Anthony Burgess via Alex DeLarge Psychoanalysis is based on the idea that literature is an extension of the conscious and subconscious mind. In a novel, the emotions of an author are manifested as a story of a protagonist and his world. The protagonist is created as the author’s persona, and the setting of the story parallels events from the author’s past. In Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, the protagonist Alex DeLarge is a direct projection of Burgess’s psyche. Analysis of Burgess’s childhood confirms the psychoanalytic theory that Alex and his fictional experiences within A Clockwork Orange are the result of thoughts, fears, and desires that were suppressed by Burgess’s conscious mind throughout his life. Just as Burgess did, Alex struggles with developing and maintaining healthy relations, the choice between what is “right” and what is “wrong”, and the challenge of growing up. The most influential part of a human’s life is their relationship with their parents. All independent adult actions are based on the initial interactions between parent and child. Burgess’s mother died shortly after his birth. Blamed for taking his mother’s life by his father, Burgess was sent to live with his aunt. The relationship between child and parent was absent throughout Burgess’s entire childhood, and it is because of this that Alex DeLarge has his own “mommy and daddy issues”. The first similarity between Alex and Burgess is discussed quite briefly when Alex comes home after a fun night with his droogs, or friends. After coming home late and going into his room to play loud music, Alex is full of pride and joyfully explains that “[p]ee and em (pa and ma, dad and mom) in their bedroom next door had learnt now not to knock o... ... middle of paper ... ...in Stanley Kubrick’s Films. July 4, 2010. Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. W.W. Norton & Company Inc. New York: 1962. Burgess, Anthony. “Introduction.” A Clockwork Orange. W.W. Norton & Company Inc. New York: 1962. Clune, Anne. "Anthony Burgess." DISCovering Authors. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 11 Mar. 2012. Daniels, Don. “A Clockwork Orange.” Sight and Sound, 1973. “Introduction.” Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. W.W. Norton & Company Inc. New York: 1986. "John (Anthony) Burgess Wilson." DISCovering Authors. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 11 Mar. 2012. "Overview of John (Anthony) Burgess Wilson." DISCovering Authors. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 11 Mar. 2012. SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on A Clockwork Orange.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2005. Web. 19 Apr. 2012.
There have been many books published solely on philosophy, and many more than that solely written about human nature, but very infrequently will a book be published that weaves these fields together as well as A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess. In this Book Burgess speculated on the fact “the significance of maturing by choice is to gain moral values and freedoms.” He achieved this task by pushing his angsty teenaged character, Alex, through situations that challenge the moral values of himself and his friends. In the novel, A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess, Alex himself, must choose good over evil in order to gain moral values which will allow him to mature into a “man” in the latter of his two transformations.
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In many novels we have read one of the major dystopian qualities we have been presented with is conditioning. The idea of conditioning, based off of a psychology definition, is that you can make a response to a situation more predictable by reinforcement of that response. In A Clockwork Orange Alex is conditioned to have his response to violence be sickness. In A Brave New World people in the society are conditioned with responses for every situation. In 1984 people are conditioned to turn each other in through thoughtcrime. Conditioning gives a government a stronger grip on the actions of its subjects because through conditioning you can remove any trait the government finds dangerous.
In Anthony Burgess’s “A Clockwork Orange,” the main character Alex is that of an abnormality. The society Alex lives in is a violent one based on what Anthony Burgess faced under a communist government in Russia and the ruthless groups of young delinquents that roamed around Russia and Britain. Through the use of violence in the novel and a rather unusual main character who is an evil protagonist, the novel shows the necessity of evil in human nature, and freedom.