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 …show more content…
Finally, at the end of the novel in Part Three, Alex is “cured” and has reverted back to his previous state of having a choice between being good or evil, thus acquiring that sense of free will once more.
In part one of the novel, we witness the ability of free will that Alex possesses and his ability to choose between good and evil through contrast presented by darkness of night and lightness of day. At the beginning of the novel, Alex and his droogs (friends), Pete, Georgie, and Dim are at the Kovova Milkbar, roaming the streets and committing violent acts during night. Alex and his droogs encounter an old man who is drunk and is singing a sentimental song. Alex instantly chooses the path of evil with the free will that he encompasses, and along with his droogs they beat the old man while laughing at his misery. The old man complains about the “stinking world” and says, “It’s a stinking world because it lets the young get on to the old like you done, and there’s no law nor order no more.” (Part 2, Chapter 2, Page 12) At night, Alex uses violence and chooses to beat, rape, and murder innocent people because it shows that he has freedom of choice and has authority and power in society. Alex’s interpretation of darkness and night is, “The night belonged to me and my droogs and all the rest of the nadsats (teenagers), and the starry bourgeois lurked indoors…” (Part 1, Chapter 4, Page 33). In contrast,
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.
Alex is a surprisingly charismatic teenager whose love for violence gets him into a handful of rough situations. He is able to commit many acts of terrible beatings and even murders with a clear conscience. Alex shows many sociopathic qualities, them being his ability to lie so very well along with his mind being incapable of remorse. While Alex goes through many life-altering experiences, his maturity is unaffected. Alex conveys many child-like qualities throughout the whole novel, such as using slang that resembles the talk of a child. Burgess also shows many of Alex’s immature qualities through symbolism and hidden meanings. Finally, Alex reveals himself to have become changed man, when he really has not changed at all. Anthony Burgess,
Alex knows that this sort of behavior is wrong, saying that “you can’t have a society with everybody behaving in my manner of the night” (“Clockwork Orange Film”). Alex justifies his free will/actions implying that although his actions are immoral, they balance out the equilibrium of a society because after all, you can’t have everyone behave like him because it would create anarchy. Alex even enjoys committing acts of violence. Alex while beating up and older man even states, “Then out comes the blood, my brothers, real beautiful” (Burgess, pg 9). Alex is fascinated when he is terrorizing his victims; Alex fascination with the beating of his victims and the sight of blood being beautiful is very disturbing. This is where the reader believes that Alex’s assessment of people naturally being born evil maybe true. Even Alex disproves F. Alexander’s statement of being influenced by society with his own free will. A prime example of this is when Alex interacts with his probation officer, Mr. Deltoid even declares “We study the problem. We’ve been studying it for damn near a century, yes, but we get no further with our studies. You’ve got a good home here, good loving parents. You’ve got not too bad of a brain! Is it some devil that crawls inside of you?” (“A Clockwork Orange Film”). Deltoid is refining to the sciences and social sciences that have try to understand and control juvenile rebellion and instincts. Society often suggest that unstable home are the issue for juvenile rebellion but in Alex’s case he has a family that loves him; ultimately the film explores the idea Alex may be simply animal, a creature of instinct, but may in fact be human, capable of moral choice having free will. Not only does Alex struggle with idea of being good but also the role of god and its impact on
If Burgess’ did not write Alex the way he did the whole novel’s premise would fail and the decision would become very easy for the reader. Burgess’ also expresses Alex’s actions very clearly, he does not simply make reference to them or keep them hidden, and Burgess does show clearly Alex would commit any crime and takes enjoyment from it. Yet Alex’s journey from where he begins to who he becomes does reveal that deep down we are all capable of being noble people and we all have knowledge of good and evil. When Alex is being treated he states: “sir, sirs, I see that it’s wrong. It’s wrong because it’s against like society, it’s wrong because every veck on earth has the right to live and be happy without being beaten and tolchocked and knifed.
As time progresses and social environments change, the standards of proper moral conscience and mental health begin to change. Alex, the protagonist of A Clockwork Orange, is a person who by modern ethical standards is a psychopath with no moral conscience. The lack of proper authority in the future version of England presented in A Clockwork Orange allows for the prevalence of pseudo-families that act as the main influences on the lifestyles of teenagers such as Alex. Alex explains within the first page of the novel how he and his “three droogs” spent a lot of time “making up [their minds] what to do with” their almost unlimited free time (A Clockwork Orange 3). During their escapades, they commit crimes such as robbery, assault, rape, and eventually,
Alex continually has suspicion over his friends because it is part of his nature to doubt even his group of friends. Alex “played with care, with great care, the greatest, saying, smiling: ‘Good.” (Burgess 57) as he spoke to his friends. He carefully chooses his words when expressing his feeling due to the fact that he always wants to come out looking more powerful and controlled than the people around him. This absence of trust in others causes Alex to have only strained and fake relationships which is another factor that sets him aside from everyone
As his state-appointed guidance councilor, P.R. Deltoid, says to him, ìYou've got a good home here, good loving parents, you've got not too bad of a brain. Is it some devil that crawls inside you?î (39). While leaving that question unanswered, we do see that Alex's commitment to evil is so pure that he fantasizes about nailing Jesus to a cross.
