The Inseparability of Vice and Virtue in Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange

Written For CompLit 131: Brave New World (Instructor: Nefeli Forni Zervoudaki)

A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess, is set in a pre-dystopian world and is narrated  by Alex, a teenager who leads a life of crime and violence at night. He and his “droogs” (gang)  steal, rape, and kill just for the fun of it. Eventually, Alex is caught and put in prison. He is given  the option to be released early, provided that he participates in an experiment for the government.  This experiment, called Ludovico’s Technique, involves conditioning Alex so that any time he even thinks about anything the government deems to be “bad,” he begins to feel physically ill. This is done by showing Alex videos of people committing violent crimes while giving him medicine that made him ill. In doing this, Alex essentially lost his free will. After being released,  Alex is rejected by his parents and beaten by the police force. With nowhere to go, he stumbles  into the house of a revolutionary, trying to fix the problems in the government. This  revolutionary, F. Alexander, sees Alex as a tool to push his ideologies, and tries to get him to kill  himself. Alex makes a suicide attempt that fails, and the government undoes Ludovico’s Technique. Alex returns to his life of crime for a short time, but eventually decides he wants to  settle down and start a family. In A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess reveals that humanity’s capacity to act virtuously and viciously are inseparable. Through the Nadsat language, Alex’s function as the narrator, and the dualisms of characters and groups, Burgess shows that actions to  minimize evil ultimately are doomed to minimize goodness too.

Alex undoubtedly committed heinous crimes in the first part of the book. However, because of the Nadsat language, which is the Russian-influenced language that the teenagers of the book talk in, we spend less thought condemning him for his actions than we ordinarily would. The truly horrific nature of Alex’s actions is hidden beneath the language of the novel. In the first 10 pages of the book, Alex and his droogs brutally beat a scholar and rip apart his books, yanking out his teeth and leaving him alive, but bleeding on the side of the road. Later, they  approach a house outside the city and pretend they need help and a cup of water. A woman lets them in with some hesitation, and (wearing masks) they beat her and her husband, F. Alexander. They go on to rape the woman in front of F. Alexander, and rip apart the book he has written, called A Clockwork Orange. The woman later dies of her injuries. In both of these cases, what Alex and his gang are doing is wrong. However, we are distracted because this early on into the book, we still need to learn to understand what Burgess is talking about. For example, after  beating the scholar, Burgess writes, “‘You naughty old veck [man], you,’ I said, and then we can to filly about with him [beat him]. Pete held his rookers [hands] and Georgie sort of hooked [punched] his rot [mouth] wide open for him and Dim yanked out his false zoobies[teeth], upper and lower” (Burgess 9). We are somewhat desensitized to the violence because so much of our  thought is dedicated to figuring out what is actually being said. This distraction makes us condemn Alex much less than we normally would, which is important when comparing him to other major characters later. But Burgess does not intend for the novel to be unintelligible (Evans 406). After the first part of the book, where most of the violence happens, the introduction of new Nadsat words decreases heavily, and many new ones are defined directly after they are said. Once we have come to accept violence as a part of the world, we no longer need the mental distraction of learning the teenage vocabulary to distract us; we have accepted it (Evans). The distraction early on in the novel is what allows us to be morally complicit in Alex’s behavior. This distraction then makes us open to have sympathy for Alex through his narration (Ramakrishnan 6). Burgess does this to have us accept that people will inevitably do vicious  things.

