The idea of one being free or not free is greatly debated for the main character, Alex, in A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess. Almost anyone, when asked, will say that they believe they are free because they are able to make their own decision and can do what they choose, also known as free will. But to what extent are you truly free? It all comes down to what you consider it means to be free. According to critic Samuel McCracken, there is a definite difference between free will and free choice. He argues that Alex is not deprived of free will, rather than free choice. Samuel McCracken explains that in order to be “brainwashed’ one must be provided with a new set of opinions and values. Throughout the novel, there isn’t a point in which …show more content…
While Alex is beating up an elderly woman in her own home, the cops show up. Alex tries to escape the house but his “so-called droogs” have a different plan for him (Burgess 44). Later on, Alex finds out the elderly woman had “. . . passed on to a better world. . .” (Burgess 50). He is then charged and sent to prison. Therefore, Alex is physically not free. However, he is still able to think freely and make certain decisions. One decision he is in control of concerns Ludovico’s Technique. Before Alex undergoes the treatment, he is asked to sign a form first. Alex freely signs the release in order to undergo treatment (McCracken 277). He makes this decision on his own and isn’t influenced by anything or anybody else. On one hand, Alex is physically unfree, but on the other hand, he is mentally free and aware of his …show more content…
Unfortunately, it does not work. Alex finds himself in the hospital and surprisingly cured. He is now able to bare the thought of violence without feeling sick. He can go back to his old ways and do as he pleases. Although it may seem like Alex is both physically and mentally free, his past experiences have had an impact on how he chooses to live. He used to thrive for violence and couldn’t wait to get out of prison so that he could go back to living his life. Except now, he suddenly grows up. He states that he is now “. . . like growth up. . .” and is “. . . seeking like a mate” (Burgess 121). Technically Alex is free because he is out in the world doing what he chooses, but mentally he is unfree due to his decisions being influenced by his past
In conclusion it is seen that Alex has effectively changed into a man and has become a morally sensitive individual. He, for himself has chosen good
chosen to undergo a new “treatment” that the State has developed to “reform” criminals. After the State strips him of his choice to choose between good and evil, Alex can only do good now and even thinking of doing something bad makes him violently ill. Then, Alex is “rehabilitated” considered “rehabilitated”. Afterwards Alex is released where he encounters an “ex-droog” and one of his enemies, they beat him to a pulp and leave him out in the middle of nowhere. After coming to his senses, Alex makes his way to a house and in that house, right before Alex went to prison, h...
1. As I was reading the book Clockwork Orange, I felt like it deserved a 8 out of 10. I enjoyed the book because while I was reading it, I did not have such a clear image of all the rape, sex, and violence. Talking from personal experiences, I did not want to picture those images in my head. Finding out there was a movie of Clockwork Orange kind of scared me but also gave me excitement because I wanted to see how different the the book was from the movie. After viewing Clockwork Orange, I would rate it a 7 out of 10. I rated it a 7 out of 10 because the rape and violence was overused. In the beginning of the movie, there were non-stop sex and rape scenes. For example, when Alex and his goons fake their way into an emergency just so they could attack a older man and rape his wife, who later dies because of this accident. Toward the end of the movie, there was a lot of
Alex seemed to find the love he didn’t get from his parents in his friends. Alex and his friends did a lot of damage to others, but of course they did it as a group. They beat up an old man who asked for change, they fought another group of people, they broke into a house and beat up the old man who lived there, then beat up his wife, killing her, but only after they raped her.
