3. A Clockwork Orange: Horrorshow Eggiwegs

Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange –

Burgess’ character Alex, like countless youths in this dystopian novel, behaves with shocking violence. The new language used by young people is called Nadsat (Russian for ‘teenage’) and is heavily influenced by Russian words, such as ‘Khorosho’, which is ‘Russian for “good or well.” Burgess renders it “horrorshow”’ (Walsh). The reader witnesses many disturbing and truly dystopian actions by a fifteen-year-old boy, as he and his ‘droogs’ (Burgess 11), or ‘friends in violence’ (Walsh), brutally attack, steal, manipulate and even rape victims, all in one evening.

Alex’s young age is shown in the ‘spoon after spoon after spoon of sugar’ in his coffee and milk, indicating him ‘having a sladky [sweet] tooth’ (Burgess 38). Sweet foods and drinks are stereotypically favoured by children. His character’s consumption of coffee, a traditionally adult drink, could show a desire to prematurely behave older than his age, meaning he wishes to appear as an adult at only fifteen years old. Alex eats ‘tomticks [pieces] of black toast dipped in jammiwam and eggiweg’ (39). Strips of toast dipped in the yolk of a soft-boiled egg is traditionally named ‘egg and soldiers,’ and is eaten mostly by children. The toast has been blackened and therefore burned, possibly showing his inability to care for himself due to his young age. The use of ‘eggiweg’ seems to connote immaturity as children’s fantastical words often rhyme and sound whimsical. The infantile appropriation of ‘egg’ emphasises his youth, especially when compared with the potential shock of his violent and unlawful actions.

There is a question of whether the parents of this society are efficiently disciplining their children. One could interpret Alex’s mother as displaying pathetic and immature reactions, as she often responds with instinctual and impulsive actions or sounds. Alex makes an unabashed and confident remark of his parents’ decision of ‘who’s to be boss’ upon his return home, in which he will ‘consider [if he will return home]…real careful’ (Burgess 139). His mother responds to this with an ‘owwwwww’ (139) sound. This connotes immaturity, as young minds are not developed to the extent of language, but instead resort to sounds to expel their emotions. As his mother frequently responds with meaningless noise akin to that of a child, I argue she cannot apply herself efficiently as a mother. Also, Alex’s father agrees to his son’s terms of his return to the family home from the hospital with, ‘things will be as you [Alex] like’ (139), showing the immediate willingness to follow the rules of a child. One could argue that the motif of edible eggs is a signal of the lack of efficient familial presence, with an emphasis of maternal (as a mother will traditionally install moral values upon their children), due to their connotations of human eggs inside a mother’s womb.

Alex’s response to inedible eggs from a ‘bird-nest’ is to ‘smash them’ (140). This needlessly violent act is ultimately selfish, as he would be instantly gratified by the unnecessary taking of these unborn birds’ potential lives. This could show an unconscious inner conflict of a maternal presence, and could signify the somewhat lacking parental teachings to care for living creatures. The maternal instinct to protect the young and vulnerable crosses all species. Alex’s character intensely rejects this; his immediate thoughts actively deny pathos for the subsequent destroying of life. It is an established maternal role to teach a child to empathise and display moral values, and as Alex nor his ‘droogs’ show this emotion, one could argue that Burgess could be presenting the new Mother figure as having failed in her maternity, as Alex wishes to violently steal another mother, the bird, from fulfilling her maternal role.

The ubiquity of eggs in this text could relate to the origins of all humans as eggs in their mother’s womb; we all are born from these minute collections of cells. Burgess may have been highlighting the risk of an ineffective maternal presence on the life of the young.