"Singin' in the Rain": A Comparative Study of Anthony Burgess' Novel, A Clockwork Orange, and Its Motion Picture Adaptation

Anthony Burgess’s potent and violence-filled novel, A Clockwork Orange, garnered more controversy than critical acclaim. Moreover, the number of people who saw the movie far outweighs the number of people who read the book. The motion picture adaptation was so disturbing that Warner Brothers, the production company, withdrew the film from British release in 1973. Some of the allegations levied against the novel and subsequently the movie too was that it had influenced a teenager to murder his classmate, a murder of a vagrant by another teenager, and that it also led to a rape of a woman, with the song “Singin’ in the Rain” playing in the background. Despite the notoriety of the movie, it did win its share of success. The reason behind the present study is to comprehend Anthony Burgess’s ideology as well as that of Stanley Kubrick and to analyse the inherent criminality of the period during which both the novel and movie were set. This work of literary art traces the protagonist’s burgeoning antisocial behaviour and the development of his sociopathic tendencies. The protagonist’s innate failure to understand morality and ethics is stressed in both the novel and the film.