Term 2
For my term 2 stretch goal, I decided to continue reading and analyzing "A Clockwork Orange": I have provided a summary for the second part of the book I read as well as quote analysis in order to practice analyzing the text outside of normal classwork.
Part two: Summary
After being sent to prison for assaulting the old woman and being abandoned by his droogs, Alex is officially sentenced to fourteen years in prison. At first, prison is very difficult for Alex, he has to defend himself against the guards as well as the prisoners, though the more time he spends in prison, the more accustomed to the setting he becomes. After a fight ensues in the prison, and Alex kills a new prisoner, he is eventually decided to be the first subject of a new criminal correction program that would eliminate his criminal tendencies. His program lasts two weeks long, and he is told that all he needs to do is watch "special films" and have a shot after his meals. The special films Alex is forced to watch contains horrific scenes of torture, violence, rape, and murder, and the needles injected into him cause him to feel terribly ill while watching these scenes. The treatment Alex undergoes is trained to condition him into feeling sick at the thought of violence in order to "cease" his criminal mind. After a failed escape attempt, Alex soon beings to see the effect of the treatment working and can feel his state-of-mind altered as a result of the treatment: he realizes that it is better to receive a punch than to deal one. By the end of part two, Alex's two week treatment plan comes to an end and as the results of this experiment is showcased to the audience, two sides of an argument develop that establish the main theme of the book: Champlain believes that this treatment strips humans of moral choice while Brodsky and the Minister defend the treatment, claiming that the treatment is positive and efficient, and more productive for society. Alex feels caught in the middle of the treatment, feeling like a clockwork orange: a beautiful fruit on the outside, seemingly a good, Christian citizen, but just a dead machine, rather than a life, on the inside.
Quote Analysis - Part 2
"But, O brothers, as my rooker reached for the britva in my inside carman I go this like picture the sickness and dryness and pains were rushing to overtaken and I viddied that I'd have to change the way I felt about this rotten ceck very very skorry indeed, so I felt in my carmans for cigarettes or for pretty polly..."(Burgess 81).
This quote shows the effects of the treatment on Alex: once eager to kill and commit horrendous crimes, he now feels nauseated at the thought of reaching for a knife to harm this man. In order to counter this sick feeling, Alex must commit a good deed, so he begs for the man's forgiveness and tries to offer him a cigarette instead. The treatment works by forcing Alex out of his own mind and not allowing him power to make a choice. He is locked up in his mind in a prison that controls the thoughts in his head and his actions, stripping him of his free will.
"'Choice,' rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it belonged to the prison charlie. 'He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement, fear of insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice.'" (82).
The counter argument from the Brodsky and the Minister's stance on this treatment is stated by the Prison Charlie. He believes that the practice of removing free will and choice from Alex takes away his human rights-- which is why he refers to Alex as a "creature" rather than a human. He believes that one of the fundamental aspects of being human is having the ability to make individual choices, whether or not they are morally just. Although he does not necessarily agree with Alex's actions, he believes that turning Alex into this "clockwork orange" is just as morally unjust as the crimes that Alex commits, which is why he stands up for Alex during the conference.
"'He will be your true Christian,' Dr Brodsky was creeching out, 'ready to turn the other cheek, ready to be crucified rather han crucify, sick to the very heart at the thought of even killing a fly.'" (84).
Religion plays an important role in Alex's story. At the prison, his perspective and opinion about religion is revealed when Alex claims that "he wishes he could have been the one to nail Jesus to the cross". This quote shows the forcible counter on Alex's free will as they turn Alex into this alleged 'good Christian boy". Religion is though of a pure, moral component of life and mostly has a positive connotation. This book and Alex's perspective counters this stereotype by putting religion in place as the enemy in Alex's situation. As his free will is stripped, religion plays a stronger, more domination role, which speaks to Anthony Burgess's idea about religion and how he believes it plays a negative role in society and the human mind.
Term 1
In this class, we are instructed to fulfill a "Stretch Goal" outside of class in order to supplement our in-class material. For my stretch goal, I chose to read passages from the book, "A Clockwork Orange". Since I only had a limited time outside of class to complete this goal, I was unfortunately unable to finish reading this work by the end of the term, and was only able to read up until the end of Part One. However, I will cover what I have learned and read from this novel based on the amount of the book I have read thus-far.
Summary of Part One:
In a "Clockwork Orange," Burgess tells the story of a young teen named Alex, living in a futuristic London, and structures the story as an autobiography from Alex's point of view. Alex and his group of friends Pete, Georgie, and Dim speak in a slang called "nadsat" which makes the book little hard to read and understand. The book opens up with the group of friends sitting in the Korova Milkbar where the underage teens are seen drinking milk laced with hallucinogenic drugs. After the group of friends leave the bar, they spend the night out in town committing various crimes, such as assaulting an old man and destroying his false teeth, and beating up the owner of a store along with his wife. The boys pay off a group of ladies at a bar before shoplifting the store so they would comply in providing the boys alibis when they were questioned by the police. After their night of committing crimes, Alex heads home and tells his parents that he is feeling better and is ready to work that evening, which is how his parents believe he spends his nights. When Alex heads out to meet up with his gang, they tell him they want to spend the night pursuing even bigger, more intense crimes. While Alex is uncomfortable with this idea, he eventually gives-in and agrees to do so. Before they continue with their plans, the group of boys head over to the bar first, but then Alex hears some Beethoven, causing him to pull his knife on Georgie. This leads the boys to a big violent fight in which Alex attacks the rest of his group in order to reassert his leadership within the gang.