Passage 8

Passage: “Then we took the road west. There wasn’t much traffic about, so I kept pushing the old noga through the floorboards near, and the Durango 95 ate up the road like spaghetti. Soon as it was winter trees and dark, my brothers, with a country dark, and at one place I ran over something big with a snarling toothy rot in the headlamps, then it screamed and squelched under and old Dim at the back near laughed his Gulliver off- ‘Ho ho ho’ –at that. Then we saw one young malchick with his sharp, lubbilubbing under a tree, so we stopped and cheered at them, then we bashed into them both with a couple of half-hearted tolchocks, making them cry, and on we went. What we were after now was the old surprise visit. That was a real kick and good for smecks and lashings of the ultra-violent. We came at last to a sort of a village, and just outside this village was a small sort of a cottage on its own with a bit of a garden. The Luna was well up now, and we could viddy this cottage fine and clear as I eased up and put the brake on, and the other three giggling like bezoomny, and we could viddy the name of the gate of this cottage veshch was HOME, a gloopy sort of home.”

Most criminals break the law for a purpose, for they have some type of motivation. Alex, on the other hand, just does it for the hell of doing it. He makes people cry just to see them cry. In a lawless society, there is nothing to stop him so he sees no reason to not do whatever he likes. It’s interesting in the passage however, how Alex has used a simile to compare the road to spaghetti. Someone as violent and slightly insane as this tough guy can only compare a road being torn up to the ingestion of spaghetti. He goes on stating that this visit will bring forth the “ultra-violent.” This again represents how Alex pushes all extremes; he is testing how horrible he can act when his society stands completely orderless. When suggesting a psychological criticism, I can say that is shown that children often look for boundary lines; how far they can push their parents and how much they can get away with. Alex continues to push for that boundary but has found none, hence his need to continue a life of crime. The Luna’s, note its capitalization, symbol stands for the night. Alex’s gang moves quickly in the night, for they know they have a lot of time ahead of them by the Luna’s positioning.