A Clockwork Orange (novel)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The name of their car is the Durango 95, although it's not a truck or an SUV. Ford released a Durango throughout the 1980s while Dodge Durango SUVs have been around since the mid 1990s.
  • Ho Yay: Alex's foster respect.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Maybe a little too sympathetic a label for Alex, but his merciless beatings at the hands of his victims-turned-victimizers come the closest to humanizing him. Also the near-prison rape in the book.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Burgess described A Clockwork Orange as "a jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks, and it became known as the raw material for a film which accused of glorifing sex and violence. "The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me till I die."
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Alex doesn't really have one, since he starts so far over the line to begin with.
    • While in the beginning, the government states that their only concern is cutting down crime. In the end, however, they cover up the whole incident with Alex's cooperation, essentially making a deal with the devil to protect themselves.
    • When the anti-government opposition leads Alex into attempting suicide by playing classical music in a locked room.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Mrs. Alexander. As Frank's wife who got raped by Alex and the Droogs, having her be the one to receive and welcome Alex and deciding to either kill him or help him out of her objections to the Ludovico technique instead of her husband would've made for several story opportunities and a much greyer story. Instead she apparently died offscreen from the trauma, if you believe her husband, Mr. Alexander. On one hand, having her Stuffed Into the Fridge to serve as her husband's motivation feels cheap to modern readers. On the other hand the point of the story was that she was the Morality Chain of Frank.