a clockwork orange

I finally got around to reading the book - and it did help to understand the themes within the book and the feel of it. I had read a summary before but it didn't make it seem very appealing but I actually enjoyed the book - lots of horrible stuff happens but the language and russian slang words help distance the reader from the violence. I love books which deal with themes of the state suppressing individuals and moral dilemmas so there was lots to take on boards.

I read a theory about the use of 'nadsat' the combination of russian and english, it being an indication that Alex's society was inspired by the two major superpowers in Burgess' world - American Capitalist Democracy and Soviet Communism, and it suggests the two entities are not as far apart from one another as originally thought. So I am considering looking at Russian/Constructivist imagery for the cover to relate to the 'nadsat'.

I did some research into the themes that are considered when doing literary analysis to see if it helped with ideas:

• the inviolability of free will - 'when a man ceases to choose he ceases to be a man'
• the inherent evil of government - suppress individuals in favour of the state
• necessity of commitment in life - apathy and neutrality are the greatest sins in life, it is not good to be dogmatic 
• duality as the ultimate reality - lots of oppositions of forces like; man vs machine, man vs government, intellect vs intuition - each force is essential in explaining the dynamics of the world

motifs:

• classical music - plato identified music with revolutionary pleasure; alex's love of classical music is inextricable from his love of violence and both fly in the face of the state
• christ
• milk - the whiteness symbolises uniformity amoung the teens who drink it, it is usually associated with nurturing young animals/babies but having it laced with drugs make the teens seem more adult

'as queer as a clockwork orange' 

- juxtaposition of the organic, the lively, the sweet (the orange) and the mechanical, the cold, the disciplined (the clockwork)

I will do the cover first as the deadline is coming up, but once I start on the inner illustrations it might change my design a bit, so even after the deadline passes I might re-do my design if I think of something better.