Essay About Horrible Decadent Violence And Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange
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A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess This novel is short-only being about
180 pages-but looks may deceive you, or in other words dont judge a book
buy its cover or its thickness. A Clockwork Orange is actually 360 pages
because you have to read between the lines. You may think that the storys
theme is that the future will be filled with horrible decadent violence (that is
what I first thought), but if you read between the lines you will understand that
this book is written for one main purpose, a purpose other than entertainment.
A Clockwork Orange was written in 1962, story about the future which was
meant to be around 1995 to 2000 (a car used in the story called a 95 Durango).
A boy about seventeen, Alex the narrator and main character living in London,
rampages about with his “droogs” (friends) raping, stealing, beating and even
killing people. Alex one day is caught for murder and jailed but two years later
he is luckily freed twelve years before his sentence ends to take advantage of
a new treatment for violent people like him that he volunteered for. He goes
through the therapy and succeeds and returns back to civilization. He now
becomes sick when he is about to commit a violent or sexual, but also when the
Ninth Symphony by Beethoven plays (a minor defect from the treatment). Alex
is driven to attempt suicide from this defect because he is locked within a
chamber playing this song and does not accomplish his task. He is hospitalized
and returns to his “ultra-violent” self while the inhumane treatment does not
work because it does not even give people a choice about being violent. While
Alex helps to present the theme, two different outcomes are formed. First,
Alex goes through a great change from being “ultra- violent” to becoming
Lamb-chop and then back to being “ultra-violent”. Second, the theme defines
the major conflict of the story. Although the conflict does not have to do with
Alex directly, he helps to illustrate it. The conflict is not solved in the book and
will probably never be solved, but it does bring up for debate what Anthony
Burgess thinks about right or wrong, regarding the controversial situation of a
cycle of violence. “Violence makes Violence,” is what was once said to Alex
by P. R. Deltoid, his teacher from school before he went to prison. This book
brings up . What do we do to someone who has committed a violent crime? Do
we punish them with more violence, for instance death, or do we help them?
This is the problem that has arisen in this story and also in our daily lives with
the death penalty. Anthony Burgess thinks that the solution to violence should
not be violence, but he does not give any alternatives. In A Clockwork Orange
a new treatment for disturbingly violent criminals is developed by scientists
working for the English government and the government tests it on some
convicted violent prisoners. The treatment guaranteed that the patient would
turn good and be let out into the free world again. Alex was one of the lucky
(because of reduced sentence) people chosen. The treatment includes long
days of watching violent movie clips while a patient is hooked up to a lot of
hardware. The treatment works because now when a ex-criminal sees or are
about to commit cruel violent or criminal or sexual acts you become sick and
cannot perform the task. This procedure was thought of to end violence
without causing violence, because every action causes a reaction. For example,
when Alex was free to return to his life, his “droogs” betray him and beat him
up severely in payback for his cruel ruling as leader of the team of friends. This
might cause Alex to come back and hurt them again, which he considers. This
causes a chain of violence that may take years to end. When Alex is about to
go to Dr. Brodsky (the man who will cure him), the governor speaks to Alex.
He told him about how these new radical ideas and methods of treatment have