Burgess’ choice to have Alex narrate the book is what really creates that sympathy. We  see everything from Alex’s point of view and hear his thoughts. Before he is captured, Alex  attempts to rob a wealthy old woman’s house without the help of his droogs. This is the first major instance of Alex creating sympathy for himself despite his heinous actions. Alex chooses to enter the house on his own to re-establish respect for himself as the leader of his droogs. In the house, Alex begins to trip over everything—one of the woman’s many cats, a statue, and a saucer  of milk. He describes these moments as almost cartoonish, and even says “…the whole veshch  [situation] really a very humorous one if you could imagine it sloochatting [happening] to some  other veck [person] and not to Your Humble Narrator” (Burgess 69). Alex talks to the readers as if they are an audience, reveling in the fun of violence as much as he is. He refers to the readers as  his “brothers”, assuming that we share his joy in violence. His open honesty about how much he enjoys violence also makes him more convincing—why would he lie about others when he’s revealing such terrible things about himself? In comparison with nearly every other character, Alex seems to be a much more reliable source of information because of how honest he is about  himself. We sympathize for Alex when he faces punishment because he is just acting out his desires, which have been normalized. Seeing his actions from his own point of view makes them more justifiable to us—it seems like Alex wants very little from life, and life isn’t even allowing  him that. Even though those “very little” things are, in reality, rape and murder, Alex paints them  to be normal desires, and we believe him (Semansky 2). Like Alex, we do good things but have bad desires as well. “Though Alex’s actions are horrendous, his struggle to simply feel alive in an alienating society is something the audience regards with empathy” (Moya 4). We see Alex the  way we see ourselves, as someone who does both good and bad things, but overall thinks they are a good person. The first-person narration makes it harder to harshly judge Alex for actions  which, when described more plainly, might have elicited completely different responses. Burgess does this because he is showing us that though we may believe we are good people (and we truly  may be!), we inevitably will do or have done vicious things.

Alex is not the only character who does good and bad things to push Burgess’ ideas. Each character or group in A Clockwork Orange did terrible things but also things they believed to be good. They each exercised their own free will in ways that they believed were right (and in  some ways really were right) but were clearly wrong to the reader. Alex is the clearest example  of this. Alex loves classical music. “Music always sort of sharpened me up, O my brothers, and  made me feel like old Bog [God] himself, ready to make with the old donner and blitzen and  have vecks [men] and ptistas [women] creeching away in my ha ha power” (Burgess 46). To Alex, music is an expression of a person’s identity that should always be respected. At one point, Alex  and his droogs are in a bar, and a woman starts singing an opera song. Dim, one of Alex’s droogs, continues as if nothing is happening—being loud and disrespectful. Normally, Alex  wouldn’t really care, but with the woman singing, Alex gets upset at him, calling him a “Bastard. Filthy drooling mannerless bastard” (Burgess 33). He goes on to punch Dim in the face. Later, Alex puts on Beethoven in his home after bringing two 10-year-old girls to his house, drugging them, and raping them. During Ludovico’s Treatment, Alex is uncomfortable the entire time but does  not truly fight back until they begin to play Beethoven over the videos (Weiss 7).

“Then I noticed, in all my pain and sickness, what music it was that like crackled and  boomed on the sound-track, and it was Ludwig van, the last movement of the Fifth  Symphony, and I creeched [shouted] like bezoomny [crazy] at that. “Stop!” I creeched.  “Stop, you grahzny disgusting sods. It’s a sin, that’s what it is, a filthy unforgivable sin  …Using Ludwig van like that. He did no harm to anyone. Beethoven just wrote music.”  (Burgess 110)

Alex appreciates music in a very respectable way. We see Beethoven as a very elegant artist, and his music is respected. Alex hates it when Dim disrespects the beauty of music and thinks it’s  unfair to use it in Ludovico’s treatment. But at the same time, music is like a drug for him, it  heightens his already malicious nature. After Ludovico’s treatment, Alex cannot listen to music  without feeling sick. And for the most part, we feel bad for him. We believe that taking away Alex’s free will, though he is no longer committing violent crimes, was unjust. Alex’s love for music, and the loss of that privilege, is what allows us to see that what happened to him was wrong. Then, in F. Alexander’s house, Alex is driven to insanity by the music playing around  him. He screams and bangs on the walls, begging for the music to stop. Soon after this, Alex attempts suicide by jumping out a window of the house. It is ironic that Alex’s one redeemable and respectable quality, when lost, is what caused him to attempt suicide. Burgess uses this to  show that in taking away someone’s free will, we are taking away their will to live. No matter  how many terrible things they do, forcibly stopping them from being able to make their own decisions is wrong.

