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Free Will In A Clockwork Orange Money, violence, drugs, and sex are common themes globally prevalent in literature. Books such as Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, A Game of Thrones by George R.R Martin, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess all are comprised of ruthless acts, whether it be by aggravated assault by little boys or glorifying sexual violence. These works are all especially famous among younger audiences, raising flags as to whether or not these visual acts of violence affect their minds. The fact of the matter is, there is more to subjection to pure evil than merely the exposure: it all has to do with free will. In any case, literature makes us question the existence of free will and morality in general. A Clockwork Orange provides an in-depth look to the life of a sociopathic juvenile delinquent, Alex DeLarge.
A Clockwork Orange, set in a dystopian version of London crowded with youth violence, tells the engrossing story of Alex DeLarge. Robbery, assault, rape, and murder are Alex’s main intentions of his interactions with society. He uses manipulation and sees himself as a necessary authority figure for the “Droogies” that he acquires. Whatever background Alex has been brought up from, leaves him with no apparent conscience or ability to control
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The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silver flamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed. Then flute and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers (Burgess 102 not
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.
After hearing a brief description of the story you might think that there aren’t many good things about they story. However, this is false, there are many good things in this book that makes it a good read. First being that it is a very intriguing book. This is good for teenage readers because often times they don’t willingly want to read, and this story will force the teenage or any reader to continue the book and continue reading the series. Secondly, this is a “good” book because it has a good balance of violence. This is a good thing because it provides readers with an exciting read. We hear and even see violence in our everyday life and I believe that it is something teenagers should be exposed to. This book gives children an insig...
“Drug dealers go big, use Boeing for coke run”, “11 killed in Pakistan by suicide bomber”, “Parents largely unaware teen binge drinking is growing deadlier” (Edmonton Journal, November 18, 2009). It is truly staggering to see the number of articles concerning crime, felony and death in a newspaper, everyday. It is not hard to find articles about laws being broken, about lawbreakers going free and about people being killed. The concept of newspapers full of stories showing humanity’s evil suggests that there is something wrong with today’s world, but newspapers have always been full of such articles and events. It is clear that humanity’s evil inspired William Golding’s Lord of the Flies: a commentary on the innate evil in all man. In Golding’s novel, a group of young boys survive a plane crash and become marooned on an empty island. Their attempt at civilization quickly fails, and leads to disorder, death and savagery.
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.
Circumstance and time can alter or determine the different paths a group of young boys will take. These paths can have the power to strip children of their own innocence. Such a statement can be explored in William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies” as it ventures into the pros and cons of human nature. William Golding’s tale begins with a group of English school boys who crash land on a deserted tropical island during World War II. In Lord of the Flies, the island that the boys crash on is beautiful, glamorous, and magnificent; yet, it proves to become a dystopia by the horror of the cruelty, violence, and inhumanity.
Humans are inherently evil in nature and without law will unknowingly let this vile aspect of their own person be revealed. The depravity of actions in humans is expressed in William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, by a group of English boys that are stranded on an island, and disconnected from society. The fear from violation of laws that holds people to their morals and rationality in their society vanishes, and a growth of savagery is present in all the boys. Savagery, an element innate to humanity, can only be repressed by the laws of society; the lack of regulation removes all inhibition, and therefore, exposes the beast representing evil from within.
Anthony Burgess integrates many social issues today between the Government and People into Clockwork Orange. Many of the issues that Alex faces along with the government are relatable in today’s society. Within the story Anthony Burgess teaches us how people act and how the government works in a more brutal way, The Clockwork Orange expresses this through free-will, maturity and karma, and treatment of people.
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.
Burgess raises the oppositions of free will and predestination in various of his novel, A Clockwork Orange. The author describes his own faith as alternating between residues of Pelagianism and Augustinianism. Pelagianism denies that God has predestined, or pre-ordained, or planned, our lives. A consequence of this is that salvation is effectively within human power (as God hasn't set it down for each of us, it's within our control), which eventually leads to a denial of original sin. Refutation of this eventually came from Augustine, who (a) fiercely upheld the doctrine of original sin, and (b) defended the orthodox doctrine of predestination from the implicit paradox with free choice of salvation (ie., while God has created us, and effectively writes the whole story of each of our lives, the ultimate choice between accepting or rejecting his salvation is ours) with a claim that yes, our nature is laid down when he creates us, but he effectively looks the other way (a "left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing" scenario) when it comes to that ultimate decision, so that the decision of salvation (though not the absolute power over it that Pelagius described) is ours. Or, at least, that's how Burgess saw it.
There are many great films and books that we will remember dearly, however there, are very few of them will that challenges our ideology of our society. Such film is that of A Clockwork Orange, directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1971and the author who wrote the book is Anthony Burgess. Both film version and book, are remembered for being outstanding and leaving a mark on the audience in every page and scene. Memorable things consist of the futuristic look of the future, the challenge of ideology, symbolism, and what is right and wrong. It’s important to read the book and watch the film, to have a better understanding in the difference and similarity they both have, and as well as to see their perspective of the tone of free will.
In the stories of “Oedipus the King” by Sophocles and “Hamlet” by William Shakesphere, presents two stories of tragedy about fate and free will. A tragedy in which Oedipus kills his parents by fate and a tragedy of Hamlet seeking justice for his father's death. Both stories have similarities and differences of tragedy. Tragedy is “a dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically involving a great person destined to experience downfall or utter destruction, as through a character flaw or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or an unyielding society. ”(dictionary.com)
Mankind has a power to choice of his own. God has gifted mankind to control the earth. Free will is a term which means the capability to make choice how to act freely which is not controlled by fate or god. However, free will does not mean to abuse someone for own satisfaction. The main character of “Clockwork Orange” Alex de large was symbol of free will in a society that is so dominated by violation. At one point or another a person has experienced the appeal of violence. Violence has its ways to make people want more, similar to Alex, who robs, rapes, and beating up poor people and that was part of his amusement. An unguided and uncontrolled teenager who also was a violated gang leader, wanted to rule the street and the area where he
“Innocence is the weakest defense. Innocence has a single voice that can only say over and over again, “I didn’t do it.” Guilt has a thousand voices, all of them lie.”(Leonard F. Peltier). We all have innocence and bad in us. For most, the guilt of doing bad keeps us from it, but for some, the evil in us takes control. William Golding displays how guilt and innocence are lost when laws are not enforced, and there are no longer consequences. In the tragic novel, Lord of the Flies, Golding displays the length human’s will go to when savagery takes over.
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 ...
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