A Clockwork Orange

“We smecked and then grinned but said nothing, and then he said: ‘What sort of a world is it at all? Men on the moon and men spinning round the earth like it might be midges round a lamp, and there’s no attention paid to earthly law nor order no more. So your worst you may do, you filthy cowardly hooligans.’”

When Alex and his gang attack the drunken veteran outside of the pub, the veteran complains about the rapid pace of change in the modern world. The implication is that the future is in the hands of the “cowardly hooligans” and the distant scientists, rather than in the older generations. That these generations were unflinchingly loyal to crown and country goes almost without saying, though the veteran emphasizes the point by singing a couple of lines of a patriotic song. This kind of loyalty has been lost; Alex and his ilk are so far removed from the Government and the State—and disgusted by the past, not to mention pessimistic about the future—that they create their own (violent, amoral) code of conduct.

“Then there was like quiet and we were full of like hate, so smashed what was left to be smashed—typewriter, lamp, chairs—and Dim, it was typical of old Drim, watered the fire out and was going to dung on the carpet, there being plenty of paper, but I said no.”

Alex has limits: he is fastidious to a fault, which is ironic for such a barbaric young man. The destruction of property, in particular any property that signifies class or authority, is sanctioned by Alex. However, while he loves blood, he abhors mess, vomit, and filth. Dim has no such compunctions, acting as Alex’s foil.

“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 the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed.”

Alex’s adoration of classical music singles him out: He is different than the other droogs. While it should humanize him, it is a complicated mix: the music inspires Alex to contemplate violent images of beatings and rape. Still, his rapturous delight in the music brings out the lyrical side of him, as when he employs such vivid similes as “like a cage of silk round my bed.”

“The name was about a clockwork orange. Listening to the J.S. Bach, I began to pony better what that meant now, and I thought, slooshying away to the brown gorgeousness of the starry German master that I would like to have tolchocked them both harder and ripped them to ribbons on their own floor.”

As he falls asleep after invading the home of the writer and his wife, Alex contemplates what the writer might have meant by “a clockwork orange.” As an understanding dawns on him—that the writer is speculating about authoritarian control and its impact on moral choice and individual autonomy—Alex is angered. While Burgess does not specifically indicate why Alex is enraged by this, one might assume that Alex does not like to think about the ways any authority figure has control over him.

“Every day there was something about Modern Youth, but the best veshch they ever had in the old gazetta was by some starry pop in a doggy collar who said that in his considered opinion and he was govoreeting as a man of Bog IT WAS THE DEVIL THAT WAS ABROAD and was like ferreting his way into like young innocent flesh, and it was the adult world that could take the responsibility for this with their wars and bombs and nonsense.”

This passage comes from a newspaper article written by a priest (“doggy collar”) that Alex once read and remembered. It is significant that, contrary to other opinions expressed by the supposedly educated adults regarding the problems with “Modern Youth,” Alex agrees with the priest’s stance—and, by extension, the author acknowledges its legitimacy. Instead of placing the blame solely on the immorality and wickedness of the young teens today, the priest recognizes the role played by the previous generation’s perpetuation of violence. World War II and its bombs (both conventional and nuclear) are the violent legacies of the adults, not the creation of the teens.

“You can viddy that everything in this wicked world counts. You can pony that one thing always leads to another.”

While Alex may be ultraviolent, he is not psychopathic; he understands that actions have consequences, at least in a fatalistic manner. Here, he acknowledges that his actions, at least in part, lead to what ultimately happens to him, from his stint in Staja to his poor treatment at the State’s behest. Still, this also functions as a way to avoid personal responsibility: Alex thinks the above after he has overslept, allowing his droogs an opening to usurp his leadership (and execute their plan to betray him). He does not ever appear remorseful about his violent and criminal actions.

“This window had iron bars in front of it, like the house was a prison, but we could viddy nice and clear what was ittying on.”

The gang reaches their ill-fated rendezvous point at the Manse, occupied by the elderly woman and her many cats and kittens. The “prison”-like house is an example of foreshadowing: Not only are her many valuable objects locked away and out of reach, but Alex will also ultimately be imprisoned due to the circumstances surrounding this badly executed heist. He will be betrayed by his droogs and arrested by the police, then sent to Staja for attempted burglary and murder—the old woman of the house is accidentally killed in the ensuing scuffle.

“I gave them the ultra-violence, the crasting, the dratsing, the old in-out in-out, the lot, right up to this night’s veshch with the bugatty starry ptitsa with the mewing kots and koshkas. And I made sure my so-called droogs were in it, right up to the shiyah.”

