A Clockwork Orange By Anthony Burgess

         Burgess does not characterize Alex as just a murderous rapist.  To come to terms with his wife's death, he had to believe that it is inhuman to be totally good or totally evil (Burgess ix).  In the final chapter, Alex undergoes a moral transformation; "he grows bored with violence and recognizes that human energy is better expended on creation than destruction" (vii).  Burgess could not believe that the men who raped his wife were totally evil, so Alex had to redeem himself by living a normal life.

Works of literature innately embody the author’s ideology and the historical context of the given time period. Within the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey, the author furthers his ideals against the issue of oppression as he attempts to take stabs against its deteriorating effects and support those who rebel. Set in the microcosm of a small mental hospital, he establishes man’s external struggle to overcome tyranny. At the head of the head of the ward is the corrupted character of Nurse Ratched, who rules with an iron fist and the help of her machine like aides. It also features the nonconformist character, McMurphy, as he works to break Nurse Ratched’s endless cycle of tyranny. Although the novel shifts between the

Alex is caught (page 70): Alex had held firm in his belief that it was better to run oneself by feeling as opposed to thought, and this was exhibited by his rash actions of violence. Additionally he used his youth to his advantage to remain out of trouble with the authorities but his youth was actually a large part in his capture. He hadn't really considered that he might ever get caught, hadn't truly believed that his drools would really betray him because he thought so highly of himself. However, in this part of the book this false belief crumples apart as he accidentally kills the old woman, and is left to the millicents by George and Dim.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, written by Ken Kesey, was a very successful novel which was impactful on the world in the past, and still is today. Ken Kesey, a big believer in individuality and the freedom to be oneself, brought new meaning to the world of psychiatry that changed treatments forever. This book didn’t just affect American society, it had a global impact. All around the world there are people that are admitted into mental institutions, and this book changed treatments in these facilities. The novel also raised awareness of the psych ward culture in which this book took place.

Ken Kesey portrays McMurphy as a Chris-like figure in many different parts of the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In the book, McMurphy is viewed by some as a Christ-like figure, and for some, he is not. Ken Kesey intended for McMurphy to be a heroic, Christ-like figure because of events that occurred and the battle between McMurphy and the "evil" Nurse Ratched. A few events that occurred that demonstrated McMurphy's heroic, Christ-like figure was the Electro Shock Therapy and the fishing trip.

Many times throughout one of Ken Kesey’s most famous novels, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the book uses animals as symbols to represent the story’s plot. The animals usually relate to individual characters and their current struggles within the story. Animal imagery provides us with great insight to the themes that Kesey is trying to have us explore, and is a very good tool that the reader can use to help better understand and relate to the characters.

The book I chose is entitled “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” written by Ken Kesey. It is important to start off by providing some of Ken Kesey’s background. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, Kesey ended up at Stanford in a creative writing program. He ended up volunteering in an experimental drug program where he was used to test the different effects of the drugs at the Local Veterans Administration hospital. This was where he began to experiment with LCD. During his experimental time, He ended up taking a job as an orderly in the mental institution where he got to witness how the mentally ill were treated by the staff and how the facility was run. He could not have written a better work of fiction to illustrate his experiences.

The portrayal of women and minorities in the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, shows readers the opinions of a majority of the population during the 1960s in which women in power were ridiculed. The book’s antagonist Nurse Ratched is presented as machine-like, and robotic. This shows how author Ken Kesey dehumanizes women who are in power, and decides to take away all their feminine qualities when they are in power because to Kesey it simply doesn 't make sense that a female can be in a position of power. Women in power are illustrated as threatening figures who emasculate and belittle men, which is suggested by the various characters presented throughout the novel.

In order to fully understand and appreciate Ken Kesey’s 1962 work One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, one should be informed on the historical background and Kesey’s personal insight on the topics he presented. The main two contributing elements that led to the creation of the novel were his experimentations with psychoactive drugs, which began through him serving as a voluntary test subject of Project MKULTRA, and his time working at Menlo Park, California’s Veterans’ Hospital. As he interacted with the various patients there, Kesey came to the conclusion that the men did not suffer from any mental ailments, yet where simply cast aside as society’s rejects. Kesey would later claim his usage of mind-altering drugs led to his sympathy towards the

Alex and the Underground man were both well aware that their actions were unlawful and wrong in society. As explained before Alex’s acts of ultraviolence pay no concern for others. But then at the end of the novel when he returned to his normal self after the Ludovico technique was reversed he questions whether he should be doing such things or move on. Alex tells the readers, “I kept viddying like visions, like these cartoons in the gazettes” (Burgess 2.7.52). He decided that it was time to grow up and fall into his place in society.

A Clockwork Orange is a novel by Anthony Burgess, an English author and composer. Born in Manchester, to catholic parents, who were part of the lower middle class background, who were relatively well off shopkeepers. Within his earlier life he spent time solitary and alone, Burgess even stated ‘I was despised…ragged boys in gangs would pounce on the well-dressed like myself’. In 1942 Burgess married Lynee Jones. Burgess spent six weeks in 1940 as an army recruit in Eskbank and then went on to become a Nursing Orderly Class 3 in the Royal Army Medical Corps. In 1946 Burgess left the army and began his teaching career. Burgess was predominantly a comic writer, his dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange remains his best known novel. Malayan trilogy The Long Day Wanes was Burgess's first published fiction.

“What’s it going to be then, eh?” is the signature question in Anthony Burgess’s novel, A Clockwork Novel that not only resonates with the moral identity of the anti-heroic protagonist, Alex, but also signifies the essential choice between free will that perpetrates evil and deterministic goodness that is forced and unreal. The prison chaplain and the writer F. Alexander voice the most controversial idea in the novel: man becomes ‘a clockwork orange’ when robbed of free will and tuned into a deterministic mechanism.

In the novel A Clockwork Orange, the author Anthony Burgess tells a story about a young man name Alex and his friends, every night they go around and start committing violent acts. In the novel Alex expresses his freedom of choice between good and evil. The freedom of choice is a decision that every person must make throughout his life in order to guide his actions and to take control of his own future. This Freedom of Choice, no matter what the outcome is, displays person power as an individual, and any efforts to control or influence this choice between good and evil will take way the person free will and enslave him. In this novel the author uses this symbolism through imagery. He shows that through the character of

     A Clockwork Orange had a loose theme of the necessity of not only good, but also evil in human nature. Alex may have been selfish and deviant but his character and the characters like him did seem to have a strong grasp on the concept that life was for living. Without the ability of choice to commit evil acts which was an impulse inside of him, his ability to act human was affected. The freedom of making these choices seems to be what makes us human. Hence without this freedom he is driven to attempt suicide.

The society of A Clockwork Orange is constructed upon struggles for power. Crime is a part of the everyday. Violent street gangs seek power through anarchism, direct authority is represented by a network of corrupt police, and on the highest social level a struggle for political and administrative power is fought. Alex reflects: "Power, power, everybody like wants power." As a microcosm of the social mentality, he seems to fit the notion of being a product of his environment.