Clockwork Orange language: Nadsat

The language in this book is quite difficult to understand. Filled with words such as droogs, devotchka, groodies, veck, it was quite frustrating having to guess the meaning of these words at the beginning, however i could understand what most meant by the end of the book. The narrater (Alex) uses a youth slang called Nadsat. It is the language used by the violent youth gangs of the city. Anthony Burgess wrote the entire book using this fictional slang. By writing the book in an unfamiliar language he alienates the readers and gives them the feeling that this society where the story takes place is truely different from ours. The language also seems to desensitize the readers to the violence that is taking place. The gruesome deeds of Alex and his gang all seem less gruesome when described in Nadsat language, but when you think over what they've done, their merciles violence against civilians is truely shocking.

weak parenting, no control

“Not that I want to pry, son, but where exactly is it you go to work of evenings?’ I gave him a straight dirty glazzy, as to say to mind his own and I’d mind mine. ‘I never ask for money, do I? Not money for clothes or for pleasures? All right, then, why ask?” (37)


This is the scene where the state of Alex's family is revealed. His parents live in fear of him and although they have suspicions of his late night criminal activities they are too scared to do anything about it. When his father tries to know what is going on at night, Alex quickly shuts him down. He is just a ruthless child who goes unopposed, no one is able to confront him and punish him for his criminal actions. This shows the state the society is in, violent youths are uncontrollable and even their own parents can't do anything to stop them.

Clockwork: violence

“Pete held his rookers and Georgie sort of hooked his rot wide open for him and Dim yanked out his false zoobies, upper and lower. the old veck began to make sort of chumbling shooms-’wuf waf wof’- so Georgie let go of holding his goobers apart and just let him have on in the toothless rot with his ringy fist, and that made the old veck start moaning a lot then, out comes the blood, my brothers, real beautiful.”(pg.7)

The violence in this novel really caught me off guard. The gang of four led by Alex, find their first victim of the night, an old man walking out the library with books. They circle the innocent man and after a bit of verbal harassment they proceed to savagely beat the old man. The gang's love of violence is shown as the narrater (Alex) comments on the beauty of how blood came out of his mouth. Anthony Burgess describes the beating of an oldman in horrific detail. This quote shows the readers a glimpse upon how violent the city youths have become and the problem this society is facing.

Not always right

In an immigrant neighbourhood in South Bronx an innocent man was shot to death by four police officers. It was night, the officers were cruising down the street when they spotted Diallo sitting outside alone. To the officers, a black man sitting alone outside at night in a crime ridden neighbourhood was something that immediately made them suspect that he was up to no good. In truth Diallo was an innocent man who was simply taking in the night. The four officers got out of their cars and confronted Diallo (who could understand very little English) . Diallo panicked and ran. The officers chased down the frightened man, who ran towards his apartment. As Diallo was pulling out his wallet to get his keys, the officers mistook it as a gun and immediately opened fire, shooting Diallo to death.

These four officers were inexperienced, straight out of the police-academy. What occurred here was that the assumptions the officers made were completely wrong and due to their inexperience they could not mind-read Diallo. From the moment they saw Diallo sitting outside alone, he was a criminal in their eyes. When the man ran, the officers assumed it was because he was guilty of a crime and not because he was frightened. When Diallo tried to pull out his wallet, in the eyes of the officers he was pulling out his gun. In the adrenaline filled situation the officers were forced to act quick and fast, and as the action escalated, they abandoned their reasoning and decided to shoot Diallo.

"Mind-reading failures happen to all of us. They lie at the root of countless arguments, disagreements, and misunderstandings. And yet, because these failures are so instantaneous and so mysterious, we don't really know how to understand them." (Gladwell 196)

What Gladwell is saying is that our instinctive ability to judge people with our sub-consciousness is prone to mistakes. In many circumstances it can be biased and if we decide to act upon these false readings we can surely make the wrong decisions. Failures that occur beneath our consciousness are hard to recognize and understand. I believe its similar to when you have a negative first impression or a bad "hunch" about someone which turns out to be completely false as you get to know the person. When you try to figure out why you got the negative assumption about the person, it is often impossible to understand why.

I think this is why many impulsive decisions we make can be harmful and this is the reason why we don't see everyone in the world making decisions on the whim, its simply unreliable and risky. No matter how amazing the capabilities of our sub-consciousness and quick judging can be, we can't always adhere to it because without the right experiences it is vulnerable to mistakes.

"as human beings, we are capable of extraordinary leaps of insight and instinct. We can hold a face in memory, and we can solve a puzzle in a flash. But what Schooler is saying is that all these abilities are incredibly fragile. Insight is not a light bulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out." (Gladwell 122)

Researchers were presented insight puzzles to people which were designed so that they couldn't be worked out systematically like a math problem but only by quick recognition. Those who were asked to explain themselves solved 30% fewer problems than those who weren't.

