Concerning the title
from Anthony Burgess' preface in the modern american prints:
"...by definition, a human being is endowed with free will.
He can use this to choose between good and evil. If he can only perform good
or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange--meaning that he has the
appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a
clockwork toy to be wound by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly
replacing both) the Almighty State. It is as inhuman to be totally good as it
is to be totally evil."