Alex makes a full confession to the police. The way he relates this act is both full of bravado—Alex sounds proud of his exploits—and obfuscation. The confession is filled with nadsat slang that makes it nearly impenetrable (“crasting” equals thievery; “dratsing” means beating; “in-out” refers to sex/rape; “veshch” is akin to “thing”; “bugatty and starry” indicate unhinged; “ptitsa” refers to the old woman with her cats and kittens). It is as if Alex glosses over the violence and criminality of his deeds by couching them in dense jargon. Alex also enacts vengeance on his companions (“droogs”) who betrayed him: These “so-called droogs” were involved in every criminal act, even to the bitter “shiyah” (end).

“I take it up now, and this is the real weepy and like tragic part of the story beginning, my brothers and only friends, in Staja (State Jail, that is) Number 84F.”

Alex begins Part 2 with a statement that emphasizes his tendency toward self-absorption and self-pity. He expresses no remorse for the death of the elderly lady at the Manse—or for any of his crimes. He feels no regret over Georgie’s death, about which he is informed while locked up. The entire story revolves around the central figure of Alex and his monstrous ego; thus, the “tragedy” is Alex’s experience of being betrayed and his loss of freedom to do what he pleases.

“He just sort of looked right through us poor plennies, saying, in a very beautiful real educated goloss: ‘The Government cannot be concerned any longer with outmoded penological theories. Cram criminals together and see what happens. You get concentrated criminality, crime in the midst of punishment. Soon we may be needing all our prison space for political offenders.’”

This is Alex’s initial encounter with the Minister of the Interior (or Inferior, as Alex refers to him). He articulates the Government’s position on criminal reform: Prisons are no longer the answer. Rather, Dr. Brodsky’s methods, by which criminals are chemically “reformed,” will replace the overcrowded prisons. The Minister also alludes to the direction in which the current Government is headed: an authoritarian State that silences political opposition.

“‘Very hard ethical questions are involved,’ he went on. ‘You are to be made into a good boy, 6655321. Never again will you have the desire to commit acts of violence or offend in any way whatsoever against the State’s Peace. I hope you take all that in. I hope you are absolutely clear in your own mind about that.’”

The prison chaplain tries to impress upon Alex the gravity of the experimental technique’s consequences. When Alex replies, “Oh, it will be nice to be good, sir” (109), the chaplain knows full well what horrors Alex faces if he loses his ability to make choices. Alex will become a creature created and controlled by the State, not an autonomous individual with free will.

“They were giving another like chance, me having done murder and all, and it would not be like fair to get loveted again, after going to all this trouble to show me films that were going to make me a real good malchick. I had a real horrorshow smeck at everybody’s like innocence, and I was smecking my gulliver off when they brought in my lunch on a tray.”

Alex again displays a remarkable arrogance—and naïve misjudgment—regarding his predicament. He daydreams about returning to his life of violence and crime as soon as he is released from Dr. Brodsky’s care, though he notes that he will have to be careful not to be arrested (“loveted”) again. He has no inkling of what Ludovico’s Technique will actually do to him. Instead, he indulges his ego by laughing at the authorities he thinks he is fooling.

“I knew it could not really be real, but that made no difference. I was heaving away but could not sick, viddying first a britva cut out an eye, then slice down the cheek, then go rip rip rip all over, while red krovvy shot on to the camera lens.”

The images Alex views during the treatment are so graphic that he cannot believe that the State—which should have some sort of moral authority, even according to rebellious Alex—would sanction the filming or showing of these images. The fact that the State does, indeed, permit the use of such horrific films reveals its hypocrisy. It is ironic that in curing Alex of his violent tendencies, the State authorizes and implicitly endorses violence.

“‘Life is a very wonderful thing,’ said Dr. Branom in a like very holy goloss. ‘The process of life, the make-up of the human organism, who can fully understand these miracles? Dr. Brodsky is, of course, a remarkable man. What is happening to you now is what should happen to any normal healthy human organism contemplating the actions of the forces of evil, the workings of the principle of destruction. You are being made sane, you are being made healthy.”

Alex’s arrogance is no match for the misplaced moral certainty of Dr. Branom, Dr. Brodsky’s assistant. In his adoration of Dr. Brodsky, and by extension Brodsky’s methods, Dr. Branom unquestioningly accepts the treatment to which Alex is subjected. Terms like “sane” and “healthy” are subjective here; the methods by which Alex is coerced into sanity and health are themselves profane and ethically suspect.

“Then Dr. Brodsky said: ‘Delimitation is always difficult. The world is one, life is one. The sweetest and most heavenly of activities partake in some measure of violence—the act of love, for instance; music, for instance. You must take your chance, boy. The choice has been all yours.’”

