A Clockwork Orange Rapism

Anthony Burgess’ novel presents commentaries upon the design of society as a whole, questions of societal placement being indicative of moral righteousness, what it means to be a man, and the deeper, more primal urges of every individual. The Clockwork Orange’s gratuitous use of violence together with the intense reputation of Kubrick’s work raises questions of the purpose of this violence. The question is how is violence demonstrated as art within Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange?

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

Antisocial Personality Disorder ( ASPD) is a mental illness with various causal factors such as genetic predispositions, environment, parental neglect, gender, brain abnormalities, etc. The factors presented affect the character Alex DeLarge from Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1963). Despite Alex not being diagnosed, it is evident that he suffers from ASPD, it is clearly expressed through his behaviors and mentality. Eventually, Alex is incarcerated preceding a murder he committed, in order to be released early he enlists himself to a treatment so that he could be cured. The events that follow include his participation in the Ludovico Technique, an experimental form of aversion therapy which leaves him unable to fulfill the needs of his mental illness.

In modern society there is much value placed on the concept of individual freedom. However, too much freedom can provide an individual with the power to interfere with the happiness of others, thus a balance between freedom and state regulated order is required. The concept of an individual struggling against an order focused society is a common topic in texts. In Aldous Huxley’s 1933 novel Brave New World, this concept is explored by John, an outsider in a dystopian world society that places high value on stability rather than individualism. In Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film A Clockwork Orange, which is based Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel of the same name, a similar dystopian society is explored by the aggressively individualistic Alex.

Alex is a surprisingly charismatic teenager whose love for violence gets him into a handful of rough situations. He is able to commit many acts of terrible beatings and even murders with a clear conscience. Alex shows many sociopathic qualities, them being his ability to lie so very well along with his mind being incapable of remorse. While Alex goes through many life-altering experiences, his maturity is unaffected. Alex conveys many child-like qualities throughout the whole novel, such as using slang that resembles the talk of a child. Burgess also shows many of Alex’s immature qualities through symbolism and hidden meanings. Finally, Alex reveals himself to have become changed man, when he really has not changed at all. Anthony Burgess,

Character in both novels use unsuccessful escape methods to cope with their loss of identity. Alex, the protagonist in A Clockwork Orange, turns to classical music such as Beethoven when his gang members question his hierarchy within the group. Alex describes his bedroom where he goes after an argument with his gang members : "the little speakers of my stereo were all arranged round the room, on ceiling, walls, floor, so, lying on my bed slooshying the music, I was like netted and meshed in the orchestra." (Burgess. 37). We see Alex return to his bedroom many times after confrontations where his identity is disputed. Eventually, Alex is conditioned to feel sick whenever he hears classical music so Alex loses this escape method as he can no longer listen to classical music. Also, Alex relies heavily on the use of drugs when he is unable to deal with his loss of identity, " officially sanctioned "milk bars" that serve a variety of drug tonics to send one off on incoherent fantasies" (Gottlieb). These "milk bars" are locations where young

In Depth Character Analysis on Alex Besides the protagonist in A Clockwork Orange, who is Alex? Many times we only look at main characters with an outsiders perspective. The characteristics of a character are important, but the main characters are often made to be so much more in the inside by the author. Most simply, from an outward perspective, who is Alex? What shaped Alex to be violent?

Compiled upon the movie-galvanized image of the novel, the handiwork of ignorant critics cements Orange's reputation as a phantasmagoria of sex and violence. An anonymous reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement once labeled the tome "a nasty little shocker" (qtd. in Burgess, "A Clockwork Orange: A play with music"), and the pithy epithet now graces the cover of the novel's most recent American printing. Yet, through it all, the author maintains that he took no pleasure in documenting Alex's brutality and even invented Nadsat in an effort to make the violence symbolic (Burgess, Contemporary Literary Criticism 38). He never seeks to justify Alex's actions and believes that his crimes "must be checked and punished" in a "properly run society" (Burgess, Contemporary Literary Criticism 38). In addition, Burgess bases the most horrific scene in the novel -- the rape of the writer's wife -- on personal experience. During a

“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.

A Clockwork Orange demonstrates the philosophically issues of free will and determinism through how the main character was treated in the movie. It also addresses important issues such as ethics, philosophy of the mind, free will and determinism, and the problem of perception. Philosophers such as John Hospers, B.F. Skinner, and Jean-Paul Sartre have different views on the issue through their theories of how individuals are or are not responsible for the free will choices that they make in life. The main character in the movie was a very violent , and reckless person. He participated in sinful acts such as being a gang member, raping women, being involved in fights, etc. These actions resulted in him being sent to prison and eventually being brainwashed into doing things out of his character. The three philosophers have very different interpretations of how the main character should have been dealt with and the reasonings behind his actions.

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

     A Clockwork Orange had a loose theme of the necessity of not only good, but also evil in human nature. Alex may have been selfish and deviant but his character and the characters like him did seem to have a strong grasp on the concept that life was for living. Without the ability of choice to commit evil acts which was an impulse inside of him, his ability to act human was affected. The freedom of making these choices seems to be what makes us human. Hence without this freedom he is driven to attempt suicide.

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

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.

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