A Clockwork Orange

These are a representative (yet significant) few of the invented slang terms that author Anthony Burgess uses liberally throughout the book. A mix of Russian-influenced terms and traditional, mostly forgotten, Cockney slang, the language of the “nadsats” (see below) is energetic, creative, and evocative. See the “Language: From Slang to Shakespeare” entry in Symbols & Motifs for more information.

Instead of referring to body parts by their proper, English-language names, the teens in the novel employ a colorful and widely varied set of terms: “gulliver” refers to the head, as in Alex has got “’[a] bit of pain in my gulliver,’” as he says to his parents when he decides to skip school. “Glazzies” are eyes. Two significant incidents in Alex’s story feature his glazzies. First, when Dim chains him across his glazzies and leaves him to be arrested. Second, when Alex submits to Dr. Brodsky’s treatment, “they put like clips on the skin of my forehead, so that my top glazz-lids were pulled up and up and up and I could not shut my glazzies no matter how hard I tried” (117). Given the visual nature of the violence Alex enjoys, glazzies are crucial to his violent entertainment and his subsequent “cure.