- Burgess satirizes behaviorism with his portrayal of the fictional Ludovico’s Technique. (B.F. Skinner’s experiments, 1950’s and 60’s) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner)
- Burgess took all of the things he didn’t like from British and Soviet Union governments, along with critiques about the American police force, and puts them all into this one dystopian government.
- The socialistic British welfare state was too willing to sacrifice individual liberty in favor of social stability.
- He despised American popular culture for fostering homogeneity, passivity, and apathy. He regarded American law enforcement as hopelessly corrupt and violent, referring to it as “an alternative criminal body.”
- Space Race between Russia and the US, Cuban missile crisis.
- Pg. 69 – “And then I was forced to watch a viddy a most nasty film about Japanese torture. It was the 1939 – 45 War . . .“
- Part 1, Chapter 4: “They don’t go into the cause of goodness, so why of the other shop? . . . Badness is of the self, the one, the you or me on our oddy knockies, and that self is made by old Bog or God and is his great pride and radosty. But the not-self cannot have the bad, meaning they of the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self. And is not our modern history, my brothers, the story of brave malenky selves fighting these big machines?”
- Glossary is indicative of the culture of that era, with most words referring to violence or terror/sex/alcohol. Words he replaced include: frightened, club, noise, policeman, drunk, gang violence, rape, etc.
Team Fish N’ Chips:
http://www.barrientez56britlit.wordpress.com
http://www.blaylock56britlit.wordpress.com
blaylock56britlit 
3 Comments