The movie was cool but what is "a Clockwork Orange"?!
Question: What does "a Clockwork Orange" mean?
Answers: What does "a Clockwork Orange" mean?
From IMDB.com:
The writer of the novel, 'Anthony Burgess' , claimed that the term "clockwork orange" was a Cockney phrase, but most philologists agree that there has never been any such phrase until the appearance of his book. Burgess lived in Malaysia during the 1940s, and the Malay word for man is "orang", from which "orangutan" (man of the jungle) is derived. There is, however, an English slang expression for a gambling device known as the "one-armed bandit" in the U.S.: a clockwork fruit (the gambling device typically is referred to as a "fruit machine" in the UK due to the depictions on its dials; clockwork in England is a word applied to a plethora of mechanical devices beyond just time-pieces). The anthropomorphic look of a "fruit machine" (thus, its name "one-armed bandit" in the U.S. for its roughly man-sized shape and "arm" giving it a humanoid appearance) may well have given rise to the term "clockwork orange" in Burgess' fertile mind as Alex, through conditioning, is turned into a robot (which a fruit machine resembles). Gambling also is a game of chance, and Alex literally is gambling with his soul. This is made explicit, particularly in the film, when Dr. Brodsky tells Alex -- who is upset over the use of Beethoven on the soundtrack to the atrocity films and claims he has been enlightened -- to take his chance, as he will be free in a fortnight (roughly the time an annual vacation in an English resort such as Blackpool -- the Las Vegas of Britain -- with its scores of fruit machines, would take).
just type clockwork orange in the search bar...or click this. Its all there
http://answers.yahoo.com/search/search_r...
Anything described as "clockwork" is a type of windup toy. I can't imagine what a windup orange would do.......maybe peel itself? The name is rather abstract.
It's a Cockney play on words.
"Orang" means human in Malaysia.
"Clockwork" obviously, means what it means.
So it's a "clockwork human." Which is what Alex becomes after being imprisoned. He is chemically conditioned to be inert and non-violent.
It's a Cockney phrase from East London indicating something bizarre internally, but appearing natural, human, and normal on the surface. The expression is "as queer as a clockwork orange."
A human who has somewaht orange skin and is like a doll one winds up and it moves predictably.
I always thought it referred to the conditioning that Alex undergoes to straighten him out. It's taking a free, natural substance (orange -- Alex) and imposing order on it (clockwork -- the conditioning).