Alex faced oppression from the government officials of the novel. While Alex best exemplifies Burgess’ point about free will, a reader may justify the government officials’ choices if Alex was the only immoral character. The government officials involved in Ludovico’s Treatment, like Alex, believed that their actions were justifiable, but very clearly were bad  people. The lead doctor would always begin to smile and laugh whenever Alex was in pain. He  enjoyed it when Alex begged them to stop, saying that he was amusing. On one hand, Alex has done terrible things, so it seems fair to subject him to pain, especially from the government’s point of view. But the fact that the officials actually enjoy Alex’s pain is evidence that they are just as bad as him. After Ludovico’s treatment is completed, the doctors bring in a lot of higher  up officials to display their work. A man comes in and brutally beats Alex—every time Alex attempts to fight back, he begins to feel sick and is forced to stop. The people watching are  excited and laugh at Alex’s pain. They relish in violence just as much as Alex did before his  treatment. Then, the doctors bring out a woman, and Alex immediately has an urge to have sex with her. Again, the sickness comes, and he begins to just bow in front of her and give her promises that he would protect her and devote his life to her. Alex notices at this point that  members of the audience are staring at the woman. “And the glazzies [eyes] of some of these  starry [old] vecks [men] in the audience were like popping out at this young devotchka [woman]  with dirty and like unholy desire” (Burgess 143). The audience claims to be better than Alex, but very clearly enjoys violence and sex the same way he does. A chaplain in the audience argues  that this treatment was unfair, as Alex is no longer able to make his own choices. This is one of the only points in the entire book when a character does something good that inconveniences  himself. Alex says, “‘Me, me, me. How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I like just some animal or dog?’ And that started them off govoreeting [arguing] real loud and throwing  slovos [words] at me. So I just creeched louder still, creeching ; “Am I just to be like a clockwork orange?’” (Burgess 121) Another member argues that Alex willingly agreed to this  treatment, and therefore all of its consequences are his own fault, which the chaplain argues is insanity. Alex sees the governor give the chaplain a look that he believes to mean the chaplain  won’t get the promotion he has been looking for. This entire scene is clear evidence that the  officials of the government—aside from the chaplain—don’t see a problem with Alex’s loss of  free will, enjoy violence and sex just as much as he does, and that they are willing to attack the livelihoods of those who oppose them. But at the same time, we have seen the chaos of the  country they are governing, we have seen the horrendous overpopulation of the prisons, and we have seen the failure of the police system to do anything about it. The government officials, like  Alex, believe they are good people, but we can see that they are using their free will to do both  good and bad. But having seen what happened to Alex after the treatment, we don’t think it would be right to stop them from exercising their free will. They are clearly trying to make the world a better place—they want to lessen crime—their methods are just clearly immoral. Thus,  Burgess uses the government officials involved in Ludovico’s Technique to show that taking  away someone’s free will is not the answer to fixing their problems.

There are many smaller characters who also exemplify Burgess’ point about free will.  Each of these smaller characters serves to show that everyone has vicious tendencies, not just the major characters. After leaving the prison without his free will, Alex goes to his parents’ house but finds that they have brought in a tenant to take up his old room, and they send him out. Even  though Alex’s parents loved him, they clearly did not care enough about him to accept him back into their lives, even though he had been reformed.

Burgess uses a scholar from the beginning of the book to once again emphasize his point.  After being dismissed by his parents, Alex wanders around for a while, eventually making it to a library, where he decides to read some of the Bible, having read it in prison. He finds that he  cannot even do that—the violence and sexual themes in many parts of the Bible cause him to start to feel sick. Suddenly, the scholar who Alex and his droogs beat up at the very beginning of  the book recognizes him. He yells that Alex was the one who ruined his books, books that they  will never be able to get back. Suddenly, all of his colleagues start attacking Alex, and he is unable to fight back, due to Ludovico’s. They beat him horribly, until a librarian called the police. When Alex had beat up the scholar at the beginning of the book, he claimed that the teens were  what was wrong with the world, and that the police needed to straighten them out. Here, we see  him doing the very same thing Alex did back to him. The scholar is another example of a character who believes they are a good person but really is just as bad as Alex or anyone else.

Burgess then uses the police called to save Alex to further prove his point. After the  police show up, Alex is taken into their car. Alex realizes that the two officers who came to save  him are Dim—an old member of his droog, and Billyboy—a member of a rival gang they fought. They both claim to have turned a new leaf, which Alex doesn’t believe. His beliefs are  confirmed, as they take Alex out into the desert and beat him, claiming that he deserves it for all  that he’s done. Dim and Billyboy have not improved their lives. They still have the same violent tendencies they had before, now they just have found a way to exercise those tendencies without  consequences. Again, like Alex, they are people who believe they are good but clearly have  problems.

