Violence as an Expression of Free Will in A Clockwork Orange
This essay will deal with the subject of free choice, which is the main topic of the novel, A Clockwork Orange . This significant problem is already indicated in the very first line of the text when an unknown voice asks Alex - and certainly by that the reader - "What' s it going to be then, eh'?" (13). Being repeated at the beginning of the second part and at the beginning of the very last chapter of the third part this question sets up the thematic frame of the book. It asks the protagonist what he is going to chose, good or evil. Likewise it addresses to the reader to consider his own choice, too (14).
Anthony Burgess is intensely committed to this problem in "A Clockwork Orange". In his own words the book "was intended to be a sort of tract, even a sermon on the importance of the power of choice." (15)
So he wrote the story of Alex, an anti-hero being robbed of his capacity for free choice and condemned to be mild, if he wants it or not. But from now on his moral beliefs are not really altered. Alex has not recognized his failures, he is only unable to commit any crime although he would like to. Furthermore he is an ambiguous character.
On the one hand Alex is a sadistic criminal, guilty of murder and rape and fascinated by acts of senseless destruction. At the same time he is a quite intelligent and smart boy, deeply interested in music and language. His adoration for classical music and his elaborate use of the "Nadsat" dialect render him likeable to the reader.
It lies in the intention of Burgess to make him sympathetic, for we have to feel pity when Alex is abused in the last two parts of the novel. Thus the author fo...
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..., (1965), S. 171-177
10. Hahn, Ronald M. und Volker Jansen. Uhrwerk Orange, in: Hahn, Ronald M. und Volker Jansen. Kultfilme: Von "Metropolis" bis "Rocky Horror Picture Show". 4. Auflage. München: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, 1990, (1985), S. 293-303
11. Kagan, Norrnan. A Clockwork Orange, in: Kagan, Norman. The Cinema of Stanley Kubrick. New Expanded Edition. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1989, ( 1972), S.167-187
12. Melchior, Claus. Zeittafel zu Leben und Werk von Anthony Burgess, in: Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. 1. Auflage. Stuttgart: Phillip Reclam jun., 1992, S. 247-249
13. Melchior ,Claus. Nachwort, in: Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. 1. Auflage. Stuttgart: Phillip Reclam jun., 1992, S. 251-260
14. Rabinovitz, Rubin: Ethical Values in Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, in: Studies in the Novel, 11 (1979) S. 43-50
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
Film Noir, as Paul Schrader integrates in his essay ‘Notes on Film Noir,’ reflects a marked phase in the history of films denoting a peculiar style observed during that period. More specifically, Film Noir is defined by intricate qualities like tone and mood, rather than generic compositions, settings and presentation. Just as ‘genre’ categorizes films on the basis of common occurrences of iconographic elements in a certain way, ‘style’ acts as the paradox that exemplifies the generality and singularity at the same time, in Film Noir, through the notion of morality. In other words, Film Noir is a genre that exquisitely entwines theme and style, and henceforth sheds light on individual difference in perception of a common phenomenon. Pertaining
A Clockwork Orange is Kubrick’s one of the best works. This film is about the futuristic government state where citizens are estranged and blinded by the ferocious youth culture. Film is exceedingly thought infuriating as well as unsettling. This film is not just not about sex and violence, but it has a deep and psychological notion behind it.
Anthony Burgess’ novel, A Clockwork Orange has been called shocking, controversial, and horrifying. A Clockwork Orange is controversial, but to focus merely on the physical aspects of the work is time wasted. Burgess is concerned with the issue of ethics. He believes that goodness comes directly from choice; it is better to choose the bad than to be forced into doing the good. For taking away a person’s free will is simply turning them into a piece of “clockwork”; a piece of machine containing all the sweet juices of life, but incapable of being human.
The freedom of choice and the rehabilitating form of corrections encase the realm of A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess. It produces the question about man's free will and the ability to choose one's destiny, good or evil. "If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange-meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or State".
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 rape and brutalize. The treatment is in fact a simple conditioning process—Alex’s eyes are propped open and his body restrained so that he must watch a series of graphic images while experiencing an injection induced illness. The illness becomes his conditioned response to brutality, rape, and, accidentally, his much beloved Beethoven’s 9th symphony....
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
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
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
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on A Clockwork Orange.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 19 Apr. 2012.
When students arrive at university, professors expect them to understand the material to an exceptional standard. The problem is that grade inflation is occurring more regularly in secondary schools and universities across the country and when these students’ marks are sent to universities or colleges, the student may be given multiple scholarships for something that he/she should not have earned. Grade inflation is conceived between both students and teachers, meaning that the students are given higher grades when they have inadequate learning, reading, and verbal skills, while the teachers do not have to grade as many papers as they should in the real curriculum. There have been multiple examinations that have confirmed that grade inflation is very real and still occurs today. Students seem to think that they do not need to put forth much effort in school to do well and grade inflation encourages this thought.
Kracauer, Siegfried. “Basic Concepts,” from Theory of Film. In Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, Seventh Edition, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, 147–58. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
To begin, Alex is one out of the four characters that reveals self-awareness broadly. Alex begins by stating, “What’s it going to be then, eh” (Burgess 1). The use of this quote explains to the reader that Alex is not only self-aware of himself, but he is careless, and he is an outlaw. Another quote that Alex states throughout the novel is, “O my brothers” (Burgess 5). “O my brothers” reve...
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 ...