A Clockwork Orange Symbolism Essay

Literary devices are used throughout pieces of literature, such as novels, to help readers have a better understanding of different aspects that are presented. Symbolism, for example, helps readers to understand different ideas and qualities that are represented throughout a novel. Anthony Burgess uses numerous symbolic elements throughout A Clockwork Orange. The symbolic meaning of the twenty-first chapter helps readers to have a clear understanding of the message in Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange.
A Clockwork Orange’s twenty-first chapter is an important symbolic representation; however, it was not published in the American edition. Although, the twenty-first chapter was available in the British and international versions. The original version

is considered “far darker than the American versions” (Davis 1). I find this ironic the protagonist in A Clockwork Orange rapes, kills, and fights individuals (Estournel 1). The significance of the twenty-first chapter is that “Alex grows bored with violence and recognizes that human energy is better expended on creation rather than destruction” (Davis 1). They twenty-first chapter provides moral importance and is necessary for moral vision, family structure, and ethical foundation (Davis 1). Without the twenty-first chapter, the novel’s narrative excludes the protagonist’s ethical transformation. In addition, without the twenty-first chapter, readers would fail to see Burgess’s own reaction of pseudo-families that burdens the narrator during his youth (Davis 7). The ethical importance of A Clockwork Orange’s twenty-first chapter is, “a rejoinder of the vacuous moral and family systems that fail Alex” (Davis 1). He is in search of a form of “home” throughout the novel (Davis 1). The twenty-first chapter is “a fruition of Burgess’s moral vision… interpersonal development and personal foundation” (Davis 1). The symbolic representation helps readers to understand the different aspects that are identified in A Clockwork Orange’s twenty-first chapter.
The restored twenty-first chapter shows Alex’s creative act of a healthy, functional family (Davis 2).

The twenty-first chapter also shows Alex’s refusal to take part in any ethical deliberation. The twenty-first chapter represents the vision of a potential family and individual change by the narrator. Alex’s lack of a functional family causes him to participate in “ultraviolence” (Davis 3). In addition, many researchers discuss the “arithmology of the twenty-first chapter within A Clockwork Orange (twenty-one being the symbol of maturity)” (Goh 2). This aspect symbolizes the development of Alex as he undergoes many transformation (Goh 2). Without the representation of the twenty-first chapter, readers would not be able to identify the transformation that Alex

undergoes.
The twenty-first chapter enables readers to recognize the pseudo-self (Davis 7). In addition, the twenty0first chapter enables readers to identify the metaphorical aspects of a “nuclear family” (Davis 5). Alex forms his own self ethical renewal, which results in his efforts to establish selfhood and to transcend the violence of youth (Davis 2). The pseudo-family offers an illusion of genuine community. The twenty-first chapter represents the “forces that causes him to persist in various states of homeostatic equilibrium, rendering him unable to effect the process of maturity” (Davis 2)). The pseudo-families that Alex encounters provide him with the “homeostatic equilibrium of his pseudo-self” (Davis 5). The representations of pseudo-families are found throughout the twenty-first chapter of A Clockwork Orange.
The symbolic aspects of the twenty-first chapter in Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange help readers have a clear and better understanding of the aspects that are identified in the novel.

Additionally, the representation of pseudo-families are found throughout the twenty-first chapter of A Clockwork Orange. Without the representation of the twenty-first chapter, readers would not be able to identify the transformation that Alex undergoes throughout the novel. Literary devices, escpecially symbolism, are used throughout Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange and are used to help readers understand the message throughout the

novel.