Essay on the Language of A Clockwork Orange -- Clockwork Orange Essays

The Language of A Clockwork Orange  Ã‚      â€Å"Gooly into a world where by nochy prestoopniks rule and oobivat and by day all is well.† This is the nature of A Clockwork Orange, a novel by Anthony Burgess, where one enters the world of a fifteen-year-old named Alex who speaks a vernacular language and does what he likes. This molody nadsat, or young teen, leads a life where crime is real horrorshow as he dodges millicents, or policemen, in order to live a life he wants in the merzky, grazzy city where he resides. Alex and his shaika oobivat too many lewdies, though, and the millicents loveted him. He then becomes a plenny in the StaJa, away from his moloko, snoutie or beloved classical music. As a plenny, he undergoes tests by viddying sinnies, making him horn in pain at the messel of krovvy or guttiwuts. After the tests, Alex returns to the streets as a real horrorshow new malchick, unable to pony or prod crime. Eventually, he meets a ded whose zheena he oobivated before, and is tricked into almost ending his jeezny by thinking of the sinnies and being forced to gooly out of an okno and falling many raskazzes. Alex lives, though, and returns to a jeezny of crime and keeps the city spoogy of him. The previous paragraph gives an example what much of A Clockwork Orange’s language is like throughout the progression of the novel and is partially the reason why it has developed such a cult following since its release in 1963. What Burgess has done is taken English as a base language, and through the use of slang from English, Russian, Arabic and Gypsy, formed a language all its own which actually manages to accurately depict both the mindset of Alex but also the brutality of the world in which he lives. Some of his wo... ...restrictions in the forms of laws or minor regulations. So too does Alex express this interest. Although among today’s youth it is not common to be rioting or embarking on a homicide spree, Alex feels this is his way of living a carefree life. However, as a result of his liberty being â€Å"denied,† he attempts to vent his anger by committing suicide. Again, today’s teens do not generally veer towards those extremes. The parallel reaction in today’s youth to Alex’s reaction would be the excessive usage of innuendo, free use of the vernacular, indulgence in pleasure of any and all kinds, and the exhibition of mock violence to alleviate angst. It is interesting that there is such a shocking similarity between our world and that of the novel because the novel was written in 1963, at which time there were certainly many differences between teens’ views then and those of today.