35Juvenile Delinquency ….. (Bena Yusuf Pelawi)      

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY  
IN NOVEL CLOCKWORK ORANGE 

BY ANTHONY BURGESS

Bena Yusuf Pelawi

English Department, Faculty of Letters, Universitas Kristen Indonesia
Jln. Mayjen Sutoyo No. 2, Cawang, Jakarta Timur

sylvie_surya@yahoo.co.id

ABSTRACT

 The study aimed to reveal the role of  literary work, especially a novel in reflecting the social fenomena, the 
juvenile delinquency in the twentieth century. The data source was an English novel ‘Clockwork Orange’ written by 
Anthony Burgess. The research applied library research by using reflection theory introduced by Georg Lukacs. Analysis 
was presented in three parts, those were the identification of major character, social setting, and the reflection of juvenile 
delinquency.The findings were as follows. First, the major character was Alex as his hig intensity in all the events that 
build the whole story. Second, the social setting described the life of teenagers, especially the juvenile delinquency as 
social fenomena in society. Third, the role of literary work  in revealing the problem above faced by the twentieth century 
society. Finally, it can be concluded that the literary work has played a very important role in revealing the social 
fenomena.

Keywords: juvenile delinquency, social fenomena, reflection theory, literary works 

ABSTRAK

 Penelitian mendeskripsikan peran karya sastra dalam mencerminkan fenomena sosial, khususnya kenakalan 
remaja yang marak terjadi di dalam kehidupan masyarakat. Penelitian menggunakan metode studi pustaka dengan 
menggunakan teori refleksi oleh Georg Lukacs. Sumber data adalah sebuah novel berbahasa Inggris dengan judul 
Clockwork Orange, karya Anthony Burgess. Analisis dilakukan dalam 3 bagian, yaitu identifikasi karakter utama, seting 
sosial khususnya kenakalan remaja, dan peran karya sastra yang mampu memecahkan masalah kenakalan remaja di 
abad ke-20. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa pertama, tokoh utama dalam novel adalah Alex karena intensitas 
keterlibatannya dalam membangun keseluruhan cerita. Kedua, latar sosial dalam novel ini adalah kehidupan para remaja, 
khususnya tentang kenakalan remaja sebagai fenomena sosial yang terjadi pada abad ke-20. Ketiga, peran karya sastra, 
khususnya novel dalam mengungkap fenomena kenakalan remaja tersebut. Dengan demikian dapat disimpulkan bahwa 
karya sastra sangat berperan dalam mengungkapkan fenomena sosial yang terjadi di dalam kehidupan masyarakat. 

Kata kunci: kenakalan remaja, fenomena sosial, teori refleksi, karya sastra



36 Jurnal LINGUA CULTURA Vol.8 No.1 May 2014     

INTRODUCTION
There seems to be no doubt that today many 

teenagers wish to express their freedom of speech by 
showing their emotions, anger, sadness, and happiness. 
They even directly and fearlessly express their dislikes to 
their parents or elderly people. In a transitional stage of 
physical and psychological human development, called 
adolescence also known as the period of rebellion, a 
child who has reached puberty often shows a variety of 
emotions, keeps himself/herself away from the family, 
and they normally have a lot of problems, either at home, 
school, or in their neighborhood (Salagaev, 2003).

Today teenagers face different issues than their 
parents used to deal with. Some issues are the same, 
including peer pressures, shoplifting, alcohol, drugs use, 
and sex. Young children whose behavior deviates is also 
refereed to as socially defective children. They suffer 
from a mental defect caused by social influences that 
exist in society. According to Kartono (2010), juvenile 
delinquency is a deviant behavior committed by young 
people which is caused by a form of the social neglect. 