This is also often the next step after a severe loss in a family, evolving from the ‘recovery period.’ In the middle of the book, Alex becomes aware of his larger and larger isolation from the rest of his family. From this, he seems to try to change his actions; becoming less agitated and irate, but changing to just becoming focused on solving Caroline’s murder. “It didn’t take long for Tony Nicholson to start talking a blue streak about the club and the blackmail scheme after that. I’d seen it so many times before, the way suspects will start competing with each other once they sense the ground is shifting. To hear him tell it, Mara Kelly had set up the entire back end: Asian underground banking, public key cryptography -- everything they needed to stay out of reach for as long as they had.” (page 210) Alex begins to completely forget about ‘taking out his rage’ or ‘getting revenge’ to just solving his niece’s case and giving the rest of his family some closure. To achieve this, however, Alex slowly begins to seek more and more help from the rest of his family. “You’re going to be just fine, she had said to me. Maybe not quite the same, but still, just fine. You’re a police officer. She was right, of
When you act in a way you feel is right and unforced, there is an example of what true freedom is. When Alex is converted into acting only positively, he acts in a way that doesn’t make him feel sick. He is shown all sorts of appalling scenes when taking part in the experiments, which eventually cause him to react in disgust; especially when he hears the music that was being used. After completing Ludovico treatment he is left vulnerable and unable to act freely, locked in this mindset of only acting as a ‘good’
And a Clockwork universe is comparing the universe as a mechanical clock, it’s a perfect contraption, but every aspect of it is science controlling it. So, I asked questions after each paragraph about Alex. With Alex being a deviant criminal in the beginning due to his environment which wasn’t his fault for being the way he was to being put through “treatment” that cured him to be a perfect citizen, he still wasn’t fully “cured”. Once Alex was put into the real world he became the perfect victim, and he was put through horrific acts just like he used to do to his victims and tried to commit suicide. With jumping out a window Alex’s new conditioning isn’t a thing anymore, he doesn’t get ill when subjected to violence and is able to listen to his favorite song by Beethoven without getting sick also. Once Alex figures out that he doesn’t get violently ill when subjected to these things government officials apologize to him and compensate him for their fault. The camera pans out and Alex just smirks at the camera, so will he learn from this experience and learn new ways to cope with violence or was it all a waste and goes back to his
"John (Anthony) Burgess Wilson." DISCovering Authors. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 11 Mar. 2012.
Alex goes in for treatment to cure his ultra-violence. The treatment is a conditioning method where he is to watch terribly movies with his eyes held open. After many, many views Alex gets sick at the slightest hint of any voilence or sex.
Amidst a population composed of perfectly conditioned automatons, is a picture of a society that is slowly rotting from within. Alex, the Faustian protagonist of A Clockwork Orange, and a sadistic and depraved gang leader, preys on the weak and the innocent. Although perhaps misguided, his conscientiousness of his evil nature indicates his capacity to understand morality and deny its practice. When society attempts to force goodness upon Alex, he becomes the victim. Through his innovative style, manifested by both the use of original language and satirical structure, British author Anthony Burgess presents in his novella A Clockwork Orange, the moral triumph of free will within the controlling hands of a totalitarian society.
Stanley Kubrick’s controversial film, A Clockwork Orange, profoundly deplored the idea of establishment of government. The film denounced government authority in relation to an individual’s free will and human nature. Psychologically or socially based, it is in question whether a system of government interrupts an individual’s free will or not. Alex Burgess, the protagonist of this film is a corrupted and violent individual who acts against his community in opposition to government control.
Free-will is a major part in the actions of this book. “The free will compels him to murder and rape, but also foster his esteem.” (LifeCharts). The opportunity to do as Alex wishes is what makes him to the crimes. It fuels him and in a way allows him to find himself. Alex is all about choices and he chooses to do the crime but also chooses to turn his life around. “Alex realizes that he benefits from living a normal life staying under the radar and it out-weighs the consequences of being a
As teenagers deviate from the constraining grasp of their parents, they begin to establish their own identity through decisions; however, their development of self-identification is frequently hindered by manipulation of societal institutions such as: justice system, religion, and media. Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, establishes the idea of freewill and how it is suppressed when Alex, the main protagonist, undergoes the manipulative Ludovico's technique, religious lectures, and social norms influenced by media- used to instill pain when Alex's desires violence/music and finding salvation, which is similar to the treatment of criminals in our society; ultimately utilized to mitigate crime, but also suppresses freewill through repercussions, fear, police officials, indelible ads, and the law. Therefore, American citizens are not privileged with the power of choice because the hindering paradox that exists in society: possessing the ability to consciously establish identity is entwined with manipulation, subliminally.
A Psychological Analysis of Alex in A Clockwork Orange & nbsp; In A Clockwork Orange, Alex is portrayed as two different people living within the same body of mind. As a mischievous child raping the world, he was as seen as filth. His actions and blatant disrespect towards society are categorized under that of the common street bum. However, when he is away from his evening attire. he is that of suave.
In this novel Alex shows his freedom of choice between good and evil, which is that, his superiority over the innocent and the weak. In the beginning of the novel he chooses to be evil, he shows us that by committing violence act like stealing, raping, and also murdering an innocent person which he got arrested for and put into prison for about 12 years. The amount violence he commits shows his abuse of power and his decisions toward evil. The violent acts that are described in this novel are very graphical and are intended to shock the reader but they also show that the suppression of others is wrong, because it is destructive to the natural rights of humans. Alex consistently chooses evil and violence to show his freedom of choice, ?Now I was ready for a bit of twenty-to-one . . . then I cracked this veck" pg 7. Alex beats, rapes, and robs the weak and ...