rs free will. For example, they did not choose, to abstain from criminal deeds; they merely were physically unable to perform them. A Clockwork Orange was Burgess response to the question: is an evil human being with free choice preferable to a good zombie without it? Burgess elaborates, It was the sense of this division between well us and sick them that led me to write, in 1960, a short novel called A Clockwork Orange. It is not, in my view, a very good novel... but it sincerely presented my abhorrence of the view that some people were criminal and others not. A denial of the universal inheritance of sin is characteristic of Pelagian societies like that of Britain, and it was in Britain, about 1960, that respectable people began to murmur about the growth of juvenile delinquency and suggest that the young criminals were a somehow inhuman breed and required inhuman treatment... There were irresponsible people who spoke of aversion therapy... Society, as ever, was put first. The delinquents were, of course, not quite human beings: they were minors, and they had no vote; they were very much them as opposed to us, who represented society." It should be noted that while the book was written as social commentary its exhibited a unique language and elaborate dress that earned the book a following. Told in Nadsat, a combination of Russian and Gypsy the punk apparel was popularized upon the books release.The book commences with the main character Alex on one of his nightly escapades. His first act is too, along with his thugs, or droogs, harass a man presumed to be some sort of teacher. After ripping apart his books, the group of four (including Alex), proceed to dislodge a number of his teeth and strip him down to his undergarments [Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange. 5-7]. Burgess perhaps intends this to be symbolic of the resentment the youths harbor towards the educational system that has forsaken them. Alex and his droogs then proceed in...