Juvenile delinquency ialah perilaku jahat (dursila), 
atau kejahatan/kenakalan anak-anak muda; 
merupakan gejala sakit (patologis) secara sosial 
pada anak-anak dan remaja yang disebabkan oleh 
satu bentuk pengabaian sosial, sehingga mereka 
itu mengembangkan bentuk tingkah laku yang 
menyimpang. (Kartono, 2010:6)

Looking into the above-stated explanation, a 
fiction (novel) entitled A Clockwork Orange describing 
almost entirely about juvenile delinquency which reflects 
a real life in a society is worth to be analyzed. Juvenile 
delinquency is participation in illegal behavior by children 
or teens or individuals who are younger than the legal age 
of majority. It is anti-social personality disorder under 18. 
This is why habitual juvenile offenders diagnosed with 
conduct disorder are likely to exhibit signs of antisocial 
personality disorder early in life and then as they mature. 
Some times these jeveniles reach maturation and they 
develop into career criminals. 

Juvenile delinquents who have recurring encounters 
with the criminal justice system, or in other words 
those who are life-course-persistent offenders, 
are sometimes diagnosed with conduct disorders 
because they show a continuous disregard for their 
own and others safety and/or property. Once the 
juvenile continues to exhibit the same behavioral 
patterns and turns eighteen he is then at risk of 
being diagnosed wih antisocial personality disorder 
and much more prone to become a seious criminal 
offender. One of the main components used in 
diagnosing an adult with antisocial personality 
disorder consists of presenting documented 
history of conduct disorder before the age of 15. 
(Wikipedia, n.d.)

The research conducted on the basis of the 
reflection theory by Georg Lukacs to reveal that juvenile 
delinquency in the 20th century as reflected in the novel 
‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Anthony Burgees. 

This research framework used reflection theory 

of Georg Lukacs. The reflection theory actually had been 
around since the time of Aristotle in the 19th century and 
continued to grow. Reflection theory was introduced by 
Georg Lukacs, a philosopher from Hungary. He created a 
theory of reflection that saw a literary work as a reflection 
from the society as by reading the text closely, so that we 
found out the writer’s idea, imagination and life experience. 
He pointed that a literary work as knowledge about reality 
in condition and conflict that happened in society. The 
reality reflected through the literary work. 

Based on Lukacs view, reflection theory has a 
whole characteristic, to reflect means to frame a mental 
structure transposed into words. He said the novel reflects 
reality not only in the surface appearance, but also giving 
us a true, more complete, more vivid, and more dynamic 
reflection of reality. 

Lukacs’ use of the term ‘reflection’ is characteristic 
of his work as a whole. Rejecting the ‘naturalism’ 
of the recent European novel, he returns to the 
old realist view that the novel reflects reality, not 
by rendering its mere surface appearance, but by 
giving us ‘a truer, more complete, more vivid and 
more dynamic reflection of reality’. To ‘reflect’ is 
‘to frame a mental structure’ transposed into words. 
(Selden, Widdowson, & Brooker, 2005:87)

He also said that a novel might conduct a reader 
towards a more concrete insight into reality because 
a literary work reflected not individual phenomena in  
solation, but the full process of life, however, the reader 
was always aware that the work was not itself reality but 
rather a special form of reflecting reality. 

Lukacs would say that a reflection may be more 
or less concrete. A novel may conduct a reader 
‘towards a more concrete insight into reality’, which 
transcends a merely common-sense apprehension 
of things. A literary work reflects not individual 
phenomena in isolation, but ‘the full process of 
life’. However, the reader is always aware that 
the work is not itself reality but rather ‘a special 
form of reflecting reality’. (Selden, Widdowson, & 
Brooker, 2005:87)

Generally Lukacs reflects an objectiive reality in 
the literary work and brings the three dimentional concept 
as the essence of realism. He also meantions ‘the reflection 
model’ in his work as the literature work that reflects the 
true reality, which is more complete, alive and dynamic. 

