Ojv2, seminar 2, 2018

Introduction to Textual Analysis Seminar 2, Summer semester 2018

• As one of the seminal works of dystopian fiction, A Clockwork Orange radiates with linguistic brilliance.

• In the same way that his predecessor George Orwell created doublespeak to satirize the bureaucratic assault on English, Anthony Burgess melds distorted Russian words and phrases with British schoolboy slang to create a menacing “code” for narrator Alex and his vicious droogs.

• The author implies two sources for this allarming yet appealing pastiche: – the Russian words and phrases have infiltrated English through a constant barrage of radio and television propaganda emanating from the Soviet Union; the schoolboy slang suggests the disconcerting ascendancy of youth.

What's it going to be then, eh? • This is perhaps the most famous and most important motif within the novel. • The opening line to all three parts of the novel begins with this exact question which hints at freedom of choice and introduces the theme of free will in the novel. • But, as Burgess also suggests, free will is dangerous, as depicted by the recurring ultraviolence in this futuristic dystopia (Burgess 163).

• At the same time, this quote hints at a sense of urgency parallel to time pressures on Burgess during those years of writing, to produce notable work and cope with his financial concerns.

• More interestingly, this question occurs twelve times throughout the novel, eventually being answered at the conclusion by our protagonist Alex. • The number twelve equates to the numbers marked on a clock; just like the endless ticking of a clock, Alex comes to understand the circle of continuum in his inescapable society in which free will is denied (Burgess 163; Phillips 244).

Alex, the name of the main character • Alex was purportedly named as portmanteau of the Latin words ‘a’ and ‘lex’, meaning ‘against’ or ‘outside’ and ‘law’ respectively.

• This appears to be a nod to Alex’s lawless behavior.

Lexical choices • The language used throughout the novel is a neologism created by Burgess called Nadsat, derived from the Russian word teen; our first encounter with Nadsat is the word “droogs,” meaning “friends”.

NADSAT • Nadsat is the language spoken by the violent youths in this futuristic society. • Burgess uses a mix of Russian and English to develop this unique language left for readers to decipher for themselves.

• As a result, “the strange new lingo would act as a kind of mist half-hiding the mayhem and protecting the reader from his own baser instincts. And there was a fine irony in the notion of a teenage race untouched by politics, using totalitarian brutality as an end in itself, equipped with a dialect which drew on the two chief political languages of the age” . Furthermore, “as the book was about brainwashing, it was appropriate that the text itself should be a brainwashing device. The reader would be brainwashed into learning minimal Russian”.

Examples • Korova Milkbar Korova is Russian for cow • rassoodocks In this instance we can infer he means “minds” with the word rassoodocks.

• mesto Place • skorry Quick

• viddy to see • ultra-violent rape • starry ancient • ptitsa a woman • smecking off laughing

• devotchkas girls • malchicks men or boys • gullivers In the novel, Burgess calls his fictional youth slang Nadsat which is, “…old rhyming slang” mixed with Slav Propaganda, and Gypsy (p.114).Gulliver is slang for head.

• glazzies eye or nipple depending on context

• The four of us were dressed in the height of fashio n, which in those days was a pair of black very tig ht tights with the old jelly mould, as we called it , fitting on the crotch underneath the tights, this being to protect and also a sort of a design you c ould viddy clear enough in a certain light, so that Pete (a hand, that is), Georgie had I had had one ainrooker the shape of a spider. a very fancy one of a flower, and poor old Dim had a very hound-and-horny one of a clown's litso (face, that is).

• hound-and-horny corny • litso (face, that is) “litso” (лицо) is the Russian word for “face”

• Although Alex tries to break free from the totalitarian oppression and “present himself as a free, anarchic individualist” similar to a superhero, he is unable to do so, only to fall in the end to the government’s manipulation.

• Thus, his clothing mirrors an ideal superhero costume, yet he is only “impersonating a phantasmatic superhero whose glamourous costume and exaggerated bodily contours he is eager to copy, yet of course hopelessly unable ever to match perfectly”.