How Does Kubbrick Use Of Language

When describing Anthony Burgess’s invented language Nadsat, the writer and psychologist Theodore Dalrymple stated that “as a linguistic invention, it is an equal of Orwell’s Newspeak” (Dalrymple). Newspeak, the language in 1984 sponsored by the government Ingsoc, and Nadsat, the Russified English spoken in A Clockwork Orange, are both meant to be devolved forms of English that are inferior to those spoken in the real world. Both dialects are prominent throughout their stories, showing the importance of conveying their themes. Newspeak and Nadsat are very effective in making their respective points on the dangers of devolving language and stifling free will, but the ways in which they do so differ significantly. Orwell uses the storylines in 1984 as an expression of beliefs on the devolution of language, while Burgess uses the devolution of language to enhance the storyline of A Clockwork Orange.

The created patch-work language of Nadsat in the novel, A Clockwork Orange, satirizes the social classes and gang life of Anthony Burgess's futuristic society. The most prominent of these tools being his use of a completely new language and the depiction of family life from the eyes of a fifteen year old English hoodlum. Burgess effectively broke arcane traditions when he wrote A Clockwork Orange by blending two forms of effective speech into the vocabulary of the narrator and protagonist, Alex. Burgess, through his character Alex, uses the common or "proper" method of vernacular in certain situations, while uses his own inventive slang-language called "Nadsat" for others. Many

From a third-person perspective we would easily find Alex detestable; but Burgess’ clever writing and use of first-person that causes the reader to eventually sympathise with Alex. When the book was released Time stated

Compiled upon the movie-galvanized image of the novel, the handiwork of ignorant critics cements Orange's reputation as a phantasmagoria of sex and violence. An anonymous reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement once labeled the tome "a nasty little shocker" (qtd. in Burgess, "A Clockwork Orange: A play with music"), and the pithy epithet now graces the cover of the novel's most recent American printing. Yet, through it all, the author maintains that he took no pleasure in documenting Alex's brutality and even invented Nadsat in an effort to make the violence symbolic (Burgess, Contemporary Literary Criticism 38). He never seeks to justify Alex's actions and believes that his crimes "must be checked and punished" in a "properly run society" (Burgess, Contemporary Literary Criticism 38). In addition, Burgess bases the most horrific scene in the novel -- the rape of the writer's wife -- on personal experience. During a

        The second event that influenced the creation of his novel happened when Burgess and his wife took a trip to the Soviet Union and encountered a group of thugs who strangely maintained a kind of honor code (Contemporary). Burgess displays morality in Alex by not making him a common

In December of 1971 Stanley Kubrick released A Clockwork Orange for the entire world to enjoy. The movie is an adaptation of the book by the same name that was written by Anthony Burgess in 1963. The story begins with the main character, Alex narrating while he and his fellow gang members Georgie, Dim and Pete sit in the Korova Milk Bar discussing what violent acts they will be part of that night. The drink of choice is milk that is laced with drugs that is dispensed from the breast of nude statues of women that adorn the bar. After Alex and his gang leave the Korova, they go on a crime spree that includes mugging, robbery, a gang fight, grand theft auto, breaking and entering and rape. The rape of the woman is especially brutal; Alex and

Burgess chose to use Nadsat throughout A Clockwork Orange in order to give his audience a small experience with brainwashing. Burgess himself says that through the use of many Russian-like words, his readers will be forced to learn minimal Russian (Craik 51). After Burgess repeats words like "gulliver," "otchkies," and "devotchka," his readers begin to remember what these strange words mean, and therefore learn a new language. Without knowing it, the readers have taken part in a type of linguistic programming, and they are able to see first hand just what Alex undergoes in A Clockwork Orange (Craik 51). Burgess uses words very similar to their Russian counterparts. For example, the word "horrorshow" from the novel, which means good, comes from the Russian word khorosho. The word liudi, translates to "lewdies," meaning people. Because these words are so similar to the Russian words they come from, readers of A Clockwork Orange should be able to recognize small amounts of

Nadsat is the primary language, although not the exclusive one, of A Clockwork Orange. Burgess claims he uses it "to muffle the raw response we expect from pornography." But he also uses it to create a "literary adventure" ("Resucked" x). The use of Nadsat emphasizes many of the struggles involved with A Clockwork Orange's purpose. The struggle between the old and the young--the conservative and the progressive--is made more sensational by the separation of language. Alex is misunderstood by his parents, the police, and the government philosophically, but also literally, widening the gap between him and the "sane" world.

