Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange was the one book I read over summer, as well as watched the movie, and it ended up tying in to the books we are reading in now. The book takes place in the future where the world has turned into another sort of dystopia. In this case, the government does not have all the power, in fact, just the opposite. The world in A Clockwork Orange is run by the youth. The elder people are afraid of the younger generation who are extremely rebellious. A In the novel, the main character is a threat to society as his hooliganism reaches a high and he ends up going to jail. To get out of jail sooner he takes part in a experimental technique which will “ turn him good” again, the Ludvoco technique. This is where the dystopian elements start to shine.
This technique, whose goal is to make the main character’s personality a more favorable one, forces Alex to watch the horrible things in the world. He first gets injected with some medicine that makes him weaker and then is forced to watch disgusting videos of horrible violence. Alex correlates his feeling bad to the viewing of the videos that incorporate violence, and in the end, starts to cringe at the thought of it. Even though it is the medicine that makes him feel bad, Alex begins to think that it is the ultra violence that is causing him to feel this way. He ends up turning into an overall good person, but at what cost.
This book touches on the whole idea of free will. Is it really Alex’s choice to turn good? Is he actually good at heart, or is he just scared of being bad? This whole idea got me thinking about why I am the person I am today. Am I studious and nice because society has made me afraid to be stupid? Is the fact that dark colors and sharp scary music behind images make them bad? If we grew up with happy flutes playing in the background while a man was kill an enemy, wouldn't we think that it was a good thing? Doesn't music that invokes hatred and dark colors make a video clip, or picture of a face, seem more disgusting? In 1984, and in the world as it is now, the use of media and certain elements is used by society to make people think of certain things a certain way. I believe in A Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess touches on the fact that man is malleable to outside force no matter how much he knows of the past. There is always a way to make his subconscious think what the higher authority wants it to. Sounds like propaganda to me. I do not believe that human beings have any free will in the sense that they believe what they believe because of implications society puts on it. Everything we call bad and call good is solely based on what society says it to be. Now I am depressed.
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