A Clockwork Orange Essay Research Paper Modernistic — страница 2

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which the teenagers rule the nights, keeping all real people in their houses. A world where there are milk bars (moloko kordova) in which fifteen year olds can be served with milk thatwas laden with drugs. This is a fantastical world where Burgess can exaggerate potential societal problems to show the absurdity of them. Another characteristic of this novel is the blurring of normal understanding, or the frustration of conventional expectations. Alex takes every chance to scoff at books, education, and learning. There is also the lack of remorse and guilt in Alex for all of his violent acts. Alex stealsand kills for no other reason than for his own personal pleasure. He states that he does not steal for the want of money, but for the pleasure of it. Though all of these things are

definitely different from what the reader may expect, the fact that Alex is the hero is probably the most bizarre. The reader has relived each of these horrific incidents with him yet at the end of the novel the author solicits our empathy or sympathy for him. Alex obviously is in strong conflict with the norm (or the bourgeoisie). He is a depiction of the bad element of society that England was dealingwith at the time that Burgess wrote this novel. Alex is the embodiment of all that society would like to ignore or eliminate. Aside from pitting Alex against the bourgeoisie, Burgess uses his story to magnify their decline. He uses this surreal method of aversion therapy (which was actually being discussed at the time) to show the dangers of this type of human experiment . Alex

loses his identity first in prison when he becomes 6655321, and then the therapy ultimately takes away his ability to choose to do wrong. I believe that the leftist writer in this story is Burgess himself, and that the Reclamation Therapy and Dr. Brodsky are meant to depict a composite of B.F. Skinner and Pavlov. Burgess was greatly opposed to this sort of treatment , and though his own experience mirrored that of the writer in the book (Burgess s wife was raped and died due to an intruder in their home when Burgess was away in WWII) and he was a victim of a person such as Alex, he was still opposed to what he believes to be unethical. Burgess uses the Bible verse, “What god has put together, let no man put asunder” to explicate this point. This may be a bit of a stretch, but

I have read that Modernist writers often flirt with ideas of Fascism, and it seems that this idea is seen often in the friendship of Alex and his droogs. Alex does not treat hisfriends as equals and is only satisfied with complete control and a dictator-like position, at one point even referring to one of his droogs as Dim the soviet (54). This idea is often tested in physical confrontation. This is one of the recurrent themes of the novel. Another reoccurring theme is that each section (and the final chapter) all begin with the line, “What s it going to be then, eh?” I believe that the purpose of this is to show the repetitiveness of Alex s life, and thevicious circle that society has placed him in. This serves to bind the whole of the novel together, even to the final

chapter where Our Humble narrator is finally ready to break the repetition of violence and crime. I found one of the most disturbing aspects of the novel was how Burgess choose to question religious norms. Alex often has thoughts that link God and drugs, and that fact that music was better than either. As I sloosied [listened], my glazzies [eyes] tight shut to shut in the bliss that wasbetter than any synthetic Bog [god] or God, I knew such lovely pictures. There were vecks [guys] and ptitsas [girls], both young and starry [ancient or old], lying on the ground screaming for mercy, and I was smecking [laughing] all over my rot [mouth] and grinding my boot in their litsos[faces] (33). There are two different places in the book in which Alex imagines himself as the one who is

whipping Jesus and nailing him to the cross. I closed my glazzies [eyes] and viddied [saw] myself helping in and even taking charge of the tolcholcking [whipping] and the nailing in,being dressed in a like toga that was the height of Roman fashion (79). This, in itself, fulfills almost every criteria of Modernism. The ultimate purpose of the novel which is Predestination verses Free Will is also an age old religious debate which Burgess (being a lapsed Catholic) is well aquatinted with. Music, which is a devise that was to bring one closer to God, brought Alex violent pictures of joy. The illustration of the deconstruction of individualism, and the reconception of social issues in terms of the masses rather than individuals is a continual theme. Alexis viewed as inhuman by