METHOD

This descriptive-qualitative research is an 
embedded-case study. The source data for this study 
consist of documents selected with purposive sampling 
technique trough library research. The document referred 
to an English novel  “A Clockwork Orange” written by 
Anthony Burgees. The research data were collected and 
analyzed using data analysis technique. The problems of 
this research were the main/major character, social setting, 
and the reflection of juvenile delinquency in a novel. Based 
on the aim of the research, the analysis is presented in 
three parts. They are the identification of major character, 



37Juvenile Delinquency ….. (Bena Yusuf Pelawi)      

the analysis of social setting, and the reflection of juvenile 
delinquency in the novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony 
Burgees.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this chapter, the theory that is used is reflection 

theory by Georg Lukacs. It is used to reveal the juvenile 
delinquency in a literary work, it is a novel ‘ A Clockwork 
Orange” written by Anthony Burgees. The analysis is 
divided into three sections: the major character, the 
social setting, and the reflection of juvenile delinquency 
fenomena in a literary work. 

The Major Character
A major character is an important figure at the 

center of the story’s action or theme (Di Yanni, 2000:35). 
It means the major character is the character that has high 
intensity in all the events that build the story.  In this novel, 
the major character is Alex as he is always involved in the 
whole story, from the beginning until the end of it. It is 
identified in the following events: (1) Alex and his three 
friends like to get together in the bar; (2) Alex and his 
friends commit certain crimes; (3) Alex and his friends use 
mask when committing crimes; (4) Alex and his friends 
get involved in the gang fight; (5) Alex and his friends 
steal a car; (6) Alex and his friends get in a house and 
torture the owner; (7) Alex rapes two young girls; (8) Dim 
and Georgie dissatisfaction of Alex leadership; (9) Alex 
is betrayed by Dim and makes him arrested by the police; 
(10) Alex is put behind bars for fourteen years; (11) Alex 
has unpleasant experiences in prison; (12) Alex joins in a 
program to shorten his sentence; (13) Alex is freed from 
the prison because of the treatment program; (14) Alex 
has a problem with his family; (15) Alex meets with his 
victim; (16) Alex meets with his old enemy Dim and 
Billyboy; (17) Alex accidentally returns to a place where 
the police arrested him; (18) Alex met with his old friend 
Pete at a bar; (19) Alex wants to be a good person.  

Based on the above events, it is clearly seen that 
Alex is the major character in this novel as he has the 
highest intensity involvement in events from the beginning 
to the end of the story that builds the story. It means that 
without Alex’s involvement in the story, the novel will not 
be possible. 

The Social Setting
Social setting involves description of society, 

social group with their behavior, habits, culture, lifestyle, 
language,  etc., as the background of the event (Kenny, 
1996:44–45). The social setting of the novel ‘A Clockwork 
Orange’ is the juvenile delinquency  committed by a 15-
year-old boy and his friends in a small town in England. 
To identify the social setting in this novel, the analysis 
will be focused on the juvenile delinquency of Alex as the 
major character.

Robberies
They have a lot of money in their pocket. With the 

gang, they rob an old man’s money, mock, and hit him 
violently. And they share the money with the members of 
the gang. 

Our pocket were full of deng, so there was no real 
need from the point of view of crasting any more 

pretty polly to tolchock some old veck in an alley 
and viddy him swim in his blood while we counted 
the takings and divided by four, ... (ACO: 4)

Car Thefts
They go to the theatre park downtown to steal a car. 

They see very good cars. Their eyes spot at a very good 
condition of Durango ’95. They have a clever way to steal 
a car, so they can easily get into the car. They start the car, 
drive a way, but nobody notices them taking off. 

The autos parked by the sinny weren’t all that 
horrorshow, crappy starry veshches most of them, 
but there was a newish Durango 95 that I thought 
might do. Georgie had one of these polycleft, as 
they called them, on his keyrin, so we were soon 
aboard  - Dim and Pete at the back, puffing away 
lordly at their cancers – and I turned on the ignition 
and started her up and she grumbled away real 
horrorshow, a nice warm vibraty feeling grumbling 
all through your guttiwuts. Then I made with the 
noga, and we back out lovely, and nobody viddied 
us take off. ... (ACO: 22).