A difference and slight similarity between Kubrick’s Film and Burgess’ novella is the narration. In both, Alex is the narrator and uses Nadsat vocabulary to describe his acts of violence, however, the film narrative is perceived as less powerful as the novella. In the book, Alex’s narration accentuates his cruelty, pleasure, and lack of remorse. His pleasure is highlighted in the book displaying his dark thoughts, making the novella A Clockwork Orange appear to be a more grotesque piece in language than the film. This is evident in an act of violence, the raping of two ten-year-old girls. In the film, Alex has what appears to be consensual sex with two women around or a few youngers than himself, that the met in a record store. In the novel, he meets two ten-year-old girls instead and purchases them some food in addition. He then convinces them to come with him where they become intoxicated and he rapes them. Alex in the novella narrates the aftermath,

Thus, the fictional is mostly referred as nadsat. It is seen only used by this specific subculture marking the distinction between the teenagers and adults, whom only use simple English. Upon first glance, the most discernible aspect of Anthony Burgess’s novella A Clockwork Orange is the extensive use of fabricated vocabulary forming a language called ‘nadsat’ as the narrative

In Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange, he depicts a dystopian future by uses elements of literature that almost let reader see what is happening, but the film can take it further. Stanley Kubrick’s version of A Clockwork Orange differs from the novel by featuring visual and musical elements that are not described in the books but are metaphoric in cinematography. Both the novel and the film still follow the same plotline. The protagonist and narrator, Alex, is a violent young boy who would go into the night with his friends to commit heinous crimes to anyone they come across.

Contextually, the time the novella was written there was a growing youth culture in UK. These youth groups were becoming increasingly violent and concerned for the rest of the society about safety and peace. Similarly, the extent of which violence is the part of life of the adolescent group in the novella is more clear in the nadsat lexicon. Therefore, one of the influences on Burgess was most likely the concerns, his and society’s, about these youth groups because the nadsat subculture resembles

In the novel A Clockwork Orange, the author Anthony Burgess tells a story about a young man name Alex and his friends, every night they go around and start committing violent acts. In the novel Alex expresses his freedom of choice between good and evil. The freedom of choice is a decision that every person must make throughout his life in order to guide his actions and to take control of his own future. This Freedom of Choice, no matter what the outcome is, displays person power as an individual, and any efforts to control or influence this choice between good and evil will take way the person free will and enslave him. In this novel the author uses this symbolism through imagery. He shows that through the character of

A Clockwork Orange, a novel written by Anthony Burgess in the 1960’s takes place in dystopian future in London, England. The novel is about a fifteen year old nadsat (teenager) named Alex who along with his droogs (friends) commit violent acts of crime and opts to be bad over good. In time, Alex finds himself to be in an experiment by the government, making him unable to choose between good and evil, thus losing his ability of free will, and being a mere clockwork orange. A “clockwork orange” is a metaphor for Alex being controlled by the government, which makes him artificial because he is unable to make the decision of good verses evil for himself and is a subject to what others believe is right. In A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess

“Nevertheless, when the first American edition of A Clockwork Orange was published in 1963, it had not only a glossary but an afterword by Stanley Edgar Hyman. The glossary confirms the preponderance of Slavic-based or more particularly Russian-based coinages, and the afterword still stands as the most comprehensive discussion of nadsat. Even though Hyman surprisingly confesses himself unable to read Burgess's book without