It is quite surprising how our logical methods of thinking and questioning can hinder and interrupt our sense of insight. This seems to go against what we traditionally think. Our society associates insight with careful analysis but instead, this book finds that our ways of reflecting upon situations can snuff out the flickering candle, in other words silence our moments of revelation.

The book shows a great example of what our instinct and insight are capable of.

A firefighter commander in Cleveland responded to a routine call about kitchen fire. His team entered the house with their hose and doused the flames, after a few seconds the commander felt that something was wrong and evacuated his men as fast as he could just before the entire house collapsed. It turned out that the fire had originated from deep within the basement and had damaged the frame of the house.

The firefighter was later interviewed by researchers and it was found that certain anomalies such as the high intensity of the heat and the quietness of the large fire had alarmed him. Within a few seconds of stepping into that house, his sub consciousness had effortlessly recognized the risks in the chaos and prompted him to evacuate. Had he stopped and decided to consciously address every problem instead of jumping to his instincts, he and his men would not be alive today.

Our sub-consciousness is capable of amazing feats, but when we stop and try to reflect upon what is happening it can throw our insight off course. I assume its similar to the feeling you get when you think of an amazing idea but it all falls apart when you try to make sense of it. Or when you circle the correct answer in a multiple choice question only to erase and circle a wrong answer after thinking things through carefully. This view contradicts the general belief around the world that the best decisions are the ones that have to be carefully analyzed and thought through. It raises the question of whether the analytical method of approaching problems is really the best way there is and whether we should resort to our instincts more often when facing a tough decision.

"Believe it or not, the risk of being sued for malpractice has very little to do with how many mistakes a doctor makes. Analyses of malpractice lawsuits show that there are highly skilled doctors who get sued allot and doctors who make lots of mistakes and never get sued." (Gladwell 40)

In the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, The science of how we think and the subconscious decisions we make are explored. The above quote was a shocking revelation for me (though I take it with a grain of salt) because I always thought that malpractice lawsuits were based exclusively from shoddy medical care. Many of my family members are involved in the medical industry and I found the Gladwell's findings very interesting.

The book shows that most clients of malpractice lawyers sue their doctors because something went wrong in the treatment process along with the fact that they didn't like the doctor on a personal level. Clients rarely sue the doctors that they have a personal affinity for even if they make frequent mistakes.

"Burkin once had a client who had breast tumour that wasn't spotted until it had metastasized, she wanted to sue her internist for the delayed diagnosis despite the fact that it was her radiologist who was at fault, she was adamant, she wanted to sue the internist." (Gladwell 41)

The patient-doctor interaction and the tone used by the doctors were the key difference between groups of physicians who got sued and those who didn't. The doctors who were never sued always had longer than average conversations with the patients and used more orienting and guiding words that made the patients feel more secure and in control. Doctors who couldn't express themselves in a concerned manner but talked in a more dominant fashion were more likely to be sued. The qualifications or the skill level of the doctors were surprisingly irrelevant in the findings.

It is very interesting to see how much power a conversation or a moment can have in our minds. We make strong judgements based on the smallest of details even though they aren't always just. The finding makes me question the way our society functions when there can be so much room for flaws in judgement.

The View of Frye

Northrop Frye has a very refreshing view on literature that I haven't ever thought of. He points out that stories in general has similar structure (beginning/ending, roles, etc.) and makes you think of literature in a different light. It is explained that Literature has never really evolved, its been the same for ages and the only aspects that change are the small things such as characters, settings, style. I think stories don't change because it is the reflection of our morals and emotions, people can't just develop new ranges of emotions so that's why stories will frequently touch upon similar subjects. It came as a surprise that stories many years had so many similarities with the stories that we read nowadays.

Literature: The eye man

“…Literature belongs to the world man constructs, not to the world he sees; to his home, not his environment.”



Northrope Frye says "literature belongs to the world a man constructs" he is meaning that literature is the tool we use for our imaginations and thoughts. It is there to help people construct thoughts and visions that may not physically exist in the real world which is meant by the phrase"not to the world he sees; to his home, not his environment." I believe in what Frye is saying, literature has always been about enabling people to form pictures and think of ideas in their mind. We have created literary terms and literature referring to almost everything in real life (people, events, items, etc.). Therefore, when we speak or write of things we can still know what these things are even if they are not right in front of our eyes, because the words let us construct an image or an idea about it in our heads. For example when we read a dinosaur book we can know what they looked like due to the descriptive words used, without actually seeing one in front of us. There connections to McCullough's speech. Forms of literature like books can enable us to gain information and learn without actually having to experience things in real life.