Rapes and Murders
Alex gives two young girls some alcohol to drink 

until they get drunk badly and they finally lay down 
uncounsciously, and then Alex rapes them. Later on the 
girls awake after Alex has finished with them. They scream 
after knowing that they are naked and put their clothes on. 
They leave with anger and say that Alex is the beast.

But they were both very very drunken and could 
hardly feel very much. When the last movement had 
gone round for the second time with all the banging 
and creeching about joy joy joy joy, ... They were 
like waking up to what was being done to their 
malenky persons and saying that they wanted to 
go home and like I was a wild beast. ... They were 
creeching and going o wow ow as they put their 
platties on, and they were like punchipunching me 
with their teeny fists as I lay there dirty and nagoy 
and fair shagged  and fagged on the bed. This 
young sonietta was creeching : “Beast and hateful 
animal. (ACO: 51)

They get into a shop owned by Mrs. Slouse. She is 
frightened of Alex and his friends, so she is hiding behind 
the curtain. Alex finds her and sexually harasses her. Mrs. 
Slouse struggles and fights back. Alex beats her with a 
balance scale and hits her with a crowbar until her head 
bleeds (ACO: 12-13). 

They also rape a woman in a shop and mess up 
everything inside the shop. They commit the crime not for 
money but for fun. They are always satisfied after doing 
it. “... nor to do the ultra-violent on same shivering starry 
grey-haired ptitsa in a shop and go smecking off with the 
till’s guts. But as they say, money isn’t everything. ...” 
(ACO: 4)

Persecutions
They come across an old man and mock him 

unpleasantly. They hold his hands and open the man’s 
mouth widely and then they pull out his false teeth and 



38 Jurnal LINGUA CULTURA Vol.8 No.1 May 2014     

throw them onto the sidewalk. They beat, kick and bleed 
him, take off his clotches until completely naked. And 
then they give a hard kick and leave. 

‘You naughty old veck, you,’ I said, and then we 
began to filly about with him. Pete held his rookers 
and Georgie sort of hooked his rot wide open for 
him and Dim yanked out his false zoobies, upper 
and lower. He threw these down on the pavement 
and then I treated to the old boot crush, ... so 
Georgie let go of holding his goobers apart and just 
let him have one in the toothless rot with his ringy 
fist, and that made the old veck start moaning a lot 
then, then out comes the blood, my brothers, real 
beautiful. So all we did then was to pull his outer 
platties off, stripping him down to his vest and long 
underpants, ... and then Pete kicks  him lovely in 
his pot, and we let him go. (ACO: 9-10).

Alex and his friends also persecute a couple, and 
when the couple beg for mercy,Alex and his friends ignore 
it. They even laugh and grind over the boot on them. 
(ACO: 38)

Juvenile Delinquency Reflected in ‘A Clockwork 
Orange’.

The story begins with a gang of young boys; Alex, 
Dim, Pete, and Georgie. They like to hang out and commit 
criminals together. Alex is a fifteen-year-old boy who leads 
the gang. They spend times in a bar,  plan their unlawful 
actions. They drink and consume drugs. 

There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, 
that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim. Dim being relly 
dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up 
our rassoodocks what to do with the evening., ... 
The Korova Milkbar was a milk plus mesto, and 
you may, O my brothers, ... Well, what they sold 
there was milk plus something else. They had no 
licence for selling liquor, but there was no law yet 
against prodding some of the new veshcesh which 
they used to put into the old maloko, so you could 
peet it with vellocet or synthemecs or drencrom or 
one or two other veshches which  would give you 
a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring 
Bog and All His Holy Angels and Saints in your 
left shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg. 
Or you could peet milk with knives in it, as we used 
to say, and this would sharpen you up and make you 
ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, and that was 
what we were peeting this evening I’m  starting off 
the story with. (ACO: 2-3)

Alex and his friends begin their unlawful actions 
by robbing and mistreating an old man. They rob to get 
a lot of money than divide the money among them and 
waste it together in a bar. 