Finally, even the revolutionaries who are fighting against this oppressive government are not free from their vices. After being beaten, Alex stumbles around and finds a small village. He approaches the first house he sees—F. Alexander’s house. Alex says that he has been beaten by the police and needs help, this time telling the truth. As a revolutionary, F. Alexander sympathizes with the injustice Alex has received, and lets him in. He quickly recognizes Alex— not as the man who raped and killed his wife, but as the one who has undergone Ludovico’s Technique. At this point, word about it has spread through newspapers. He offers Alex food,  water, and a place to stay. He tells Alex about his problems with the government, especially about how he believes what happened to Alex was unfair and unethical, and then begins to ask  him questions to spread the word on his own experience. He brings in other revolutionaries to meet him, and one of them says, “What a superb device he can be, this boy. If anything, of  course, he could for preference look even iller and more zombyish than he does. Anything for the cause” (Burgess 182). F. Alexander and the other revolutionaries see Alex as a tool. Eventually, Alex  goes to sleep, and the rest of them leave to go to a meeting. Alex is woken up by the sound of Beethoven, making him feel ill yet again. All the doors in his room have been locked, and he can’t find any way to turn the music off. After suffering for a while, Alex attempts suicide by  jumping out of the window. Though his suicide attempt failed, it is clear what F. Alexander’s intention was here. If Alex had died, he would have become a martyr for their cause—an  example of the government’s failures. It is unclear whether F. Alexander ever recognized him as the one who killed his wife, and if he did that may have also played a role. But the revolutionaries, like the government, see Alex less as a person and more as something they can use. They are fighting back against the corrupt government, which we believe is a justifiable  thing to do, but we don’t agree with their methods. They are another group who believes they are  good people, and in some ways are, but in some ways clearly are not. But still, their free will shouldn’t be taken away. They are clearly attempting to make the world a better place, even if  their methods aren’t correct.

Burgess uses each of these groups—Alex, government officials, the scholar, Dim and Billyboy, and the revolutionaries—for the same purpose. They all do things we believe are  justifiable, but they also all do things that make us believe they are terrible people. Their free will is exercised in both good and bad ways. Alex, as the person who loses his free will, is the  example of why Burgess believes that that is okay. Everyone else exacts their revenge on him, and though it is no harsher than what he has done, there is an important difference between them  and Alex (Rabinovitz 5). Alex is punished by the state, but everything that happens to him is state-sanctioned, even though he has supposedly already paid for his crimes through his prison sentence. There is no reason for any of the characters mentioned to not face punishment for their crimes, but only Alex is forced to. “Alex does what he wants to do, so the world takes away his  freedom to choose. He becomes a programmed good machine and no longer a person” (Petix 8).  Burgess is saying that someone who does evil and good is better than someone who does neither.

It is also important that Alex himself does not have a problem with his violent tendencies, even at the end of the book. Throughout A Clockwork Orange, Alex is neither confessing nor  asking for forgiveness (Ramakrishnan 9). The book seems to be written as Alex’s reflection— simply a reenactment of events happening to and around him and his thoughts and actions in  response. After the government undoes the treatment (as a publicity stunt), Alex briefly returns to  his life of crime, but doesn’t enjoy it. He meets up with Pete, another one of his old droogs, who  now has a wife, job, and wants children. Alex is inspired by him and decides that he wants to do  the same. But even then, Alex doesn’t have any regret or remorse for his life of violence. Rather  he just says that it’s natural for people to be terrible. “But then I knew he would not understand or he would not want to understand at all and would do all the veshches [things] that I had done, yes perhaps even killing some poor starry forella [old woman] …” (Burgess 211). Alex believes that his  kid will go through a rebellious phase, and like his parents, Alex wouldn’t be able to do much to  stop him. Burgess uses Alex’s transformation to push his idea that it is okay that people do bad  things. We can do nothing but hope that, like Alex, people will figure it out. A Clockwork Orange also isn’t a condemnation of F. Alexander, the scholar, Dim and Billyboy, or anyone else. Even  Alex himself doesn’t really blame these people—he gets upset at them and feels that his treatment is unfair, but he doesn’t feel that they are bad people. The only people Alex truly  condemns are the people that allowed Ludovico’s Technique to be tested on him. This is more  evidence that Burgess believes it isn’t possible for people not to be bad, and that we should  accept that rather than attempt to force people to be good against their own will. If Burgess’  message was that people shouldn’t ever do immoral things, then he would have chosen to have Alex paint the other characters and himself very differently than he did. This choice shows that  Burgess believes it is inevitable that people will do vicious things, and that we cannot do  anything about that but try to make them see why what they are doing is wrong.

