A Clockwork Orange - Calculated Captivity

Calculated Captivation

"Goodness comes from within, 6655321. Goodness is something to be chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man."

In Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, a sadistic adolescent of the not-so-distant future is ‘rehabilitated’ of his violent nature by a special conditioning treatment. This fifteen year-old hoodlum Alex McDowell is ‘cured’ of his savage activities but when released back into a still violent society, he is a misfit. Anthony Burgess’ skillful art of manipulation is able to change the reader’s opinion from hating Alex for his malicious ways, to feeling captivated by him, as he becomes a ‘victim of a modern age’. To understand how this deception is accomplished it is important to examine the major turning points in Alex’s life, and how Burgess presents them. To begin, Burgess displays Alex’s villainous disposition, which causes the reader to hate and resent him. Through the aid of the State’s treatment Alex is reformed, at which point Burgess allows the reader to determine and develop an opinion of whether this treatment is morally acceptable or not. In the end however it is obvious that Alex has become a true "Clockwork Orange’ and despite the previous opinion of the reader, Burgess reveals the outcome in a way that causes a sense of relief and is pleased to see Alex back to ‘normal’.

	It is fascinating to consider that Burgess may have written A Clockwork Orange as a prophetic view of warning to future societies. He was a peaceful person who didn’t want the stark consequences of the fictional Alex to become a grim reality. Through the first of three parts in the novel Burgess displays Alex as the embodiment of all that society would like to ignore or eliminate - but can’t. This first person narrative is told by Alex a youth of fifteen, who spends his nights with his "droogs", terrorizing the public with their bits of "ultra violence" and engaging in the old "in-out in-out". He beats the elderly, fights other gangs with his "britva", robs stores, breaks into houses, rapes young girls, drinks milk laced with drugs (moloko) and is eventually convicted of murder. Burgess portrays the immature Alex, as a mixture of good and evil possibilities with evil taking the upper hand. As the reader is taken deeper into Alex’s morbidly exciting world, he/she begins to feel complete hatred towards Alex. Not only does Burgess permit Alex to commit such heinous crimes, he describes them in a very disturbing manner.