Saturday, March 5, 2011

Blog Entry the 1st: Rhetorical Strategies

• Repetition: "'What's it going to be then, eh?'" (3, and at the beginning of several other chapters).
"'Out out out out!'" (7), "smash smash smash" (13), "right right right" (34) "ringringringing" (41).
• Epithets: "Dim the dim" (12) and "your Faithful Narrator" (46).
• Author's purpose: "But, myself, I couldn't help a bit of disappointment at things as they were those days" (15). "To turn a decent young man into a piece of clockwork should not... be seen as any triumph for any government" (175).
• Parallelism: "Then there was like quiet and we were full of like hate" (27).
• Onomatopoeia: "brrrrrrr brrrrrr" (64), "flip flap" (64)
• Symbolism: "Home... it was home I was wanting, and it was HOME I came to, brothers... I could viddy [see] its name shining white on the gate" (170).
The undertone of the rhetor varies dramatically in A Clockwork Orange, depending on the situation, but the overlying tone is one of disillusionment and purposelessness. The rhetorical strategies employed are largely use in a stream-of-conscious manner, meaning the Alex is thinking them as the plot line progresses... as his emotions change, so do the meanings behind said strategies. The author's tone is effectively communicated through the rhetor's distinctive voice, which employs a wide variety of obscure, seemingly-impromptu diction, and gibberish.

1 comment:

  1. I like the quotes you found. My favorite would have to be the symbolism. I thought it was clever how Burgess used the sign in front of the house to show that he got exactly what he asked for, when in all actuality is was probably the farthest thing from what he wanted. It is kind of like the concept of a genie. In shows or movies that have genies, they always say the clichés of "Genies are tricky" and "Be careful what you wish for" and the same applied to Alex. He wanted so desperately to be in his own house with his parents and a nice bed, when he actually got sent back to a place where he had performed a horrible deed and ended up committing suicide because of it.

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