Essay on The Paradox of A Clockwork Orange

         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.

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

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.

The Ludovico technique that is used on Alex is an example of how immoral practices are used in this world. With this technique, he is injected with drugs to mess with his brain biologically. He is then forced to watch disturbing movies, which enhance the drugs previously injected into him to make him feel sick. The goal of this is to make him revolute at the sight of violence. After the first round of “treatment” Alex says: “ I do not wish to describe, brothers, what other horrible veshches I was forced to viddy that afternoon” (Burgess, 119). Alex, the ultra-violence loving teenager is so shook by what happened to him, he is unable to even explain what he saw. This shows that even the evilest of people can be affected by this practice. The background music that is in the films Alex is forced to watch is of his liking, which angers him because now he will associate the sick feeling with the music he loves. Dr. Branom, talking to Alex about this, says: “’Each man kills he thing he loves, as the poet-prisoner said. Here’s punishment element, perhaps. The Governor ought to be pleased.’” (Burgess,128). The doctors feel no remorse for taking away the pleasure of listening to the music alex likes, which show how other inhumane actions are done, not just in medical

In his novel A clockwork orange, Anthony Burgess explores contradiction/duality as a ultimate reality. His understanding of this phrase reflects the world as a set of fundamental and coequal oppositions of forces, and this is evident throughout the novel (Sparknotes, 2015:1). In the following essay we will be exploring the concept of contradictions/duality as portrayed in the novella by referring to the following contradictions namely; good versus evil, commitment versus neutrality, free will versus the “Clockwork orange”, man versus government, youth versus maturity and intellect versus intuition.

The government controls Alex’s free will by means of the Ludovico Technique, which makes Alex physically ill at the mere consideration of violent thoughts. When Alex is in the “staja” the Governor states that criminals “can best be dealt with on a purely curative basis. Kill the criminal reflex…”. The Governor does not understand that criminal intent is not an unrestrained reaction, but the result of autonomy. The voice of reason in the prison is the prison Chaplin who questions the ethics of interfering with God’s gift of moral choice, “goodness comes from within….goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man”. Again through one of his characters, Burgess is stating that inhibiting a person’s free will is more evil than a person’s ability to choose evil over good. If one cannot choose, one ceases to be human and is exactly like a machine controlled by the government.

Prior to this moment, Alex is released from an experimental rehabilitation treatment to make him incapable of doing wrong. Alex has a solid commitment to the ideals of violence and has aesthetic pleasure he takes in his crimes. The delight he finds in classical music closely relates to the joy he feels during acts of violence and elevates his brutal behaviour. He believes evil represents a natural state for human beings. The State, who seeks to deny him of the decisions to act cruelly, encroaches on his freedom as a person. Thus, in choosing savagery, Alex ultimately affirms his sense of self. He never truly understands his entitlement. At the end of the treatment, he deprives the ability to make moral choices

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.

“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.

Anthony Burgess's writing style in his most famous novel, A Clockwork Orange, is different to say the least. This novel is praised for its ingenuity, although many are disturbed by Burgess's predictions for the future. However, for many, it is close to impossible to comprehend without outside help. This is because Burgess created a language specifically for this novel, called Nadsat. This Russian-based language forms conversations between the narrator, Alex, and his teenage, delinquent friends. There are many assumptions as to why Burgess chose to complicate A Clockwork Orange by filling it with the confusing Nadsat language. Some opinions are that the language shows A Clockwork Orange readers

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

I think that A Clockwork Orange is a book worth reading because it is relatable, makes you think, and is interesting. The author, Anthony Burgess, was born February 25, 1917. At the young age of two his mother passed away. He was brought up by his aunt and later his stepmother. Even with such an unstable childhood Burgess continued on to enroll in college and major in English. He had a passion for music, which he expressed in the main character of A Clockwork Orange. Burgess wrote several accomplished symphonies in his day, as well as over fifty books. He was diagnoses with a brain tumor at about age 40 but well outlived his doctor’s expectations continuing his artistic output until his death from lung cancer at age 76.

The use of music as a motif in (Stanley Kubrick, A Clockwork Orange 1962)] creates a lens so that the viewer is able to recognize the trend that violence has to destroy an individual’s identity. Although Alex (Malcolm McDowell) clearly associates violence with his own individual identity and sense of self, he consistently reveals the impossibility of remaining an individual in the face of group-oriented violence. The images that music create coincide the destruction of Alex’s identity, either through compliance to a group’s style of violence or through failure to embrace the similarity of group actions associated with violence. As the movie progresses, musical imagery follows the exit and return of his personal identity as a role of his

In the novel, Alex chooses to be evil and fights off the state which wants to control the way he behaves outside in society. Through experiments that could be classified as torture Alex is forced to change his violent ways and becomes sick at the very thought

Similarly, the character of Alex McDowell and his actions are presented with methods comparable to that of Bonnie and Clyde. Stanley Kubrick stresses the violence in A Clockwork Orange as a way to show the full extent of his harmful maniacal ways. Narration alone can only tell us so much about his personality and isn't able to comprehensively encompass the significance of the violence attributed to Alex. It isn't until we see the crimes being committed in vivid detail that we are able to recognize the true nature of Alex’s moral extent. This illustrates him as the character he is meant to be as per the novella written by Anthony Burgess. We learn through wide angle shots of the moments leading up to the raping of a helpless woman, that Alex is entirely comfortable with the sadistic action and even finds it amusing. Upward facing camera angles that specifically place his face as the focal point are used during this scene and many others like it to enunciate his sinister appearance. They are used to show that as a person, Alex enjoys these all to pernicious behaviors. The excessive realness of the scenes only supports our understanding of his lack of humanity. Alex’s aggressiveness is magnified by the way he senselessly beats the old man under the bridge and the husband of the raped woman. Incorporating an undisturbed shot of him doing so allows it make a greater impact on the audience's perception of the character. Just as in Bonnie and Clyde, violence is shown with no