A Clockwork Orange Violence

“A Clockwork Orange,” written by Anthony Burgess is the story of Alex, a egomaniac gang leader who lives for violence. Throughout the novel Alex is seen committing several crimes, including robbing, raping and assaulting innocent people. Not only does he commit all of these crimes, but he also thoroughly enjoys doing them, accompanying them all with his own poetic monologue. After being arrested, he agrees to be brainwashed into hating violence, but in the end he still reverts back to his old gang ways. Alex is a psychotic poet who thrives on violence. When Alex is first introduced in the book, it is apparent that Alex thinks of himself to be better than others. The Story even begins by instantly putting Dim below him by saying “Dim being
really dim” (Burgess 2). Dim is actually used a lot to be shown as someone less than Alex throughout the story, even with his clothing, as explained when everyone else in the gang has rather fancy ‘jelly moulds’ over their crotch like Alex’s spider shaped or Georgie’s “very fancy one of a flower” ( Burgess 4). Meanwhile Dim’s was the shape of a clown’s face, representing his stupidity and ignorance. Awhile later when they are out, Alex hears a radio with classical music playing and becomes incredibly angry at Dim for making some obnoxious noises. In return Alex punches his mouth and when Dim asks why, he replies with “For being a bastard with no manners and not the dock of an idea how to comport yourself publicwise” (Burgess 32). Alex tells Dim that he didn’t have manners nor should be in public just because Alex thought it was more important that he heard the music rather than letting others enjoy themselves. Although Alex does go through a lot of crime, he is eventually caught and put into jail. When he goes to jail, they try to reform Alex to be a better person. Religion was one attempt, but in the end it did nothing. Alex explains how he only enjoyed the bible for it’s violence, and he fantasies of beating the messiah. They also put Alex through the Ludovico Technique, which conditioned him to become physically ill to even witness violence. The only problem with this is Alex still loves violence, he might not be able to be around it because of the brain-washing but he still lives for violence. In the end, however Alex reverse the procedure so he could return to his bloodthirsty self. Along with his passion for brutality, Alex loves to create monologue for himself to describe his cruel acts. The words he would use when he was still active with his gang were rather expressive and made him seem graceful. His poeticness is a big part of his personality but is also driven by his violence. After being brainwashed and can’t perform vile actions anymore his vocabulary changes. He no longer has a passionate tone to it and is more straightforward. When explaining blood, before the Ludovico Alex would explain blood as “curtains in the winter starlight” but afterwards turned into “the red red krovvy all streaming out of his rot.” When Alex can’t live his normal homicidal ways he loses his passion for life. Since Alex can’t live life this way he reverts back from his conditioning, so he could enjoy violence again. Even his words proved how he couldn’t survive without his bloodthirsty lifestyle. The homicidal poet, Alex, thrived on brutality. Although he thought of himself highly and believed to be better than others, but violence was his true purpose in life. When it’s taken away from him, Alex is a completely different person, one that didn’t have a drive and seem to have no passion, even his speech is affected. Alex’s life revolves around violence and without it he is nothing.