It is important to note that A Clockwork Orange is not set in a dystopian world. Rather, it  is set in a pre-dystopian world. “A dystopia is characterized by a society that is dominated by bleakness and roboticism, a totalitarian government enforcing upon the people a lifestyle that lulls them into a state of obedience” (Moya 1). The society in A Clockwork Orange is not that. In  fact, before Ludovico’s Technique, Alex is living quite the opposite of that life. The government hasn’t achieved full censorship and control of the media, as seen in the press surrounding Alex’s  suicide attempt (Moya 3). But clearly, the society is on a fast-track towards dystopia. This is seen obviously through Ludovico’s Technique, which—if performed on a lot of people—would create  a dystopia. But this is also seen through everyone’s attitude towards Alex. In dystopian societies,  everyone has the same views on issues, people, and morality. With the exception of the prison chaplain, everyone in A Clockwork Orange slowly begins to have a lack of empathy for Alex (Moya 3). The lack of empathy from the government, the police force, and Alex’s parents after he  undergoes Ludovico’s technique is evidence that people’s views on what is right and wrong are beginning to converge. Rather than telling us that we should fight back against dystopia, Burgess is telling us what would make a dystopian society arise in the first place. We see why the  government in A Clockwork Orange is willing to try something like Ludovico’s Technique— their justice system is a failure. People like Alex are able to kill, rape, and steal without much  punishment. And there are so many people that are participating in this life of crime that their  prisons are overflowing with people. Considering those things, it makes sense that the government is exploring other options to lessen crime. But through Alex, Burgess is warning us  that taking away people’s free will to choose to do bad things is not the answer. Through this, however, Burgess has written not only an anti-dystopian novel, but also an anti-utopian one. The biggest difference between a utopia and a dystopia is an individual’s ability to choose whether or  not they want to participate in the society (Moya 3). In utopias, you can choose to leave, in  dystopias you cannot. However, A Clockwork Orange argues that because of that fact, a utopia  can never exist. In a utopian society, there would be no crime, and people would also have the  right to choose their own actions. Burgess argues that this is impossible, as seen through Alex,  the government, F. Alexander, the scholar, and Dim and Billyboy. When given the right to  choose, people will do what they believe is right—which oftentimes is what benefits them. For a  utopia to exist, people must be somewhat robotic, but then it is no longer a utopia. It is for this  purpose that Burgess made his protagonist neither someone who was upset with society nor  someone who wants to revolutionize (Moya 4). Alex commits crimes because it is the only thing  that makes him feel alive in a world that is becoming more and more robotic (Moya 4). Alex feels  alienated from society because of how robotic it is—he doesn’t want to be like his parents who  he says are always working or like the prison chaplain who is just fighting for a raise. He is even  alienated from the audience itself through the Nadsat language, which on a few rare occasions is completely unintelligible to the audience. And since Alex is alienated and uncontrollable, the  government chooses to attempt to forcibly make him a good person and therefore chooses to  attempt to create a dystopia (Moya 4). In the introduction of the book, Burgess says:

“…by definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose  between good and evil. If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a  clockwork orange—meaning that he has the appearance an organism lovely with colour  and juice, but is in fact only a clockwork toy wound up by God or the Devil or (since this  is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State” (Burgess ix).

A Clockwork Orange uses a dystopian setting not only to examine its problems, but also to examine human nature (Moya 5). A dystopia is like an individual who chooses what is easy over  what is right and chooses what is better on paper over what is better in actuality. Burgess does not get lost in each individual problem with a dystopian society, but rather uses a dystopia to  explain what he believes is the most universal and important aspect of individualism (Moya 6). He argues that no matter how chaotic and lawless society gets, we should never lose sight of the fact  that a person’s right to choose is what makes them human. Through this setting, Burgess  critiques the path towards dystopia, rather than dystopia itself.

