Summary Sheet

Daniel Contreras English 101B
Story: "A Clockwork Orange." 1962
Author: Anthony Burgess (1917-1993)
Central character: The main character in the story is Alex, a violent teenage male who leads a small gang of similar-typed persons.
Other characters: The three teenagers Dim, George, and Pete that were in the same gang with Alex.
Setting: The story takes place at an unspecified date in a big town inside of England.
Narrator: The main character, Alex, is also the narrator of the story.
Events in summary: (1) Alex and his fellow gang members take to the streets to commit various acts of violence. (2) As time passes, he eventually gets caught and sent to prison. (3) Inside the prison, (3) Alex agrees to be subjected to an experimental procedure in exchange for an early release back into the world. (4) As a result, he no longer feels compelled to commit deeds of violence; though, he lacks a choice of free will now. (5) Alex is converted back to his old hooligan self after embarrassing the government.
Tone: Naïve at the magnitude of what is occurring around the narrator. At the same time his youth like mentality brings some playfulness into this otherwise nefarious narrative.
Style: The story is written in teenage slang called “nadsat” used by the future’s youth.
Irony: In the story, there is no happiness, freedom, and peacefulness; although, the tone that is presented would be satirical because it strives for personal freedoms.
Theme: All human beings should be free to choose to be morally good or bad.
Symbols: Day is symbolic to the story as a time of vulnerability for Alex. The police are everywhere patrolling and searching and representing a time of concealment for Alex. At night, however, he is virtually free from any authority. Nighttime then represents a time of freedom for the young male. Another symbolic object in the story would be the milk served at the Korova Milkbar. Since it is purposely laced with drugs, this can represent that the youth in this story isn’t so innocent after all.
Evaluation: This story was very difficult to get into because of the vocabulary the main character speaks in. After reading a few chapters, I could imply what some of the words meant solely by looking at the context they are used in. Overall, I did enjoy the story and the
Question I plan to Answer: Does government have the rightful authority to commit such deeds?

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