Original artwork, not a still
A Clockwork Orange · 1962
What's it going to be then, eh?
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The question is a menu and a moral test at once: what will you be, now that you are free to choose? Burgess makes Alex ask it, then makes the state's cure take the answer away. Fans use it as the cheeky opening of anything, a call to the next round or the next bad decision.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for A Clockwork OrangeShow the scene
It is the first sentence of A Clockwork Orange: Alex, the fifteen-year-old narrator, is sitting with his droogs Pete, Georgie and Dim in the Korova Milk Bar, drinking milk laced with drugs and deciding how to spend the night. The same question opens all three parts of the book, spoken first by Alex, then by the prison chaplain in Part Two, and again by Alex in Part Three, which is how Burgess frames a novel about choice. It was published on 17 March 1962.
Sources (2)
- A Clockwork Orange (novel) (Wikipedia)whole pageReference checked
- A Clockwork Orange (Wikiquote)whole pageReference checked
Context reviewed