Out pocket were full of deng, so there was no real 
need from the point of view of crasting any more 
pretty polly to tolchock some old veck in an alley 
and viddy him swim in his blood whilewe counted 
the takings and divided by four, nor to do the ultra-
violent on same shivering starry grey-haired ptitsa 
in a shop and go smecking off with the till’s guts. 

But as they say, money isn’t everything. (ACO: 4)

Alex and his friends break into store. Alex’s friends 
mess up everything insidethe store while Alex is beating 
and kicking the owner. They intimidate the owner’s wife 
and sexually assault her. 

Then you could shooshy panting and snoring and 
kicking behind the curtain and veshches falling 
over and swearing and then glass ging smash 
smash smash. Mother Slouse, the wife, was sort of 
froze behind the counter. We could tell she would 
creech murder given one chance, so I was round 
that counter very skorry and had a hold of her, and 
horrorshow big lump she was too, all nucking of 
scent and with flip flop big bobbing groodies on 
her. ... Well, then she had to be tolchocked proper 
with one of the wrights for the scale ... So we had 
her down on the floor and a rip of her platties for 
fun and gentle bit of the boot to stop her moaning. 
(ACO: 13)

Alex and his friends fight against another gang 
leader, named Billyboy. It begins when Billyboy wants 
to rape a girl, but the girl escapes because Alex and his 
friends come and ruin it. They mock and challenge each 
other and then start fighting. 

Billyboy and his droogs stopped what they were 
doing, which was just getting ready to perform 
something on a weepy young devotchka they had 
there, not more than ten, she creeching away but 
with her platties still on, ... They’d probably just 
been doing the dirty slovo part of the act before 
getting down to a malenky bit of ultra-violence. 
When they viddied us a–coming they let go of this 
boo-hooing little ptitsa, ... Smiling very wide and 
droogie: How art thou, thou glooby bottle of cheap 
stinking chip-oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, 
if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly, thou,’ 
And then we started ... (ACO: 18-19)

Alex leads his friends to go downtown and then to 
the theatre park to find and steal a car. They have their own 
technique to steal a car, so they can easily steal it with no 
one notices it. 

The autos parked by the sinny weren’t all that 
horrorshow, crappy starry veshches most of them, 
but there was a newish Durango 95 that I thought 
might do. Georgie had one of these polycleft, as 
they called them, on his keyring, so we were 
soon abroad – Dim and Pete at the back, puffing 
away lordly at their cancers --- and I turned  on 
the ignition and started her up and she grumbled 
away real horrorshow, a nice warm vibraty feeling 
grumbling all through your guttiwuts. Then I made 
with the noga, and we back out lovely, and nobody 
viddied us take off. (ACO: 22)

Alex and his friends break into a house and 
persecute the house’s owner. The house is owned by an 
author of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ name F.Alexander. They 
mess up the house, persecute the owner, rape the wife and 
let the husband see them. After they are satisfied, they let 



39Juvenile Delinquency ….. (Bena Yusuf Pelawi)      

them alive in suffer. 
While he filled with the author of A Clockwork 
Orange, making his listo all purple and drippping 
away like some very special sort of a juicy fruit. 
..., Who was still creech creech creeching away in 
very horrorshow four-in-a-bar, locking her rookers 
from the back, while I ripped away at this and 
that and the other, the other going haw haw still, 
and real good horrorshow groodies they were that 
then exhibited their pink glazzies, O my brother ... 
Then after me it was right old Dim should have this 
turn, ... Then there was a changeover, Dim and me 
grabing the slobbering writer veck who was past 
struggling really, only just coming out with slack 
sort of slovos liek he was in the land in a milk plus 
bar, and Pete and Georgie had theirs. ... The writer 
veck and his zheena were not really there, bloody 
and torn and making noises. But they’d live. (ACO: 
27-28)

The corrective school named P.R. Deltoid knows 
about what Alex and his friends have badly done. The 
corrective school has also reminded Alex not to get 
involved in a bad community. Alex ignires the corrective 
school’s advice. Alex still rapes two girls, instead. He 
takes them into his room and gives alcohol to make them 
get drunk; in the meantime, Alex uses the opportunity to 
rape them. 

