Anthony burgess’s dystopıan vısıon ın a clockwork orange: from ultra-vıolence and dehumanızatıon of man to relıance on human goodness

Abstract

Anthony Burgess’s Clockwork Orange published in 1962 is both a dystopian novel depicting a fictitious bad future in which the world is much more exposed to ultra-violence and an anti-utopian text criticizing the government’s utopian aspirations of eliminating extreme violence from the society by means of behavioural sciences and demonstrating the fallacies of their strategy. This paper argues that Burgess’s novel is not a simple dystopia owing to the dystopian elements in it; rather it has anti-utopian elements, which should be distinguished from its dystopian elements. Moreover, Burgess blurs the dystopian and anti-utopian vision in the novel through his retaining an abiding faith in human goodness. In order to put forward these qualities of the novel, the paper suggests dividing the novel into three parts. A Clockwork Orange was written in three parts of seven chapters but this paper suggests dividing the book into two in relation to the dystopian practice. The first section includes Part I and the second section includes the whole of Part II and Part III excluding the seventh chapter. And this paper will take the last chapter of the novel (i.e. the twenty-first chapter) as a blur of the dystopian vision of the novel. The paper begins with a brief introduction of utopia, dystopia and anti-utopia. Following this is a discussion of the dystopian elements in the first part of the novel. The ultra-violent acts of Alex and his gang of “droogs” are shown as the main source of the dystopian world in the first part. Next the novel’s second section is analyzed to put forward both its dystopian and anti-utopian elements. In this part, it is argued that the utopian ideals of the government turn into a dystopia for Alex, who is the cause of the dystopia in the first part. This part also reveals that the novel involves anti-utopian elements, through which Burgess shows the defects of the government’s tactics to turn the criminals like Alex into individuals who do not commit crimes. In so doing Burgess raises such ethical questions as whether the authority should discard violence in return for its people’s free will and whether the sanctioned violence makes people deprived of humanity. It can be claimed that Burgess considers the scientists and the government depriving man of his capacity for moral choice are, in effect, inferior to the criminals they attempt to treat. The examination concludes with the idea that Burgess himself blurs the dystopian vision of the novel with the twenty-first chapter yet it is the proof of Burgess’s ending his novel with his reliance on human goodness. Key Words: A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess, ultra-violence, sanctioned violence, deprivation of free will, human goodness