TY  - JOUR
T1  - Inside Alex’s Mind: Language, Music, and Moral Engagement in A Clockwork Orange
TT  - Alex’in Zihninde: Otomatik Portakal Romanında Dil, Müzik ve Ahlaki Katılım
AU  - Kaplan, Necmettin
PY  - 2025
DA  - September
Y2  - 2025
DO  - 10.62425/melius.1760636
JF  - Melius: Journal of Narrative and Language Studies
PB  - Ataturk University
WT  - DergiPark
SN  - 2980-3462
SP  - 42
EP  - 49
IS  - 4
LA  - en
AB  - This article examines Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange through the lens of Reader-Response Theory (Reception Theory, Reader-Oriented Criticism), particularly the perspectives of Wolfgang Iser and Stanley Fish. It argues that Burgess deliberately destabilizes moral judgment through first-person narration, the artificial language of Nadsat, and classical music. These formal strategies condition the reader’s response and implicate them in ethical reflection. Iser’s concepts of the implied reader (virtual reader, ideal reader) and interpretive gaps (indeterminacies, textual gaps), as well as Fish’s notion of interpretive communities (reading communities, discourse communities), are applied to show how Burgess guides interpretation while avoiding didacticism. This study investigates author/text and reader interrelation, and how the novel becomes not just a narrative of violence but a test of reader engagement and moral agency.
KW  - Anthony Burgess
KW  - "A Clockwork Orange"
KW  - Reader-Response theory
KW  - Nadsat
KW  - narrative ethics
N2  - Bu makale, Anthony Burgess’in Otomatik Portakal adlı romanını Okur-Tepki Kuramı çerçevesinde, özellikle Wolfgang Iser ve Stanley Fish’in teorik yaklaşımları doğrultusunda incelemektedir. Burgess’in birinci şahıs anlatımı, yapay dili (Nadsat) ve klasik müziği kullanarak okuyucunun etik yargılarını bilinçli şekilde sarstığı ileri sürülmektedir. Iser’in ima edilen okuyucu ve metindeki boşluklar kavramları ile Fish’in yorumlayıcı topluluklar fikri, yazarın okuyucuyu nasıl yönlendirdiğini ve yorumun nasıl toplumsal bağlamlara bağlı olarak değiştiğini ortaya koymaktadır. Bu çalışma, yazar/metin ve okur arasındaki karşılıklı ilişkiyi ve romanın yalnızca bir şiddet anlatısı değil, aynı zamanda okurun katılımının ve ahlaki eyleminin bir sınavı haline nasıl geldiğini incelemektedir.
CR  - Bleich, D. (1980). Subjective criticism. In J. P. Tompkins (Ed.), Reader-response criticism: From formalism to post-structuralism (pp. 361–382). Johns Hopkins University Press.
CR  - Burgess, A. (1986). A clockwork orange (Restored ed.). W. W. Norton.
CR  - Burgess, A. (1990). You’ve had your time: Being the second part of the confessions of Anthony Burgess. Heinemann.
CR  - Davis, T. F., & Womack, K. (2002). Formalist criticism and reader-response theory: Critical theory and practice. Palgrave Macmillan.
CR  - Evans, R. O. (1971). Nadsat: The argot and its implications in Anthony Burgess’ A clockwork orange. Journal of Modern Literature, 1(3), 406–410. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3831064
CR  - Fish, S. (1980). Is there a text in this class? The authority of interpretive communities. Harvard University Press.
CR  - Goh, R. B. H. (2000). Clockwork language reconsidered: Iconicity and narrative in Anthony Burgess’s A clockwork orange. Journal of Narrative Theory, 30(2), 263–280. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30224562
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CR  - Iser, W. (1974). The implied reader: Patterns of communication in prose fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Johns Hopkins University Press.
CR  - Iser, W. (1978). The act of reading: A theory of aesthetic response (D. H. Wilson, Trans.). Johns Hopkins University Press.
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https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2024-1486112
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CR  - Nixon, M. (2009). Decoding dystopia: Language, violence, and identity in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange. Journal of Literary Studies, 25(3),1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/02564710903228529
CR  - Ravyse, N. E. (2014). Nadsat: The oscillation between reader immersion and repulsion. Literator,35(1),1–5. https://doi.org/10.4102/lit.v35i1.433
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CR  - Sağıroğlu, R. (2022). Mapping identity in D.H. Lawrence's short stories: Discursive analysis. Çizgi Kitabevi.
CR  - Tompkins, J. P. (Ed.). (1980). Reader-response criticism: From formalism to post-structuralism. Johns Hopkins University Press.
UR  - https://doi.org/10.62425/melius.1760636
L1  - https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/5134021
ER  -