There
Definitely is Power in Numbers! -Yllom Nerjee
English ISU –
Research Essay
Written By:
Zehra Nasirali
For: Mr.
Cameron
Course: ENG-4AI
Date: 23rd December, 1999
It is after dark and a girl stops to get gas at a convenience store. She fills her tank and walks into the store to pay for her gas. The cashier whispers softly to her:
"Do not pay for your gas yet...walk around the store awhile and act as if you are picking up some other things to buy. A man just got into the back of your car. I have called the police and they are on their way. "
The police arrive, find the man in the back seat of the girl's sleek, black sedan and question him as to what he is doing. He confesses that he is joining a gang and the initiation is to kidnap a woman and bring her back to the gang to be raped. The fearsome part is that, because the guy does not have a weapon in his possession, the police can only charge him with trespassing. He is back on the streets and free to strike again. In other words, violence is being condoned. Next, it could be you or me!
Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange and Foxfire by Joyce Carol Oates are both novels of erupting violence committed in gangs, thus relating to Yllom Nerjee's opinion: 'There definitely is power in numbers.' Both these novels are driven by passion and inspiration; true works of art. However, J. C. Oates' attempt to spice up her theme bears no comparison to Anthony Burgess' tormented experience with gangs, his excellent application of Nadsat vocabulary, and his narration of events in systematic chronology in A Clockwork Orange. Burgess' novel is indeed spirit-driven and mesmerizing.
Language is an original bait an author can throw to his readers. The choice of words and dialogue need to be not only appropriate, but also captivating in the elevation of speech. Anthony Burgess draws his readers to his novel, A Clockwork Orange, not only by abiding by this guaranteed format, but by going a couple of steps further. 'Nadsat' (which means teenager) was the slang that teenagers spoke during the novel's futuristic time period. 'Burgess used approximately two hundred and fifty 'nadsat' words (most of which have Russian roots) to convey his story.' (Alicia D. Large-Fesi) Burgess has definitely done his research and has heightened reader interest to a maximum. He does not rely only on his theme of violence (a theme in which the public has an undying interest) to keep the eyes of his reader's riveted to the page, but he brilliantly applies this different kind of vulgar vocabulary to conjure excitement that captivates the mind of the reader.
" 'Well, well, well! Well
if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in poison!
How are thou, thou globby
bottle of cheap stinking chip oil? Come and get one in
the yarbles, if ya have any
yarble, ya eunuch jelly thou!' " (Burgess, 16)
Burgess does not use the common and disturbing swear words that teenagers of this generation do, but those of another imagined era. 'Hoodlum,' 'soomka,' 'brattles' and 'oozhassny' are just a few of the often mentioned swear words that Alex and other characters in the novel use.
Comparatively, Foxfire by Joyce Carol Oates is composed of simple American English in which an occasional obscenity is barely noticed. The novel is written in the modem age, and therefore the vulgarities are too. Unlike, the ingenious work of Burgess, Oates leaves the actions of the girl gang to speak out the message of violence. Here is a fully descriptive line from the novel after Legs Sadovsky, the First-in-Command of the gang, has scarred her interviewer with her pocket knife: 'Rucke is peering terrified, yet excited, at her; his eyes are wide and dilated; his face creased and webbed with blood.' (Oates, 231) This kind of vocabulary fits well for the reading of teenagers but it is not very poetic or elevated. As far as talent for engaging language goes, Oates definitely is not in the same category of achievements as Burgess.
A Clockwork Orange is a gripping novel that is filled with obscene crimes and the Nadsat vocabulary does much to enhance the graphic details. The fact that 'He spoke eight languages, not including English' (Jesse Keckler) is of tremendous assistance to Burgess because this aids him in incorporating his ideas into his writing style. It is about the excitements and intoxicating effects of language . . . cleverly sustained solo of virtuoso phrase-making and jazzy riffs.' (Daily Telegraph) However, despite the themes of revenge and empowerment in Foxfire, 'even such faint praise doesn't earn it a recommendation.' (James Berardinelli) Therefore, as far as writing style to heighten the theme of violence is concerned, Anthony Burgess definitely steals the award for A Clockwork Orange.
There is much more to creating a novel other than elegant writing skills. The theme around which a novel works is more intense if first hand experience is a usable tool. Joyce Carol Oates gives her novel the voice of adolescence. She takes the reader through the swings of teenage life and teen ideas in a credible manner. The action rises by gradual degrees, so that when it finally mounts to a big plot like, 'a mad scheme to get $1 million, they go too far-' (Franklin Library's First Edition by Joyce Carol Oates) we accept that the teens are almost prepared to murder their hostage. They approach violence as routine and ordinary. In almost all her novels, including Foxfire, Oates incorporates the minor problems that people face on a day to day basis (such as the Foxfire sisters dealing with their family expectations) and the major problems that lies on the shoulders of society (these crimes include 'hooking,' 'kidnapping' and 'stealing' that the girl gang considers minor, yet in their way constitute as "ultra-violence.")
'They (her novels) are efforts
to raise the consciousness of ordinary people to the realisation of the
destruction of their lives, to 'show us how to get through and transcend pain,'
to encourage us to continue the struggle to put some meaning into human life.'
