A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
**Overview of "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess**
"A Clockwork Orange," a novel by Anthony Burgess, presents a dystopian narrative centered on Alex, a young leader of a gang engaged in extreme violence and criminal behavior. Set in a bleak future, the story explores themes of free will, morality, and the impact of state control over individual actions. Alex and his friends, known as "droogs," revel in acts of robbery, assault, and sexual violence, showcasing a subculture defined by their own brutal dialect and hedonistic impulses. Following a series of heinous acts, including murder, Alex is apprehended and subjected to an experimental rehabilitation technique known as the Ludovico Technique, which conditions him against violent thoughts and actions through aversive therapy.
As Alex reintegrates into society post-treatment, he faces rejection from his family and the community, highlighting the complexities of redemption and the consequences of state intervention in personal conduct. The narrative follows his troubling journey as he encounters his past victims and confronts the repercussions of his earlier life, ultimately leading to a crisis of identity and purpose. Burgess's work raises significant questions about the nature of evil, the importance of choice, and the ethical implications of using psychological manipulation as a means of social control.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
First published: 1962
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Dystopian
Time of plot: Indeterminate
Locale: England
Principal Characters
Alex , a violent young manGeorgie , a member of Alex’s gangPete , another member of Alex’s gangDim , the fourth gang member, later a policemanPa , Alex’s fatherMum , Alex’s motherF. Alexander , a writer
The Story
Alex, a young, English “ultra-violent” gang leader, leads his three “droogs” (or companions) in campaigns of robbery, mayhem, rape, and torture. Alex celebrates gratuitous cruelty and carnality, allowing nothing to get in the way of his impulses. After leaving the Korova Milkbar (the milk is spiked with various drugs) and ducking in and out of a pub, his gang beats up a “doddery starry schoolmaster type veck” (the gang members speak a dialect particular to their violent subculture) and destroys his books, assaults a man and woman while robbing their shop, and brutally thrashes a singing drunk. Spying a rival gang about to rape a girl, Alex, Georgie, Pete, and Dim, although outnumbered, go on the attack until the police break it up.
Their night is not yet over. In a stolen car they take a joyride into the country, wildly running over things. Stopping in a village, they attack a cottage occupied by a writer and his wife, whose educated accents drive them to even greater viciousness. They rape the wife and leave the husband permanently paralyzed. After returning to the Korova Milkbar, Alex bullies and insults Dim, who protests, with the support of Georgie and Pete. Alex’s authority over the gang is faltering. At this point they quit for the night. For Alex, such an active evening requires music to make it complete. At Municipal Flatblock 18-A, where he lives with his parents, he enjoys terrible fantasies of violence as he listens to Mozart and Bach.
The next morning, his counselor sternly warns him that the police suspect him. Alex is undeterred. He lures two girls he meets at a record store back to his flat for an orgy of sex and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. As he leaves the flatblock that evening, his gang intercepts him. Georgie asserts himself as the new leader, but Alex, in a quick display of ruthlessness, makes them back down. Alex nevertheless goes along with the robbery they planned. They force their way into the flat of a woman who calls the police and aggressively defends herself. Alex unintentionally kills her in the struggle. On the way out, his companions betray him. Dim hits him with a chain, blinding him, and the police quickly arrest him. In two nights and a day, Alex participated in three gratuitous assaults on strangers, a rape, a murder, a gang fight, and statutory rape, all committed in a spirit of joyful anarchy.
Alex feels threatened in the overcrowded, hostile prison. Determined to win his early release by being a model prisoner, he attaches himself to the prison chaplain. His hopes turn to the Ludovico Technique, a conditioning procedure that reforms criminals by blocking their antisocial impulses. A prisoner is killed in Alex’s cell, so he is put into the therapy program. Unwittingly, he becomes a pawn in a struggle between administrators eager to prove their new anticrime policies and the political opposition to those policies.
Alex undergoes the Ludovico Technique. After receiving an injection, he is forced to view films of street violence and rape. The drug and the images create in him a powerful aversion against even thoughts of violence. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, his particular favorite, happens to be on a sound track, and he is conditioned against that as well. At the end of two weeks, he is displayed before the minister of the interior and other officials. Deliberately humiliated, he proves unable to defend himself.
Having been “cured” of his criminal nature, Alex is released. Though his therapy takes only two weeks, two years have elapsed since he entered prison. Meekly returning home to his Pa and Mum, he discovers that he is no longer welcome. The new boarder, Joe, declares that he is “more like a son to them than a lodger.” Thoroughly rejected, he leaves the home of his parents. The old haunts, however, are no longer the same, and he begins to wish that he were dead or back in prison. In a highly improbable set of coincidences that suggest that the story is more fabulous than realistic, he runs into several of his victims. In the library he is recognized by the man he assaulted in the street and whose books he destroyed. The two policemen who come to his rescue are his old friend Dim and Billyboy, the former leader of a rival gang, who take him into the country and beat him. Alex, now victimized as he once victimized others, stumbles upon the cottage where he raped the woman and crippled the husband. The man recognizes Alex, from a picture in the paper, as the young man involved in the Ludovico Technique, which he opposes philosophically and politically. The man seizes upon Alex’s deplorable condition to embarrass the government. He also realizes that Alex (who wore a mask during the attack) is the same person who crippled him and brutalized his wife.
As an appropriate punishment, Alex is locked in his room and subjected to an emotionally powerful symphony. Unable to stand it, he jumps from the window, intending suicide. Although Alex recovers, the conspiracy to make him a martyr succeeds. Alex is publicly celebrated as a victim of the reformers’ inhumane policies. He is reconciled to his Mum and Pa, and his conditioning is reversed so that he can return to his old life.
Alex, however, is growing older and no longer feels the thrills of the ultra-violent. One evening he runs into his old friend Pete, who is now married, working respectably, and speaking standard English. Pete’s wife laughs at Alex’s language. Alex appears old to himself, out of it. Now eighteen, he envisions himself with a wife and son.
Bibliography
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