In the novel A Clockwork Orange Alex the protagonist comes in contact with a lot of people who try to change who he is. On one hand we have P.R. Deltoid who tries to talk reason to him trying to change him by talking to him, on the other hand we have Dr. Brodsky who attempts to change him through a more primitive more violent way. It is ironic that the new way how to “cure” Alex’s urges is to show him violence. Even in the time in which A Clockwork Orange is set it is controversial. The so called Ludovico technique is controversial as it takes away the choice of being “good” and instead forces Alex to submit to the pain and to surrender to what is happening to him. Before Alex is given off to be cured, he talks to the Prison Charlie who tells him: “Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.” (pg.67). With this the Prison Charlie tells Alex that with giving in to this treatment he will lose the choice of being bad and will be forced to be what the government wants him to be.
While some can argue that Alex shows no remorse for what he’s done and should be punished, others argue that he is a young man who has a definite mental disorder and becomes a victim of a system that focuses more on its own image than the welfare of its charges. When Alex speaks of his realization that Beethoven is being played over the films he is forced to watch, “Then I noticed, in all my pain and sickness, what music it was that like crackled and boomed on the sound-track, and it was Ludwig van, the last movement of the Fifth Symphony…,” it is clear that he is in pain and distress, as the doctors pervert the one thing that brings him actual joy (Burgess 113). The readers are given a glimpse of a vulnerable Alex, and it is up to the reader’s discretion to decide whether or not they feel that he or any other criminal, regardless of crimes committed, deserves to be in that
This technique forces Alex to do good in a sense that he nauseates whenever he attempts to do something bad, either to hit or rape someone, “I could nearly have smecked loud at that if the old razdraz within me hadn’t started to wake up the feeling of wanting to sick” (Burgess, 2013: 148). The downside of his technique is that Alex no longer has the freedom of choice because he is forced to do good even when he is simply trying to defend himself from “evil”, “He and his friends beat me and kicked me and thumped me. They stripped me and tore out my teeth” (Burgess, 2013: 156). So one has to wonder if which is better, someone who is unable to do evil, or someone with the freedom to choose whatever path she wants, but chooses to do evil? A Clockwork Orange is filled with these
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.
With the help of Alex’s perspective, the film also criticises the choices society makes. Going back to Nietzsche’s views on morality, it is worth noting that he condemns the Judeo-Christian morality as too strict and unhealthy. However, using that philosophy A Clockwork Orange again shows the opposite as the society and law system’s ethics are very much radical and they believe that the only way they could eradicate the crime and chaos in society is to take people’s right of choice. In their criminology analysis of A Clockwork Orange Lichtenberg, Lune and McManimon (2004) sum up the main issue concerned in the film with the statemen confirmed by the prison chaplain that: If there is no choice, there is no morality. Therefore, Kubrick’s film focuses on some important questions and problems that are shown as issues of a dystopian society but are also truly problems present in contemporary society as well such as: could the spectator blame the establishment for being cruel and immoral if they are trying their hardest to eradicate relentless crime or is taking someone’s free will and right to choose an inhuman thing to do overall? The title of the film ties in with Alex’s journey and character development as he is transformed and programmed as a machine not able to
The assault of an elderly lady, which ultimately leads to her death, results in Alex being violently arrested, interrogated and finally sentenced to fourteen years in prison. In prison, Alex is constantly endangered by guards and cellmates. However, after killing a fellow inmate, Alex volunteers for an anti-violence treatment called ‘Ludovico’s Technique’ which consists of associative learning. Alex is injected a substance causing nausea, while being presented with violent film sequences accompanied with classical music. Classical music being his only passion, he furiously tries to escape in order to be able to continue enjoying classical music. However, he is violently kept by the guards and ultimately learns to associate violence with nausea
Adapted from Anthony Burgess’ 1962 novel, A Clockwork Orange is in part a response to psychological behaviorism and the age of classical conditioning. While in prison, Alex is selected for a special treatment that will cure him of his impulses to
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess takes up many themes throughout the novel. It is known for its candor with violence and its expressive nature regarding it. The novel is narrated by Alex, a fifteen-year-old boy, who tells the story of his ultra-violent acts and journey through reformation by the state. Alex belongs to a violent subculture created by teenagers and lurks the night with his droogs (gang members) in effort to rape, steal, assault, and abuse drugs. In the novel, Burgess argues that the existence of good and evil cannot be modified through force and deprivation of free will, using imagery, metaphors, and satirical devices of communism, youth, and other elements to support his claim.