to him free will and not under the Ludovico technique, Alex stop committing crimes and evolve with something to fill him, like having a child or getting …show more content…
married.
Burgess relates his work with 1984, another dystopia where the individual expectation is given with the figure of Big Brother; but in this case there is a moral more optimistic: the power of choice is the key to freedom and therefore the self-realization. Citing Burgess, this is a novel too didactic to be artistic.
At the end of the American edition, Alex is the same person as always and hasn’t learned anything or has taken any lessons from what happened: "In neither ending is evil punished, nor is Alex shown to repent or regret his atrocities "( Shapless PMC 4.3).
Here, Alex is violent again, choosing evil he thinks is as valid as choosing good and removing it away against his will doesn’t mean that he had ceased to desire or satisfy him. The same happens with two of his exfriends that despite becoming policemen, when they meet Alex, do not hesitate to beat him up, enjoying it. This is reflected by the pastor of prison, saying that if the choice of good is not a free choice then it means
nothing.
The individual is an enemy of the state, which wants to abolish evil, and individual liberty for the common good. The government is repressive, wants stability in society: the common good by the sacrifice of individual
The state takes away his ability to do evil, but in turn leaves him helpless against the world: "Alex is treated for his criminality and cured by a chemical remedy more efficient than the state jail. Alex becomes a little machine capable only of good. Hawthorne's famous ambivalence might have applauded the reformation of criminal but not the evil of whose who did such reforming” (E. Shaskan Bumas- Fictions of the panopticon- American literature 73-1 (2001) 121-145)
Both the final chapter of the American edition as the English, say that instinct can’t be repressed (the Ludovico treatment stops working in Alex in American end) and we can only change if we do it voluntarily (Alex does inEnglish end), but "neither ending reveals if conditioning is better or worse that makes us us peaceable or Full Version to be violent" (Geoffrey Shapless. PMC 4.3)
At the same time he can behave with their parents or doctors at the rehabilitation center, in order to get what they want, which is to have power over others.
They speak Nadsat, teen slang symbol of authority, ie in …show more content…
the context of "A Clockwork Orange”, Alex and his droogs don’t talk weird, if not the reader if he doesn’t blend with social context.
The Nadsat is a core element of their personality and shows his way to face the world, as Geoffrey says Shapless ( Clockwork Education: The Persistence of the Arnoldian Ideal Postmodern Culture 4.3) "is an obvious and direct element"
With the same object, Alex wears peculiar clothing, that determines its rank within the gang.
This is when they wear masks to enter somewhere to steal and Dim uses clown’s one.
Alex has a direct confrontation with Dim and shows his status within the group beating him: "Dim's got to learn his place. There has to be a leader. Discipline there has to be, right?” (ACO p.29) He loses his position in the group when Dim betrays him and hands him to the police. Alex would be an outsider in the society of adults, but in the teen world has an important position.
In the final chapter (not included in the American version) Alex reflects on mortality and maturity: "Yes, brothers, my son. And now I felt this bolshy big hollow inside my plot, feeling very surprised too at myself. I knew what was happening. I was like growing up. Youth must go” (ACO p.190 ) Being returned to him free will and not under the Ludovico technique, Alex stop committing crimes and evolve with something to fill him, like having a child or getting …show more content…
married.
Burgess relates his work with 1984, another dystopia where the individual expectation is given with the figure of Big Brother; but in this case there is a moral more optimistic: the power of choice is the key to freedom and therefore the self-realization. Citing Burgess, this is a novel too didactic to be artistic.
At the end of the American edition, Alex is the same person as always and hasn’t learned anything or has taken any lessons from what happened: "In neither ending is evil punished, nor is Alex shown to repent or regret his atrocities "( Shapless PMC 4.3).
Here, Alex is violent again, choosing evil he thinks is as valid as choosing good and removing it away against his will doesn’t mean that he had ceased to desire or satisfy him. The same happens with two of his exfriends that despite becoming policemen, when they meet Alex, do not hesitate to beat him up, enjoying it. This is reflected by the pastor of prison, saying that if the choice of good is not a free choice then it means
nothing.
The individual is an enemy of the state, which wants to abolish evil, and individual liberty for the common good. The government is repressive, wants stability in society: the common good by the sacrifice of individual
The state takes away his ability to do evil, but in turn leaves him helpless against the world: "Alex is treated for his criminality and cured by a chemical remedy more efficient than the state jail. Alex becomes a little machine capable only of good. Hawthorne's famous ambivalence might have applauded the reformation of criminal but not the evil of whose who did such reforming” (E. Shaskan Bumas- Fictions of the panopticon- American literature 73-1 (2001) 121-145)
Both the final chapter of the American edition as the English, say that instinct can’t be repressed (the Ludovico treatment stops working in Alex in American end) and we can only change if we do it voluntarily (Alex does inEnglish end), but "neither ending reveals if conditioning is better or worse that makes us us peaceable or Full Version to be violent" (Geoffrey Shapless. PMC 4.3)