Study Questions & Essay Topics
Study Questions
1. What is the nature of Alex’s relationship
with his parents, and how is this relationship important to the novel?
2. What is the significance of
nadsat in
the novel?
3. Trace the change that the government
in
A Clockwork Orange undergoes over the course
of the novel. What does this change reflect about the designs of the
State?
Suggested Essay Topics
1. Discuss the relationship between Alex and F. Alexander.
What importance does it have, with respect to the novel as a whole?
2. What is the significance of the title A Clockwork
Orange?
3. Given Alex’s comparison, in the final chapter, of
young people to wind-up toys, do you think that Alex considers his
life in Part 1 to have truly been free? Do you consider it to have
been truly free?
4. Describe the structure of A Clockwork Orange.
What significance does that structure have for the novel as a whole?
5. Discuss the role of music in the novel. What relationship
does it have to violence? What relationship does it have to the structure
of the novel?
6. Based on the young people in the novel, how might
you describe Burgess’s attitude toward teenagers?
