Human beings love to be entertained. We love being interested in the things we like, and intrigued by the things we’re not supposed to like. Whether it be someone else’s pain or another person’s joy, all of us hold the capability of finding entertainment within anything. Thus, contrasting the capability of boredom. However, the point of all this is to express the duality. The duality between good and evil; joy and pain; entertainment and boredom. It’s an inevitable fact that we humans have the freedom of choice, but without detailed studies and thorough research, those effects are a mystery. In the film A Clockwork Orange, directed by Stanley Kubrick, the main protagonist had an evil mind and committed evil acts. After being imprisoned, he submitted to a behavior modification experiment in order to shorten his sentence. The experiment was based on the Pavlovian study of conditioning. The researchers had Alex, the main protagonist, constantly …show more content…
Longitudinal, cross-sectional, and experimental studies have all confirmed this correlation. Televised violence and the presence of television in American households have increased steadily over the years. In 1950, only 10% of American homes had a television. Today 99% of homes have televisions. In fact, more families have televisions than telephones. Over half of all children have a television set in their bedrooms. This gives a greater opportunity for children to view programs without parental supervision. Studies reveal that children watch approximately 28 hours of television a week, more time than they spend in school. The typical American child will view more than 200,000 acts of violence, including more than 16,000 murders before age 18. Television programs display 812 violent acts per hour; children's programming, particularly cartoons, displays up to 20 violent acts
Although not apparent in mainstream society, marginalization plays a greater role in the world than one may think. People tend to have a vague idea of what it means, but lack the knowledge to know what marginalization actually encompasses. It primarily happens to those who are underprivileged socioeconomically and can be seen in many places around the world, such as the slums of India and the shantytowns of Brazil. In Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, the effects of the marginalization of socioeconomically unprivileged people are depicted through behavior and psychological tendencies. These effects on the marginalized youth portrayed in Burgess’ fictional work parallel what is seen in modern-day Brazilian shantytowns, commonly known as favelas. Burgess’ own life played a pivotal role in creating the world that is seen within A Clockwork Orange.
Children spend more time learning about life through media than in any other manner. The average child spends approximately twenty-eight hours a week watching television, which is twice as much time as they spend in school (Dietz, 75). According to the American Psychological Association, the average American child views 8,000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence before finishing elementary school. In
Television with its far reaching influence spreads across the globe. Its most important role is that of reporting the news and maintaining communication between people around the world. Television's most influential, yet most serious aspect is its shows for entertainment. Violent children's shows like Mighty Morphing Power Rangers and adult shows like NYPD Blue and Homicide almost always fail to show human beings being able to resolve their differences in a non-violent manner; instead they show a reckless attitude that promotes violent action first with reflection on the consequences later. Contemporary television creates a seemingly insatiable appetite for amusement of all kinds without regard for social or moral benefits (Schultze 41). Findings over the past twenty years by three Surgeon Generals, the Attorney General's Task Force on Family Violence, the American Medical Association, the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other medical authorities indicate that televised violence is harmful to all of us, but particularly to the mental health of children (Medved 70-71).
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 Clockwork Orange is an anti-utopian novel, describing an imminent future in a stately supervised country. The hero Alex revolts against the state using violence and is therefore locked up. Later he is turned into a harmless subject without free will, incapable of committing any crime.
"John (Anthony) Burgess Wilson." DISCovering Authors. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 11 Mar. 2012.
A Clockwork Orange was first published in 1962 and features a futuristic society, but yet it can still be related back to the modern day. Burgess demonstrates, through the main character of Alex, that it is necessary to be free to form an identity in order to have a genuine existence be it a good or evil one.
Freedom and liberalism are catchwords that appear frequently in both philosophical and political rhetoric. A free man is able to choose his actions and his value system, to express his views and to develop his most authentic character. What this kind of idealistic liberalism seems to forget, however, is that liberty does not mean a better society, better life or humanistic values such as equality and justice. In his novel A Clockwork Orange (1962), Anthony Burgess portrays an ultimately free individual and shows how a society cannot cope with the freedom which it in rhetoric so eagerly seeks to promote.
In the novel A Clockwork Orange, the author Anthony Burgess tells a story about a young man name Alex and his friends, every night they go around and start committing violent acts. In the novel Alex expresses his freedom of choice between good and evil. The freedom of choice is a decision that every person must make throughout his life in order to guide his actions and to take control of his own future. This Freedom of Choice, no matter what the outcome is, displays person power as an individual, and any efforts to control or influence this choice between good and evil will take way the person free will and enslave him. In this novel the author uses this symbolism through imagery. He shows that through the character of Alex, and the first person narrative point of view to prove that without the ability to choose between good and evil person becomes a slave.
Are we human if we don’t have a choice to choose between acting good or acting evil? A Clockwork Orange directed by Stanley Kubrick is a brutal film that entails many sociological meanings. Alex DeLarge and his “droogs” (gang) live in a derange society of “ultra-violence” and rape. Alex and his gang cause havoc around the town that leads to the “droogs” turning on Alex during a mischievous act on an innocent women and Alex getting arrested. While in prison he is chosen for “treatment” that is suppose to purify Alex and turn him into the “perfect citizen”. We’ve gone over many sociological concepts in class, but the three that I believe apply the most to this film are socialization, deviance, and resocialization.
Children and adults in the United States spend about seven hours a day consuming different types of entertainment, such as video games, the Internet, television, movies, and music. Studies have shown that the time spent using media surpasses different types of activities besides sleep. Today children live in homes surrounded with televisions, DVD players, CD players, computers, radios, and video game consoles. Children use television as their main source of media entertainment, but at the same time cell phones and the Internet have been increasing. Studies have shown that exposure to violence in the media and real-life aggression began showing up in the 1950s. After that, government agencies and organizations examined the connection. The examinations
Children will have spent more than 50% more time in front of the television than in front of the teacher, by the time they graduate high school. It is estimated in many studies that adolescents and children watch a total of twenty-two to twenty-eight hours of television a week. The average American household has their television set turned on for more than seven hours a day. The average American child watches three to four of those hours that the television set is turned on. About 98% of Americans own at least one television set in their household. And about 65% of all people who own a television set have at least two or more television sets in their household. It is estimated that young children in America will have seen 8,ooo murders and 1oo,ooo acts of violence by the time they leave elementary school.
Furthermore, television violence causes aggressive behavior in children. Many people believe that children who watch violent television programs exhibit more aggressive behavior than that exhibited by children who do not (Kinnear 23). According to the results of many studies and reports, violence on television can lead to aggressive behavior in children (Langone 50). Also, when television was introduced into a community of children for the first time, researchers observed a rise in the level of physical and verbal aggression among these children (Langone 51). The more television violence viewed by a child, the more aggressive the child is (“Children” 1).
Violence is one of the most primary and controversial issues in today’s society. And true that violence is on the rise. A major concern for many parents is the violence within television shows and movies, and the effect on children’s aggression. I particularly do not believe that violence in television affects children’s aggression, but who am I to say such a thing, for I am not a qualified psychologist. But I have many reasons for my accusation and references to back it up. Now television plays a major role in today’s society, and it occupies almost every home in the United States. Parents have such a big concern for the children watching television, but children throughout the U.S watch an average of twenty hours of television. So I posed the first question. Who allows these children to watch so much television? Obvious question answered with the complainers.
"Hundreds of studies of the effects of TV violence on children and teenagers have found that children may: become "immune" or numb to the horror of violence, begin to accept violence as a way to solve problems, imitate the violence they observe on television; and identify with certain characters, victims and/or victimizers"