But they were both very very drunken and could 
hardly feel very much. When the last movement 
had gone round for the second time with all the 
banging and creeching about joy joy joy joy, these 
two young ptitsas were not acting  the big lady 
sophisto no more. They were like waking up to 
what was being done to their malenky persons and 
saying that they wanted to go home and like I was 
a wild beast. (ACO: 51)

Alex and his friends continue their criminal 
conducts. They plan to rob a house. Georgie advises them 
to rob the house because he knows that there is only a 
woman and her cats in that house. And he knows there is a 
lot of jewelry in the house. 

‘It was this house, see,’ said Georgie. ‘The one with 
the two lamps outside. The one with the gloopy 
name, like.’
‘What gloopy name?’
‘The Mantion or the Manse or some such piece of 
gloop. Where this very starry ptitsa lives with her 
cats and all this very starry valuable veshches.’
‘Such as?’
‘Gold and silver and like jewels. It was Will the 
English who like said.’ (ACO:60-61)

Alex and his friends break into  a house that they 
call it ‘The Mantion or the Manse’. They mess up the house  
and Alex confronts the owner of the house. Alex beats her 
mercilessly until she bleeds and is uncounscious. 

‘Well, how lovely and all for me. But ittying 
towards it with my glazzies like full on it and 
my greedy rooker held out, I did not see the milk 
saucers on the floor and into one I went a short of 

lost balance. ‘Whoops’, I said, trying to steady, but 
this old ptitsa had come up behind me very sly and 
with great skorriness for her age and then she went 
crack crack on my gulliver with a bit of a stick. ... 
And then she was going crack crack again,  saying; 
“Wretched little slummy bedbug, breaking into 
real people’s houses, ... So then I got real bezoomy 
myself, brohers, and hit out of them, ... And upper 
with the little malenky like silver statue and cracked 
her a fine fair tolchock on the Gulliver and that shut 
her up real horrorshow and lovely. (ACO: 68-69)

From the analysis above, it is clearly shown that 
juvenile delinquency is unveiled in the novel ‘A Clockwork 
Orange’ by Anthony Burgess. Alex, a fifteen –year-old-
boy as a major character and his friends convincingly have 
indicated that they commit juvenile delinquency. 

CONCLUSION
The content of the novel portrays Alex’s life. He 

is the subject who commits juvenile delinquency. All 
the events in the story show that Alex gets significant 
involvement in the juvenile delinquency. Alex has 
commited crimimal acts since in his early age, fifteen 
years old. He is the leader of a gang, together with his 
he commits criminal acts, such as robberies, auto theft, 
persecutions, rapes and murders. Based on the above 
analysis, this research concludes that juvenile delinquency 
is reflected in the novel ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by Anthony 
Burgess. 

REFERENCES
Burgess, A. ( 2012). A Clocwork Orange. New England: 

W.W. Norton.
Di Yanni, R. (2000). Fiction: An Introduction. United 

States of America: McGraw-Hill Companies. 
Kartono, K. (2010). Patologi Sosial 2: Kenakalan Remaja. 

Jakarta: Raja Grafindo Persada. 
Kenny, W.(1996). How to Analyze Fiction. New York: 

Random House. 
Salagaev, A.( 2003). World Youth Report, The Global 

Situation of Young People, Jevenile Delinquency. 
New York: Random House.

Selden, R., Widdowson, P., & Brooker, P. (2005). A 
Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory 
(5th ed). Great Britain: Pearson Education. 

Wikipedia. (n.d). Juvenile Delinquency. Retrieved from 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juvenile_delinquency