What does the title A Clockwork Orange mean?
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Saturday, December 1, 2007 22:35
VIEWED: 3485
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I read the book when I was in ninth grade I think. Even found a translator online so I could actually understand what they were talking about. Great book from what I remember. Still haven't seen the film though.
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"This is my timey-wimey detector. It goes ding when there's stuff. Also, it can boil an egg at 30 paces, whether you want it to or not, actually, so I've learned to stay away from hens. It's not pretty when they blow."
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Although many people claim that the title refers to the dangers of forcing structure onto unconformity, I’m not sure that this is really the point, unless we believe that the author is an idiot. In the book, Alex’s unconformity includes murder and the rape of children - hardly what most people would consider natural or appropriate behavior of people in a society. Although we are led to believe that Alex should be sympathized with, only a true moron would.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:
Originally posted by WASHnwear:
Read the book (again, not since HS)...as I recall it was pretty good, and shed some light on the slang/argot they used. I think in the late 80s a version was published with a "lost" final chapter - an "author's cut" I guess you might say. I DID NOT LIKE IT.
Wasn't really lost, they had it in the UK it was just cut for some reason when it was sent to the US. Funny thing is that it screwed up some sort of symbolism in the number of chapters as well.
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Edit: Re the name's meaning, my intel is pretty much the same as FredG.'s, except that "Orange" came from "orang" which is short in some parts for "orangutan"...minor point, since the whole homo sapiens thing remains the same...
Edit Edit: Okay...behold my ignorance...not sure just how much creature territory "homo sapiens" covers, particularly as regards orangutans...but I trust my drift is got (and no big loss if it isn't)...
As I understand it (though this is stretching the limits of my knowledge) the Malay word for person includes orangutans, but that's from a half-remembered article on the book so don't take my word for it.
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Quote:I completely get that, Som.
Originally posted by TheSomnambulist:
Never could handle films with rape scenes in them, so can't say I'll be watching it again anytime soon.
Chrisisall
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Quote:After I saw the film for the first time, I came away with two thoughts: what a beautifully photographed movie/Alex should have been beaten to death by those homeless dudes under the overpass.
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Although we are led to believe that Alex should be sympathized with, only a true moron would.
Some anti-heroes are too anti for Chrisisall
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I couldn't in good conscience sympathize with Alex, not by any means. But I think the point was to recognize that if he could be treated in this manner, guilty or no, then it wouldn't be long before they started brutalizing everyday citizens. At least that's what I took from it.
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"This is my timey-wimey detector. It goes ding when there's stuff. Also, it can boil an egg at 30 paces, whether you want it to or not, actually, so I've learned to stay away from hens. It's not pretty when they blow."
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Quote:That’s one way to look at it, but that’s what I meant by thinking that the author was an idiot. It’s sort of silly to argue state oppression against someone who is a murder and rapist of 10 year olds. If you want to argue a theme of state of oppression then give me an Anne Frank story, not some son of a bitch getting exactly what he deserved. I think there must be some satire or some sarcasm there that I’m missing. It’s been a long time since I read the book, and I’m not really sure. Ort it could just be another hippy shooting his mouth off again.
Originally posted by deepgirl187:
I couldn't in good conscience sympathize with Alex, not by any means. But I think the point was to recognize that if he could be treated in this manner, guilty or no, then it wouldn't be long before they started brutalizing everyday citizens. At least that's what I took from it.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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I'm not sure what A Clockwork Orange means but it was and is one of my all time favorite movies. I tried having a lot of my friends watch it after I did and none of them like it though. They all thought I was weird for liking it. When I hear the song "singing in the rain" I always feel like kicking something.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Although we are led to believe that Alex should be sympathized with, only a true moron would.
You just (possibly unintentionally) nailed the point. Alex is a nasty piece of work and few people would shed a tear about him being locked up.
...but what if we could cure him instead? Treat his apparent lack of empathy by giving him a prosthetic conscience? Turn him into a good person, a productive member of society? Wouldn't that be better, more humane than locking him up? After all, we live in a society which supposedly values forgiveness.
So Alex walks out of his conditioning, cured - into a society which immediately rejects him, exploits him and tortures him. Turns out society doesn't want a "cure" for evil - it can't forgive - it wants retribution, and eventually decides that its better to "uncure" Alex, to keep him as a threat to justify oppression and retribution.
The big question is whether society's victimization of the "cured" Alex - now repentent, harmless and helpless as a child - is any more defensible that Alex's former crimes. Perhaps the youth crime wave is just a symptom of a society that is sick at all levels?
The oppression is not just that Alex was "programmed" - he was programmed with an unconditional sense of empathy by hypocrites who could suspend their own compassion at the slightest excuse.
(Try the Babylon 5 episode "Passing Through Gethsemane" if you want similar issues without the 'ol ultra violence thrown in).
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Curses, foiled again, and by someone who said it more clearly and in better fashion - thumbs up, ImNotHere.
I'll just note that once again, treating the symptoms rather than the cause is like takin Nyquil for Tuberculosis...
I've always wondered what made the little bastard that way - not that I empathise with him, the way it's written, you *can't* empathise with him, well, unless yer seriously wrong upstairs...
I think that was the point, was Alex really all that very different from the society that obviously produced and created him, that he preyed upon and was preyed upon in the end by ?
Excellent book, completely banned in my highschool, believe it or not - so I wondered why, and did my book report on it as a gesture of snarkery. 
Got a B+, too.
-Frem
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