A Clockwork Orange Rhetorical Analysis

Nicole Fridrich Loving the Unlovable CW380U
Paper #3: A Clockwork Orange
Creative Section Prompt: Write a scene where an “unlovable” character is involved in a surprising or unexpected hobby or appreciation for something. The glass doors gently moved aside at Heath’s presence with a calm whirring hum. With it being a horrendously bright day outside, Heath found the muscles around his eyes relaxing with a sigh when he finally didn’t have to shield his vision from the sun any longer. Fluorescent lights were miles better than sunlight, naturally – fluorescent lights did not burn flesh, they did not bring stinging pain to the eyes, and they did not pound heat relentlessly into the ground in the same unforgiving way that the sun did.
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In the first introduction of music, Alex describes how his parents have learned to “not knock on the wall with complaints… I had taught them. Now they would take sleep-pills” (33) when he plays music loudly, showing the control Alex has manifested over his own parents with music. Alex also plays the Ninth by Ludwin van while raping two girls, as they were forced to “submit to the strange and weird desires of Alexander the Large with, what with the Ninth, were… very demanding” (46). By inevitably connecting classical music to violence, Burgess shows that there is little distinction in importance between the two for Alex, and the two become physically linked after the government’s brainwashing. This suggests that you cannot take Alex’s flaws without simultaneously taking those same elements that make him human. The focus on classical music as a pivot of Alex’s humanity accentuates the sympathy felt for Alex as he is being brainwashed, as the previous poetic love for classical music is replaced with “pain and sickness” as Alex had “forgotten what he shouldn’t have forgotten” (139). Without attempting to condone Alex’s actions, Burgess stresses the notion that humanity is not meant to be erased or forcibly removed, even if it means having to come to terms with the flaws that every person