A Clockwork Orange 3 Essay Research Paper — страница 2

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Whatever reasons he gives, none of them are valid enough to prevent the reader from hating Alex. In spite of all the hatred aimed toward Alex at this point, seemingly it is not enough to prevent the pity one begins to feel when Alex is abandoned by his droogs . Knowing he is the leader of his group, Alex constantly gives orders to his gang. Unfortunately it is due to his tendency to need leadership that a quarrel begins with his gang. After settling the original dispute that arises, Alex and his droogs are not so successful at ending their second squabble. Framed by his friends, Alex is arrested while they run away. Furthermore, he is beaten by the police, and sentenced to fourteen years of jail. It only takes two of them for the reader to realize the difficulties that Alex is

living through. Throughout the first part of the book, there is in fact only one sign that Alex is not utterly evil, that being his music. Along with his abandonment from friends, it is the music that Burgess uses to help change the readers opinion, and eventually to have pity toward his young antagonist. As the reader continues to pry deeper into Alex s life it is shocking to learn of the music he listens to, it is because of this music and the actions taken against him that one truly begins to feel sorry for Burgess s little Alex. The music that Alex chooses to listen is very ironic. While it causes him to do evil things, the fact remains that he listens to normal music, one of the first things he is not disliked for, lying there on my bed with glazzies tight shut and rookers

behind my gulliver, I broke and spattered and cried aaaaaaah with the bliss of it”(33). His particular interest in Ludwig Van arises during one of his sessions while undergoing Ludivico s Technique. Upon hearing what he perceives to be heavenly music Alex cry s out about the injustice in the procedure, I don t mind about the ultra-violence and all that cal. I can put up with that. But it s not fair on the music (115). It is during this same treatment that the reader really begins to feel sympathy toward him. Striped of his ability to choose right from wrong, and now the same clockwork orange that F. Alexander earlier told him about, Alex becomes one of the governments machines. Forced to do exactly what they want him to, become their true Christian (129), Alex poses the

question to his doctors, How about me? Where do I come into all this? Am I like just some animal or dog am I to be just like a clockwork orange? (126-127) Alex is all alone in the world, no longer capable of performing cruel deeds, he is denied by all whom he once knew. The same character one used to wish the harshest punishment upon received it, and when he got it, it becomes strikingly evident that it was much more then even the worst person would ever deserve. Burgess does a magical job at making the reader quickly forget the horrible deeds Alex once committed. Instead by making powerful moral statements, Burgess goes so far that the reader not only turns the other cheek toward Alex s crimes, but also feels genuinely sorry for him. Alex may not be completely cured, but that is

not the issue at hand. Through means of pity and by playing with the readers emotions throughout the book, during A Clockwork Orange, Burgess is constantly playing with the reader s allegiances.