Duality In A Clockwork Orange

Both novels express the theme of oppression in two different ways. ‘A Clockwork Orange’ reveals a very broken world in which chaos is rampant in the streets and gang fights are normality; yet in’1984’ the people are controlled by intense order. Burgess believed that “the freedom to choose is the big human attribute”. Burgess believed that having the capability to choose between good and evil defines us as human beings. This provides Burgess’ main focus of the novel and provides the debate to whether the treatment of Alex is a suitable way to deal with those who are truly evil?

Alex DeLarge is a vicious fifteen-year-old droog whose thirst for ultra-violence is his main catalyst in A Clockwork Orange. His savage characterization is clearly illustrated through his thoughts and actions in Anthony Burgress’ original novel, as well as Stanley Krubrik’s film rendition. However, while both interpretations follow corresponding objectives, they differ dramatically in the way they are perceived by the audience. The most prominent distinction between the two pieces of work is the way Alex is perceived by the audience throughout the story.

A Clockwork Orange, a novel written by Anthony Burgess in the 1960’s takes place in dystopian future in London, England. The novel is about a fifteen year old nadsat (teenager) named Alex who along with his droogs (friends) commit violent acts of crime and opts to be bad over good. In time, Alex finds himself to be in an experiment by the government, making him unable to choose between good and evil, thus losing his ability of free will, and being a mere clockwork orange. A “clockwork orange” is a metaphor for Alex being controlled by the government, which makes him artificial because he is unable to make the decision of good verses evil for himself and is a subject to what others believe is right. In A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess

‘A Clockwork Orange’ - How does Stanley Kubrick create reference to the duality of ‘the fool’? A Clockwork Orange (1971) is one of Stanley Kubrick more notable endeavours, based on Anthony Burgess’ novel. Both film and book depict the simultaneous humanity and inhumanity of Alex and his ‘droogs’. This duality is key to my interpretation of these characters as representative of ‘the fool’.

“The attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this I raise my sword-pen,” Anthony Burgess in his novel ‘A Clockwork Orange’, which happens to be a scathing critique of totalitarian government, through the character of F. Alexander. Burgess is attempting to criticize the type of governments that try to limit the freedom of an individual through science and technology. To be more specific, the use of ‘Ludovico technique’, is one example of the government using technology to establish control in the dystopian world of the text. Although the government, in its defense, prioritizes the safety and well-being of society, it is imperative to note that this use of technology turns Alex, the protagonist into a creature devoid of moral choices. This is what Burgess is referring to by the term ‘mechanical creation’, Alex goes on living his life as a machine, his criminal reform is marked by his inability to make conscious moral decisions. How then, is this scientific measure of criminal reform pursued by the government justifiable? Good and evil are intrinsic part of any human being. An individual always has the moral conscience and choice of picking between the two, and this is what makes him human.

Anthony Burgess has been heralded as one of the greatest literary geniuses of the twentieth century. Although Burgess has over thirty works of published literature, his most famous is A Clockwork Orange. Burgess’s novel is a futuristic look at a Totalitarian government. The main character, Alex, is an "ultra-violent" thief who has no problem using force against innocent citizens to get what he wants. The beginning of the story takes us through a night in the life of Alex and his Droogs, and details their adventures that occupy their time throughout the night. At fifteen years old, Alex is set up by his Droogs—Pete,

Anthony Burgess’s novel, A Clockwork Orange, presents a struggle between animalistic urges and mechanistic society by way of the motif of a clockwork orange. Many would agree that a clock and an orange share little in common other than the fact that they may both be round. However, the organic nature of an orange combined with the precision and mechanics of a clock curiously imitates the way people respond to everyday influences. Anthony Burgess capitalizes on the differences between these two seemingly unrelated objects to present the connection between morality and conformity within the confines of the novel’s narrator, Alex. Throughout the three parts of the novel, it becomes more apparent that every seemingly harmless life can be manipulated by the clockwork of society. Alex is a young boy living in the near future, whose obsession with the brutality of the world around him causes him to act violently. The portrayal of the character Alex as both a protagonist and an antagonist highlights the psychological turmoil associated with conforming to society by sacrificing either morality for individuality or individuality for morality.

Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, a critically acclaimed masterstroke on the horrors of conditioning, is unfairly attacked for apparently gratuitous violence while it merely uses brutality, as well as linguistics and a contentious dénouement, as a vehicle for deeper themes.

A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess, develops a fictional account of a violent futuristic society, while integrating commentary on  current political and social issues.

However, youth like Alex cannot be caught in the expected rubric of life and hence, they retaliate. Nevertheless, one cannot justify Alex’s actions worth applauding but Burgess seems to favour their actions as the only possible outlet for suppressed angst. In the first act, fourth chapter, Alex says,

A Clockwork Orange demonstrates the philosophically issues of free will and determinism through how the main character was treated in the movie. It also addresses important issues such as ethics, philosophy of the mind, free will and determinism, and the problem of perception. Philosophers such as John Hospers, B.F. Skinner, and Jean-Paul Sartre have different views on the issue through their theories of how individuals are or are not responsible for the free will choices that they make in life. The main character in the movie was a very violent , and reckless person. He participated in sinful acts such as being a gang member, raping women, being involved in fights, etc. These actions resulted in him being sent to prison and eventually being brainwashed into doing things out of his character. The three philosophers have very different interpretations of how the main character should have been dealt with and the reasonings behind his actions.

Alex's world is characterized by class collectivism and dullness. For him the middle class remains behind closed doors enjoying the commodities of televised entertainment, while the working spend most of their time at work or asleep. Demarcated from the society by its own language, nadsat, the violent Modern Youth lives in a different world. Thus no accepted form of social identification exists for Alex, and life in

A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess, is one of the most experimental, original, and controversial novels of the twentieth century. It is both a compelling work of literature and an in-depth study in linguistics. The novel is a satirical, frightening science fiction piece, not unlike others of this century such as George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four or Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. However, the conflicts and resolutions in A Clockwork Orange are more philosophical than social, and its message is far more urgent.

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

The technique is a scientific experiment designed to take away moral choice from criminals. The technique conditions a person to feel intense pain and nausea whenever they have a violent thought. The key moral theme of A Clockwork Orange is articulated during a chat between the alcoholic prison chaplain and Alex two weeks before he enters treatment. He reflects on the moral questions raised by the treatment that will force Alex to be good. “Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed on him?” The government experiment fails to realize that good and evil come from within the self. The Ludovico Technique messes with Alex’s internal clockwork. He transforms into a being that is unable to distinguish good from evil. The altering of his personality makes him, “as decent a lad as you would meet on a May morning, unvicious, unviolent…inclined to the kindly word and helpful act,” but his actions are dictated only by self-interest to avoid the horrible sickness that comes along with evil thoughts. He has no real choice, “he ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature of moral choice.” Being stripped of his free will, Alex is no longer a human he is the government’s toy. “Choosing to be deprived of the ability to make an ethical choice [does not mean] you have in a sense really chosen the good.”