Unincorporated Man And A Clockwork Orange Analysis

As Madeleine L’Engle aptly said, “because to take away a man's freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person,” taking away freedom of choice is equivalent to stripping off humanity. Mankind has evolved to have the ability to use the mind for reason and understanding, which separates humans from beasts and machines. It is this ability that allows man to analyze and formulate different choices, and have the freedom over them. Despite the knowledge that freedom of choice is fundamental in making humans human, social control has always been one of the leading reasons to justify the removal of that freedom. Through showing the need for the loss of freedom for social stability and the resulting problems, both The Unincorporated Man and A Clockwork Orange highlight the conflict between control and freedom.

The two works suggest that freedom of choice needs to be taken away for the greater good of society. In A Clockwork Orange, social safety and security are the driving forces behind removing freedom from the people, especially Alex, the main character. The start of the movie depicts the struggle of a violent youth that exercises free will in an oppressive but safe and stable society. Alex and his gang, termed droogs, symbolize free will as they attempt to liberate themselves from all government limitations. They indulge in vices shunned by the society such as rape and murder, and bring out the dark side of free will by expressing themselves against a society that encourages safety. Alex’s violent nature makes him a threat and in an attempt to impose order, the government forces Alex to be “transformed out of all recognition” (A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick). T...

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...tock. Not being able to live the life she wants to, Neela, as well as others in The Unincorporated Man, is essentially a tool for her major stockholders to use. The lack of freedom results in people becoming mere puppets and dehumanizes them.

For utilitarian purposes, such as social safety and security in A Clockwork Orange and economic stability in The Unincorporated Man, freedom has to be taken away from the people. However, the lack of freedom results in dehumanized people and a cold, inhumane society, which can eventually lead to chaos and the total opposite of what the governing bodies try to achieve in the first place. Both A Clockwork Orange and The Unincorporated Man show how in order to gain control, freedom has to be taken away, but yet freedom is needed to maintain that control, and hence the conflict between control and freedom is a never ending one.