The grace of evil in A Clockwork Orange is a recurring paradox throughout the novel and also implies a deep religious connotation. The main foci are the several aspects of evil, violence, and sexual acts committed by Alex and his gang members. However, Anthony Burgess has cleverly incorporated similar paradoxes to that of grace and evil, along with a different dialect to aid in masking the true harshness that lies underneath the violence. The other paradoxes include the extremes of night and day, good and bad, and black and white.
The depiction of evil as being graceful is relevant to the actual title, but also reflects the actions, dialect, and events in the main character Alex's life. Appearance can be deceiving because Alex seems quite graceful, intelligent and well spoken. However, evil thoughts lurk within, which drive him, as a leader of his gang, to commit murders and rapes. As he and his fellow "droogs" speak in a sophisticated Shakespearean-type of language, they describe their evil acts with elegance. As violent and aggressive Alex is perceived to be, he enjoys listening to classical music, especially Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. However, while engulfed in eloquent, graceful, and peaceful music, his mind ponders evil, violent, and sexual fantasies. By the end of the novel, Alex is no longer able to listen to the Ninth Symphony due to the conditioning that was performed on him. He no longer has the freedom to choose and act of his own will. This theme also relates to the grace of evil because even though conditioning someone to be a moral person may seem like a good deed, it is in reality immoral. It is in essence taking away a person's freedom of choice. Religiously, Grace is a gift from God. Even those th...
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...g seems freedom of choice is more important. God's Grace prevails over evil and is accepting and forgiving of Alex's sinful actions. Without freedom of choice, one becomes a "clockwork orange," an unnatural and inhuman being.
Works Cited
Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1986.
Coale, Samuel, Anthony Burgess. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1981.
Connelly, Wayne. Critical Essays on Anthony Burgess. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1980.
Edelheit, Geoffrey, Ed. Critical Essays on Anthony Burgess. Boston: G.K. Hall and Co. 1986.
Rabinovitz, Rubin: Ethical Values in Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, in: Studies in the Novel, 11 (1979)
Stinson, John J. Anthony Burgess Revisited. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991.
Stinson, John J. Anthony Burgess: Novelist on the Margin. Riley 4: 82-83.
over evil and needed no treatment to help him do so. It is realized that in being unable to choose, one is not at liberty, and free will is taken away. Also if one has no say whether good or evil is chosen, it is of no importance because such a decision could be made by a machine. Alex was able to make two evolutions. He evolved from a machine into a human, and the evolved from a human choosing evil, to a human choosing good.
to read. A Clockwork Orange is an interesting book, to say the least, about a young teenager, named Alex, who has lost his way, so to speak, and commits several serious crimes. These crimes that Alex and his “droogs” commit include: murdering, raping, beat downs, robbery, etc.
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
The two works suggest that freedom of choice needs to be taken away for the greater good of society. In A Clockwork Orange, social safety and security are the driving forces behind removing freedom from the people, especially Alex, the main character. The start of the movie depicts the struggle of a violent youth that exercises free will in an oppressive but safe and stable society. Alex and his gang, termed droogs, symbolize free will as they attempt to liberate themselves from all government limitations. They indulge in vices shunned by the society such as rape and murder, and bring out the dark side of free will by expressing themselves against a society that encourages safety. Alex’s violent nature makes him a threat and in an attempt to impose order, the government forces Alex to be “transformed out of all recognition” (A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick). T...
Alex is a very disrespectful and violent teenager. He shows several signs of teenage rebellion that several similarities to the society we live in today. He takes drugs, drinks alcohol, and fornicates with woman against their will. He has no respect for the law and is all around a rebellious kid. He and his “droogs” or group of friends goes around terrorizing the elderly and robbing stores. He then receives a treatment to rid him of his violent acts but this ends up messing with the rest of his life. Alex gets sick every time a violent idea pops into his head along with the beautiful music of Beethoven. He is lucky because the government then removes this sickness from him but unfortunately he goes back to his old mischievous way until he finally realizes he’s grown up.
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
Simions, Minodora O. "FREEDOM OF CHOICE AND MORAL CONSEQUENCES IN ANTHONY BURGESS’ A CLOCKWORK ORANGE." (2013): 65-68. Web. 21 May 2013.
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 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
"John (Anthony) Burgess Wilson." DISCovering Authors. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 11 Mar. 2012.
Evil is something of which imagery is constantly found throughout the novel. The first being the whale: whose color is white. Once again, this is a concealed theme. At first thought the persecuted white whale would make people think that it is an image of innocenc...
It becomes obvious throughout the course of A Clockwork Orange that Alex is a psychopath. Alex is a charming and likeable individual yet lacks all regard for other human beings, he displays acts of hyper-violence without remorse, and furthermore with the gain of his cure, loses his humanity and ability to interact with the world, only living truly as a psychopath. Psychopaths have an amazing control of how they are portrayed to other people. Most come off as charming, witty, and confident, successfully attracting the praise of their peers like bugs to a zapper. Such is the case with anti-hero Alex in A Clockwork Orange, who uses his charming persona as a ruse to gain power.
Throughout time, people were introduced to the ethics of human nature and how a variety of people have depicted its philosophy. From the previous studies of literature, philosophy, and history, human nature has been a controversial topic on whether we were born wicked or flawless beings. Although there can be a variety of ways on how human nature can be identified, human nature is inherently good that is consequently strained to becoming inherently evil due to society. From the numerous amounts of literature, authors have created a variety of themes that helped warned the audience into shaping their moral ways. In the books of a Tale of Two Cities and The Lord of the Flies, Charles Dickens and William Goulding both show that a man is inherently good and turns evil through the symbolism of the Guillotine and a character name Jack.
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
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 ...