The final chapter, in which Alex decides to go live a normal life, serves to reaffirm Burgess’ condemnation of Ludovico’s Technique and the hypocrisy of the characters who  supported it (Rabinovitz 2). It also answers a question that has been asked at the beginning of  every part of the novel, “what’s it going to be then, eh?” This is asked first when Alex is deciding what drink to get at a bar, then the prison chaplain says it when asking whether he was  going to rot in prison for the rest of his life or try to change, and again when Alex gets out of  prison and asks himself what he is going to do. It is finally answered for the first time at the very end of the novel, when Alex says he’s going to find a wife and have kids. “That’s what its going to be then, brothers, as I come to the like end of this tale” (Burgess 177). Burgess uses this question throughout the novel, and each time it is asked Alex’s possible answers have more weight behind them. His answer at the end pushes Burgess’ idea that with each action we make, whether good  or bad, is what defines us as individuals. And this idea directly leads to the fact that people doing vicious things is not reason to take away their free wills—as in doing that we would take away  their individuality.

Burgess’ use of the Nadsat language to serve as a distraction, a way to alienate Alex from the audience and the other characters, and to set the general tone of the story allows us to easily separate Alex from other characters and to have a chance to give Alex some sympathy despite his horrendous actions. His choice to have Alex be the narrator and have him speak as if the  audience was made up of people like-minded to him allows us to truly sympathize for Alex and what happens to him after Ludovico’s Technique. Without that sympathy, we may have  disregarded Burgess’ message and instead just condemned Alex for being a bad person, believing (like the government officials) that he deserved everything he got later on in the book. Then, by highlighting both positive and negative aspects of every group of people in A Clockwork Orange, Burgess pushes the idea that no person is truly good. By not having Alex  directly condemn any of those groups, Burgess is saying that that is okay. And finally, through Alex’s decision at the end of the book, Burgess is saying that rather than attempt to force people  to be good, it is better to hope that they will become good on their own. Free will is a part of the  human experience, and someone who does bad things is better than someone who is nothing  more than a clockwork orange.

Works Cited 

Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. 1962. W, W. Norton & Company, 2019.

Evans, Robert O. “Nadsat: The Argot and Its Implications in Anthony Burgess’ ‘A Clockwork  Orange.’” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 1, no. 3, 1971, pp. 406–10.

Moya, Samantha. “A Clockwork Orange: The Intersection Between a Dystopia and Human Nature.”

Petix, Esther. “Linguistics, Mechanics, and Metaphysics: Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962).” Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Brigham Narins and Deborah A. Stanley, vol. 94, Gale, 1997. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1100001242/LitRC?u=mlin_w_umassamh&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=bacd6e83. Accessed 22 Nov. 2025. Originally published in Critical Essays on Anthony Burgess, edited by Geoffrey Aggeler, G. K. Hall, 1986, pp. 121-131.

Rabinovitz, Rubin. “Ethical Values in Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange.” Novels for Students, edited by David M. Galens, vol. 15, Gale, 2002. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1420043475/LitRC?u=mlin_w_umassamh&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=a6eabc33. Accessed 22 Nov. 2025. Originally published in Studies in the Novel, vol. 11, no. 1, Spring 1979, pp. 43-50.

—. “Mechanism vs. Organism: Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange.” Novels for Students, edited by David M. Galens, vol. 15, Gale, 2002. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1420043476/LitRC?u=mlin_w_umassamh&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=e13dc5e0. Accessed 22 Nov. 2025. Originally published in Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 24, no. 4, Winter 1978, pp. 538-541.

Ramakrishnan, Shruthi. “Law and Literature: A Review of ‘A Clockwork Orange.’” SSRN Electronic Journal, 2013.

Semansky, Chris. “Critical Essay on A Clockwork Orange.” Novels for Students, edited by David M. Galens, vol. 15, Gale, 2002. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1420043474/LitRC?u=mlin_w_umassamh&sid=ebsco&xid=5a765766. Accessed 22 Nov. 2025.

Dev Tandon is a junior studying Accounting and Applied Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is invested in literature’s ability to educate people on the realities of the world around them. Other than reading, he enjoys music and playing video games.