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Freedom of Choice
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.
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 ...
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...lence. This thought is crucial to the reader's understanding of how close the freedom of choice is related to individual power. The demonstration of his free will and his loss of power through the absence of choice is effectively accomplished through the use of first person narration.
Throughout this novel, author Anthony Burgess has shown us many aspects of freedom of choice and its abuse. Through strong symbols in imagery, Alex's characterization, and his point of view, the absence of choice is proven as the most overlooked depravation of person individual freedom. In everyone's life, the struggle for power exists in all situations. The decision between good and evil is the freedom that everyone must have as an individual. The choice of which path to take is dependant on the person and the situation, but the realization that both exist is a power unto itself.
The only thing that separates humans from the savagery of mere animals is our ability to distinguish right from wrong. Throughout thousands of years of evolution and our own constant road towards an unstable future, humans have long grappled with morals and ethics. It is up to the individual to determine what they believe to hold true in situations that test their values. Literature shows us scenarios to interpret without the risk of real experiences - literature tests our ideas of what it means to be “a good person”. Critic Roland Barthes describes literature as “the question minus the answer”. In the novel The Kite Runner by Hoseinni, we see through the eyes of an Afghan boy named Amir as he continuously makes selfish decisions fueled by
chosen to undergo a new “treatment” that the State has developed to “reform” criminals. After the State strips him of his choice to choose between good and evil, Alex can only do good now and even thinking of doing something bad makes him violently ill. Then, Alex is “rehabilitated” considered “rehabilitated”. Afterwards Alex is released where he encounters an “ex-droog” and one of his enemies, they beat him to a pulp and leave him out in the middle of nowhere. After coming to his senses, Alex makes his way to a house and in that house, right before Alex went to prison, h...
As the sweltering, hot sun signified the start of a scorching afternoon, a young boy lay in the fields harvesting vegetables for another family. He had been enslaved to perform chores around the house for the family, and was only given very few privileges. While his stomach throbbed with pangs of hunger, he continued cooking meals for them. After the family indulged in the cozy heat from the fireplace, he was the one to clean the ashes. Despite his whole body feeling sore from all the rigorous work he completed, the young boy had been left alone to suffer. As months passed by, he desired independence. He wanted to cook his own food, make his own fire, harvest his own plants and earn money. The lad soon discovered that he needed faith and courage to break away from his restricted environment. When put in a suppressive situation, every person has the aspiration to escape the injustice. This is what Harrison Bergeron and Sanger Rainsford do to liberate themselves from the external forces that govern their lives. Harrison, the main character of “Harrison Bergeron” written by Kurt Vonnegut, is a strong, fourteen year old boy whose talents have been concealed by the government. Growing up in an environment where equality has restricted people’s thinking, Harrison endeavors to change society’s views. Rainsford, the main character of “The Most Dangerous Game” written by Richard Connell, is a skilled hunter who believes that animals were made to be hunted; he has no sympathy for them. Stranded on island with a killer chasing him, he learns to make rational choices. While both Harrison and Ranisford are courageous characters, Rainsford’s prudence enables him to overpower his enemy, whereas Harrison’s impulsive nature results in him being ...
Many types of freedoms are addressed, ranging from the substantial and concrete to the conscious and implicit. The setting mainly takes place in a mental asylum on a locked ward, which curbs the characters’ physical freedom. The characters are constantly pushed and degraded by the antagonist Ms. Ratched which limits their mental freedoms along with physical freedom. Her technique is so perfectly functional that the men in the asylum try their hardest to please her to the goodness of each other, which ultimately leads to the betterment of their own selves.
These characters, however different they lie on the morality scale, all share the sinful trait of greed. They all ask, and take too much, ruining what the good that they had in their lives. Understanding their mistakes offers its useful readers a lesson, not to demand too much of the things we are offered. The characters struggle with their desires, each of them succombing to their passions.
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.
The conflict of good and evil presents itself in “The Most Dangerous Game” and “The Child by Tiger” in two completely different ways. One story being commercial fiction and the other being literary fiction, there are many ways of viewing variables such as good versus evil, realistic versus unrealistic stories and moral significance. The stories have different voices and are meant for different audiences, but in viewing the overall moral importance of both fictional works, the story with a greater moral significance is “The Child by Tiger”.
This essay has compared the differences between the societies in these two novels. There is one great similarity however that both make me thankful for having been born into a freethinking society where a person can be truly free. Our present society may not be truly perfect, but as these two novels show, it could be worse.
This paper will explore the three elements of innate evil within William Golding's, Lord of the Flies, the change from civilization to savagery, the beast, and the battle on the island. Golding represents evil through his character's, their actions, and symbolism. The island becomes the biggest representation of evil because it's where the entire novel takes place. The change from civilization to savagery is another representation of how easily people can change from good to evil under unusual circumstances. Golding also explores the evil within all humans though the beast, because it's their only chance for survival and survival instinct takes over. In doing so, this paper will prove that Lord of the Flies exemplifies the innate evil that exists within all humans.
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.
"John (Anthony) Burgess Wilson." DISCovering Authors. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resources in Context. Web. 11 Mar. 2012.
Amidst a population composed of perfectly conditioned automatons, is a picture of a society that is slowly rotting from within. Alex, the Faustian protagonist of A Clockwork Orange, and a sadistic and depraved gang leader, preys on the weak and the innocent. Although perhaps misguided, his conscientiousness of his evil nature indicates his capacity to understand morality and deny its practice. When society attempts to force goodness upon Alex, he becomes the victim. Through his innovative style, manifested by both the use of original language and satirical structure, British author Anthony Burgess presents in his novella A Clockwork Orange, the moral triumph of free will within the controlling hands of a totalitarian society.
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.
The island on which the boys have been stranded posses an evil and corrupting society, which depletes all innocence the boys once obtained. This is a drastic transformation as now the boys are hungry to kill and do not withhold any sense of their old civilizations moral values. William Golding shows the society people are swallowed up by molds their beliefs and values through the extensive change young, innocent, boys have gone through.
All Alex knew was to be violent due to the failure and lack of family structure, the school system and the law. The lack of these assertive institutions Alex couldn’t properly generate proper moral values and social norms. According to Mead he analyzed that a child gets some sort of understanding of how to act properly by how others act toward the child. Later on in the child’s development he/she learns and understands “the generalized other”, values and cultural rules (textbook). Alex was never pressured into going to school, there is one scene where his mother wakes him and tells him to get ready for school and Alex tells her “he doesn’t feel like going today” and that was the end of it. With Alex missing out on school he never really self-aware and knowledgeable. His family is absent also. Again with Alex telling his mother he doesn’t feel like going to school and his mother just lets it go shows the carelessness of his parents. Alex can pretty much do whatever he wants when he wants. With their lack of parenting he never truly gained proper values and morals and instead he created his own by the morals and values his “droogs” know. He had many run in’s with the police even before he was