Key themes
- Free will and moral responsibility
- State power and the ethics of rehabilitation
- Violence, language and youth
About this book
Ultra-violence, free will and a teenage narrator with his own invented slang; provocative and stylistically dazzling.
Published in 1962, A Clockwork Orange was written quickly and Burgess considered it a minor work. Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film, made without the final chapter, shaped its reception for decades.
Discussion questions
- Alex chooses violence freely; the State removes that choice through conditioning. Which does Burgess present as the greater evil — and do you agree with his answer?
- Nadsat, Alex's invented slang, forces the reader to learn his language and inhabit his perspective. How did this affect your sympathy for him — or your resistance to sympathy?
- The final chapter (omitted from the original American edition) shows Alex outgrowing violence naturally. Does this ending change the novel's argument about human nature?
- The Ludovico technique is presented as inhuman — but crime victims are largely absent from the novel. What is the novel not saying, and does this gap weaken or strengthen the argument?
- Burgess was reportedly irritated that the novel became famous primarily as a study of violence. What do you think he most wanted the novel to be about?
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