alexclo Metamorphosis of Alex in Anthony Burgess' 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.

Alex matures and grows through his experiences in China and is now aware of the human consequences that war has. Alex’s growth and maturity is shown when his dad is captured by PLA. Proof of this is when Alex and his dad are talking over the two way radio before Ted gets captured. He is very concerned for his Dad at this point in the book. This event is the beginning of Alex’s awakening. This event hits Alex hard and makes him realize the reality behind war. Another event that helps Alex articulate his new vision of war is when he sees Lau Xu die right in front of his eyes. He even describes the details of the shooting when he says “Crack! Lau Xu spun around, his arms flung skyward. Before he fell the AK 47 spit flame again and the burst blew Lao xu off his feet” (Bell 114). Another example of Alex’s growth leading up to his epiphany of hating war is when Xin-hua gets shot. This happens when Alex starts to beg the officer to let her go and says” Please let me talk to your commanding officer. I just want to-...CRACK. The sound of a single gunshot. I turned to look into the trees where they had taken Xin-Hua. Oh God no, I moaned. No, No ,Nooooooo!” (Bell 183). Alex is now fully aware of the horrible consequences of war after witnessing the death of his friends and his father getting

Alex realizes that at eighteen he is no longer a child, but rather an adult who has not yet amounted to anything. He comes to realize that he would like to start a family of his own, with a wife and son like Pete. He makes a comparison between youth and a windup toy, saying how they continue moving forward in one direction until there is something to block its path. He says that this is a fundamental fact of youth: youth will always make mistakes, as he has, and that this is what leads to the growth into an adult. He realizes the connection that exists between violence and youth, and that free will is more than just violence but making choices based on morality and thought rather than

Alex was interested in the history of wars but he is not realizing war is very harming and the impacts it has on people. Alex has a very arrogant and opinionated personality because he does not think beyond; for example, he only cared about the strategies but he is not going beyond of what people had to go through and their emotions. He only cared about his thoughts and opinions and does not care what other people had to say. This also proves that he thought his dad was immature when he said, “Sometimes I wonder if my father will ever grow up” (Bell 1). When Alex and his father Ted came off the plane, Alex had to handle the boarding

A Clockwork Orange Journal 1: pages 3- 56 I found the first section of the novel, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess to be confusing, but at the same time interesting. Burgess’ ideas were organized and thorough in each chapter. The use of foreshadowing was used at the end of the first chapter implying violent acts throughout the rest of the section. The constant use of slang called, “Nadsat” threw off my focus while reading due to the distraction of flipping back and forth from the glossary back to the novel.

First, I have a couple of questions for this book. My first question is why did the people come after Alex? I processed it over and he was doing illegal actions. The law was cracking down on unlawful behavior. My second colossal question is why was he sentenced to the most security prison? He did a smallish crime

Towards the end of the book it is adoring how appreciative and emotionally mature he had become. Alex learns to depend on Beijing natives for the duration of his struggle to escape. The soldiers react violently

1. Alex’s reaction to his mother’s illness contrasts to his sisters’ reactions because he has anger management issues. Following his initial attack on his father after discovering that he had chopped off his mother’s hair, Alex locked himself in his room. The author, Isabel Allende, writes, “Then, systemically, he set about destroy everything in his room. He pulled the posters from the wall and tore them into bits; he swung is baseball bat at pictures and videos; he crushed his collection of antique automobiles, and airplanes from World War 1; he ripped pages from his books; he gutted his mattresses and pillow with his Swiss Army knife; he slashed all of his clothes and bedding; and as a final touch he kicked and stomped on his lamp until

Alex is a sunny, golden man who thinks the best of everyone. His brother Nick thinks he’s an idiot, but only fondly as brothers are want to do. He’s a good man. The man you would want your daughter to marry. Unfortunately, he has his work cut out trying to convince Terese of that.

Alex is forced to submit to the police’s orders and is charged with murder. This is a turning point in A Clockwork Orange because Alex finally gets a taste of his own medicine. He has to deal with daily abuse from the police for two years and it is apparent that Alex is still unable to change his evil ways until he volunteers to take part in the government’s new “behavior” experiment to speed up his sentence. Alex’s ethical transformation is seen in the twenty-first chapter where he finally grows up and realizes that there’s more to life than violence (Davis and Womack). The violence in this novel is not just distasteful, but also has a comedic effect.

In a society where raping, murdering, and robbing happens very often, it is hard to determine what the best method is to lower the crime rates. Alex, one of the many teens who commit violence on a regular basis, has done many crimes. Five different methods have been used on Alex and each has its own benefits and drawbacks. “Clockwork Orange” argues that letting him be is the best method for Alex because he starts to get tired of violence, wants to start a family, and learns to show genuine care for others with nothing in return. However, too much free will is unreasonable and will not allow Alex to realize violence is bad.

“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 this sense, we are distanced from Bateman through narrative style. On the contrary, there are times when Alex embraces us, the reader, as his ‘friends’, and labels himself as ‘your humble narrator’, regardless of the social barrier that is created through his diversity in language. There is, of course, a derisive irony in Alex’s tone – but, nevertheless, there is a connection of sorts between character and reader. This connection softens the dramatic blow of the violence the character of Alex carries out also skilfully hidden through Burgess’ use of Nadsat, meaning the audience are perhaps more forgiving of Alex’s violence when it is so playfully and lovingly described as ‘lovely roughing’. The audience are therefore more forgiving of Alex and his action and sympathise for him later in the novel. The playful descriptions of such brutal acts demonstrates how Burgess was satirising how he youth have become desensitised to society and violence even describing it as ‘sport’, this was a large concern in 1960’s youth culture with popularisation in cinema and music which increasingly had more violent and sexual

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.

Burgess uses Alex as a symbol of Jesus Christ. Although a connection between a murdering rapist and Christ appears implausible, beneath the surface of the novel Christ provides an undeniable analogy for Alex’s life. The three parts of the novel parallel Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection as Alex is captured, buried in prison, and returns to his previous state of mind after nearly dying. Alex’s resemblance to Christ is often alluded to throughout the novel, such as when Dr. Brodsky says that Alex “will be your true Christian,… ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than crucify” (126). The comparison between Alex and Christ proves an important part of the plot as it adds significance to Alex’s attempted suicide. His attempted suicide is no longer meaningless, but rather a sacrifice to expose the evils of the government.