(Mary Katherine Grant)
Oates channels her messages and thoughts through her novels, however they are nothing but her personal outlook on turmoiled life. Experience and perception are separated by a fine line called present in the situation.
The reason underlying the writing of A Clockwork Orange is more moving and simultaneously stirring than that of Foxfire. 'The inspiration for A Clockwork Orange came during World War II, when his [Burgess] wife was assaulted while he fought.' (Jesse Keckler) The feelings of rage and hurt from this tormented experience gave Burgess motivation. Losing a beloved through society's evil is not something a person can easily withstand emotionally. The death of his wife and the death of their child, which she was carrying, was definitely a sorrow filled incident in his life. He attaches within the novel a scene that mirrors this traumatic incident undergone by his wife and himself. After the character resembling Lynne, Burgess' wife, passes away, the character's husband narrates to a guest:
“ ‘She died, you see. She was brutally raped and beaten. The shock was very
great. It was in this house, in that room next door. I have had to steel myself to
continue to live here, but she would have wished me to stay where her fragrant
memory still lingers. Yes yes yes. Poor little girl.’” (Burgess, 123)
Blake Morrison reinstates this:
Burgess, and, as he once said,
'an act of charity' to his wife's assailants, since he
chooses to write it as if from
their point of view rather than their victim's.'
(Morrison, xiv)
Therefore, from the scale of inspiration, Burgess' experience with violent gangs first hand, stands magnanimously and the emerging writing is more emotionally driven than Foxfire. Burgess definitely possessed great strength and courage to face the evil of society with an open and forgiving mind like no other.
Chronology is an important aspect of every novel. Cruising through events eloquently gives the reader a set notion of the novel's surrounding happenings. Both the novels, A
Clockwork Orange and Foxfire employ the first person narrative, therefore equalizing them in the category of narratorial perspective. However, this is not the case for the order of events. Time and time again, Oates mentions in her novel the paradox of chronology.
'The strangeness of Time. Not in it's passing, which can
seem infinite, like a tunnel whose end you can't see, whose beginning you've
forgotten, but in the sudden realisation that something finite, a piece of Time
has passed, and is irretrievable.' (Oates, 272)
Despite the format of Foxfire (in the form of confessions of the past), having Oats repeat that she 'is only able to tell her story through the prism of look-back time' and that she has written 'never before a novel that reproduces the chronology of a story in a diary like way' (excerpt from Franklin Library's First Edition) does not give her an acceptable excuse for her narrative lapses. Organisation and chronology go hand in handy as they cannot be divorced. In contrast, the systematic layout of events through which Burgess presents his novel makes it easy to read and the events, easy to comprehend.
'Alex tells the story in a remembering type sequence, but often interjects with thoughts or questions posed directly at the reader. "What's it going to be then, eh?" I believe that the purpose of this is to show the repetitiveness ofAlex's life, and the vicious circle that society has placed him in. This serves to bind the whole of the novel together, even to the final chapter where Our Humble narrator is finally ready to break the repetition of violence and crime.' (Alicia D. Large-Fesi)
By reliving the events that Alex has undergone, such as the betrayal and set-up by his friend, the treatment he was opposed to at the institution and the victimisation he ironically suffers at the hands of victims had from the earlier part of the novel, we come to learn the meaning of his often repeated phrase, "What's it going to be then, eh?" This time it is a signal of true change in maturity and understanding. Again, concerning narrative sequence and coherence triumphs over Oates, Gates' approach is too random and disorganised to engage the reader as fully as Burgess does.
In conclusion, it is apparent that Anthony Burgess and Joyce Carol Oates are radically different in their treatment of the theme of violence. The master himself, Burgess, writes an intriguing novel so passionately driven that it includes mirrored events of personal experiences, superb use of language and a narrative set out in precise chronology. It has been called 'A work of the highest artistic and moral integrity, as relevant now, and as linguistically alive, as it was when it first appeared.' (Blake Morrison) Indeed, Burgess has exceeded the limit when it comes to A Clockwork Orange. Foxfire pales by comparison.
"A Special Message for the (Franklin Library) First Edition from Joyce Carol Oates.'
Preface, <http://storm.usfca.edu/~southerr/foxfire.html>
Berardinelli, James. <http://us.imdb.com/Reviews/58/5887>
Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. England: Penguin Books Ltd, 1972.
Keckler, Jesse. "Biography." Discussion Notes.
<http://www.oocities.org/Athens/4572/notes.html>
Large-Fesi, Alicia D. "Modernistic Features of: A Clockwork Orange - Anthony
Burgess." 1 March, 1998. <http://www.oocities.org/Athens/4572/modernistic.htm
Oates, Joyce Carol. Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang. United States of America: First Dutton Printing, 1993.
"Themes." Women In American Literature. 11 May, 1997.
<http://www.kutztown.edu/faculty/reagan/oates.html>
Teachers Comments: Excellent Work! It began well with a quote for your title. The hook and thesis paragraphs were quite good also. The conclusion summed up all you did nicely but should have atleast hinted at the hook. You’re at your best when discussing Burgess as the biographer and other information is great. This did work well with Oates also but further explanation is needed. You need to avoid oxymoronic statements and phrases. 87%