OCKWORK ORANGE WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TITLE A CL OCKWORK ?
The book "The Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess in 1962 has generated controversy because of its peculiar and famous title that until today makes people question what it really means "clockwork orange" and what the relationship with the text is. This is why for this opportunity, I will interpret and analyze the meaning behind this curious title, and also I will support my arguments with the explanations that the author gave in his book in order to clarify the meaning of his famous "clockwork orange". As a first step, we will talk about the possible literal meaning that may be given this title. Anyone who read the book cover could say that the story is about an orange robot. In general terms it would not be a bad topic to write a story, but it is strange to imagine a fruit that is so delicious, juicy and with a beautiful orange color transformed into a robot. Do you think it is possible to transform something natural and inanimate like a fruit into something structured as a mechanical object? Personally I think that it is impossible, but this discussion discussion is not part of the text’s content at all. The book is not about fruits as a result of the human beings intervention become mechanical objects that work with a remote control. The real meaning is much deeper and it cannot be translated literally, because “clockwork orange” is an expression and Burgess explained it in his book in the following quote: “Clock work work oranges don’t exist, except in the speech of old Londoners. The image was a bizarre one, always used for a bizarre thing. “He’s as queer as a clockwork orange,” meant he was queer to the limit of queerness. It did not primarily denote homosexuality, though a queer, before restrictive legislation came in, was a term used for a member of the inverted fraternity. Europeans who translated the title as Arancia a Orologeria or Orange Mécanique could not understand its Cockney resonance and they assumed that it meant a hand grenade, a cheaper kind of explosive pineapple. I mean it to stand for the application of a mechanistic morality to a living organism oozing with juice and sweetness.” (Burgess, A. 1986, p. 7)
In this quote the author supported what I said before. The book is not about robots, “hand grenades grenades” or “a cheaper kind of explosive pineapple”. pineapple”. Burgess said that people who translated the book did not understand what clockwork orange really meant. But if we read the first line of the quote “Clockwork “ Clockwork oranges don’t exist, except in the speech of old Dominique Yáñez Muñoz 22/05/2013
Londoners” we know that it is not a universal expression, therefore it could not be a sin for people to think that the book is related to mechanical things because it is not a well-known phrase. We are aware that the title of the book is not related to its literal meaning, so in this paragraph I am going to analyze more deeply each word of the title. In the context of this story, the word "clockwork" is used as an attributive adjective and the oxford dictionary defines it as "repetitive and predictable". This means that the noun to be affected by this adjective will work structurally such as a clock; repetitive and involuntary.
Now the
question is what is the function of the word "orange"? As discussed in the previous paragraph, how can it be possible that a work like clockwork orange or robot? The word "orange" denotes naturalness and pureness by the fact of being a fruit, so it is difficult to relate it to the word "clockwork". What did the author really meant to say? For me as a reader was difficult to understand until I decided to look up the definition of "orange" because I thought that this word may have another meaning entirely unknown to me. I had a big surprise: "Orange" is just a fruit and a color and no other meaning that makes sense with the book. So I had to keep looking for an answer and found something very adorable helped me understand this mystery: There is an animal called orangutan and is a large, long-armed anthropoid ape from Malaysia. If we divide the word orangutan, we have two parts: orang and utan. The first one means "person" and the second one "forest". Both meanings are derived from the Malay language, and then by combining the two words, the result is that orangutan means person of the forest. I know that this explanation only gives the meaning of the word orangutan, but if we look beyond the words, we may understand that the title of the book is a wordplay. In the beginning of the text is a brief summary of the author's life and it was there where I discovered that Anthony Burgess lived for a while in Malaysia and for this reason he knew some Malay words. With this information we may understand the true meaning behind “Clockwork orange". The book is about a person, a boy called Alex that becomes a clockwork orange, in other words a man working as a machine. Now we have all the pieces of this puzzle, so we have to analyze the full meaning of this popular book. It is important to know the relationship between the title and story, so for Dominique Yáñez Muñoz 22/05/2013
this reason I am going to tell you briefly what the book is about: The story is based on Alex, a young Londoner, who was leader of a gang that robbed and hurt people for fun. He was captured and the State conditioned his behavior by strong psychological works on his mind. This brainwashing consisted of putting the favorite music of Alex, Beethoven’s Symphony number nine, and at the same time showing him bloody images full of pain. This procedure completely changed the behavior of this young man and this meant that every time that Alex would think to do something wrong or bad, he would immediately have a horrible headache, so that pain would prevent him from carrying out barbarities. His behavior was affected; he was re-structured to not commit crimes again. Alex was turned into a clockwork orange and that meant that he had no free will of his own. This is what the author wanted to say in the introduction of his book. The relationship between a simple orange and the main plot is how a person completely full of life may be changed into a machine. Burgess explained it in the following quote:
“I mean it to stand for the
application of a mechanistic morality to a living organism oozing with juice and sweetness.” We know that all the things that Alex did were horrible and wrong but It does not mean that Alex were not a human being. The problem is when you do not have your free will, when you do not have the choice to make your own decisions and way of thinking. Finally we have explained all the necessary arguments to define the real meaning of "a clockwork orange" and as a conclusion we may say that this title refers to how people may look normal at first sight but their souls have changed completely leaving aside their essence becoming robotic souls, acting without their own consent and being manipulated by the society or by a powerful force. That is why the author used an orange: if we consider the significance of the Malay word orang (person) and the fruit itself (orange), the message is the same but more representative; one may look sweet with a brilliant color full of life as it is the juicy orange, but none will notice that inside your soul you are no longer the one you used to be. Your way of thinking has completely changed and you cannot control your emotions because now you are a mechanical human that works depending on “the morality” imposed by society, leaving your freedom or free will in someone else's hands and consequently being manipulated as a robot; a clockwork orange.
Dominique Yáñez Muñoz 22/05/2013