Dr. Brodsky implicitly places the blame for Alex’s predicament squarely on Alex: Not only did he choose to participate in the experimental treatment, but he also chose to commit the crimes that landed him in prison in the first place. Brodsky is unsympathetic to the fact that Alex lost the one part of him—his love of music—that might be considered humanizing.

“‘He will be your true Christian,’ Dr. Brodsky was creeching out, ‘ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather than crucify, sick to the very heart at the thought of even killing a fly.’”

Dr. Brodsky’s statement explicitly makes a martyr out of Alex: After undergoing the treatment, Alex would willingly sacrifice himself for the sake of others. The irony (or moral tragedy) here is that Alex would, indeed, allow himself to be martyred; however, it would not actually be willingly. It would not involve any moral choice, thus making a mockery of Brodsky’s suggestion that Alex is now a “true Christian.” As the chaplain (and the writer F. Alexander) points out, “He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement” (145). This refers to Alex licking the boots of the orderly sent to torment him with violence.

“What it said underneath my picture was that here was the first graduate from the new State Institute for Reclamation of Criminal Types, cured of his criminal instincts in a fortnight only, now a good law-fearing citizen and all that cal. Then I viddied there was a very boastful article about this Ludovico’s Technique and how clever the Government was and all that cal.”

Alex ultimately becomes a martyr to the Government’s project of maintaining social order and psychological control, and he serves as a warning to others who might harbor violent impulses. The Government’s interest is in sustaining power; unlike the chaplain, the Government has no interest in saving his soul. Alex is, indeed, their clockwork orange.

“I thought of myself dead and how sorry everybody was going to be, pee and em and that cally vonny Joe who was a like usurper, and also Dr. Brodsky and Dr. Branom and the Inferior Interior Minister and every veck else. And the boastful vonny Government too.”

This is evidence of the complexity of Alex’s coming-of-age story. While he has been changed, he has not changed; while he has been cured of his violent impulses, he has not been cured of his self-centeredness. He still has the desire to commit criminal and violent acts; he simply cannot act upon them. He displays self-pity per the emotional immaturity he has shown all along. He is always the victim: of his droogs’ betrayal, the Government’s overreach, and his parents’ neglect.

“‘Come,’ I said. ‘I just don’t get this at all. The old days and dead and gone days. For what I did in the past I have been punished. I have been cured.’”

Alex tries to cajole Dim and Billyboy, now police officers, into leaving him alone. But now that the officers have the power of the Government on their side, they are ironically free to inflict state-sanctioned violence on anybody they please. Dim carries a grudge against Alex, who once teased him unmercifully, while Billyboy also suffered injuries at the hands of the formerly brutal Alex. To them, Alex’s “cure” is irrelevant, as well as inaccurate. Still, one might argue that Alex has been punished.

“‘To turn a decent young man into a piece of clockwork should not, surely, be seen as any triumph for any government, save one that boasts of its repressiveness.’”

This encapsulates the view of the writer, F. Alexander, who uses Alex to further propagate his counter-propaganda about the Government. He is correct in suggesting that the Government’s social engineering has gone too far; the treatment to which Alex was subjected is unethical at best and immoral at worst. Still, the reader’s sympathy for the writer only extends so far; the author makes it clear that his interest in Alex is not any better than the Government’s. Alex is not an individual with the ability to make moral choices of his own; rather, he is a tool to be manipulated to serve others’ political ends.

“F. Alexander seemed to think that we all like grow on what he called the world-tree in the world-orchard that like Bog or God had planted, and we were there because Bog or God had need of us to quench his thirsty love, or some such cal.”

Alex reads some of F. Alexander’s manuscript, wherein he defines his notion of a clockwork orange. Humanity is organic, like oranges growing in an orchard, nurtured by “Bog or God” to reach their full potential. When the State intervenes in the process, as it has with Alex, that organic (moral) development is circumvented. All one is left with is mechanical responses—Alex’s conditioned sickness in the face of violence or music—inside what appears to be a living shell.

“He looked at me, brothers, as if he hadn’t thought of that before and, anyway, it didn’t matter compared with Liberty and all that cal, and he had a look of surprise at me saying what I said, as though I was being like selfish in wanting something for myself.”

This thought occurs to Alex after he asks F. Alexander, “What, sir, happens to me?” (186). Again, Alex still thinks of himself as an individual with rights and dignity. Everyone else, including the Government and his parents, thinks of him as an object to be manipulated. F. Alexander insists that Alex be a martyr to his cause.

“It was like as though to get better I had had to get worse.”

After Alex leaps from the window, he is rehabilitated—not just physically, but psychologically. The “cure” enforced by Ludovico’s Technique is reversed, and once again, Alex can make moral choices and listen to music. Like a martyr, Alex has to (nearly) die to come back to life.