A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony BurgessThe Americans seem to feel that their culture is superior to that of others, which they believe enables them the right to tamper with the art originated in other nations. In the case of the novel, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, American publishers believed that they had the right to alter the author’s work to suit their society by excluding the final chapter. I believe this was wrong on their behalf and that the novel should have been published in its entirety. By doing so the author is able to exhibit his freedom of thought through art, his choice of the novel’s structure is allowed and his attempt to present his thesis is complete.
Art allows the creator to express their personal beliefs and/or feelings through their work. If their work of art is ever altered, then it destroys the meaning behind it. When American publishers decided to exclude the final chapter, they destroyed the art of Anthony Burgess. The final chapter was written for a reason and by eliminating it, his work was no longer the representation of his opinions. It had taken on a whole new thesis, that of which was not his. He believed that people could change without the use of medication, but this belief was soon modified only to suit the needs of the American society. He was then criticized by American critics in promoting youth violence, which you could clearly see was not his intent if they would have included the final chapter. People began to see the novel’s influence of violence, but never got to experience the positive change within Alex in the twenty-first chapter. His maturity was the whole point of the novel and by eliminating this important event the reader was unable to see the meaning behind the author’s work. Because his work of art was altered, people could not see his beliefs and/or feelings through his work, which denied him the right to express himself as an artist/author.
Anthony Burgess also carefully thought out the structure of his novel. He created three sections, each beginning with the repetition of the question, “What’s it going to be then, eh?” (Burgess, p.5,61,103) and containing a total of 7 chapters in each part. When the chapters were totaled, it equaled twenty-one, which is commonly known as the age of maturity. The twenty-first chapter is significant to the novel because this is where Alex finally matured into an adult. He rejected the childish crimes of violence he once enjoyed and begins to worry about his future, “Perhaps I was getting too old for the sort of jeezny I had been leading, brothers. I was eighteen now, just gone. Eighteen was not a young age…Eighteen was not all that young an age, then. But what was I going to do?” (Burgess,...
To view the complete essay, you be registered.