Ludovico Technique - a Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange – Ludovico technique
1. What is the Ludovico Technique? How is it meant to work? Pay close attention to the text in your response. The prison Chaplain confirmed Alex’s idea of the Ludovico technique as a technique that is meant to be a sort of treatment that “gets you out (of prison) quickly and makes sure you that you don’t get (back) in again.” It is said to work by showing a series of a special type of film to the ‘patient’ and injecting something that is said to be vitamins into the patients arm after every meal. We can imply that the injections are not vitamins from the suspicious response of the doctor when Alex asks him if the shots are injections of vitamins. Alex asks “Vitamins, sir, will it be?” and Dr. Branom responds with “Something like that.” After being injected with the drug, the patient (Alex) became very weak and needed a wheelchair to move. This further suggests that what are being injected are not vitamins, but it is in fact some kind of drug. After Alex was shown the special films he showed drug inducing symptoms of nausea, lethargy, and weakness. Showing graphic images of violence in the special films allowed the drugs to operate on his system. The administering of drugs and the technique of showing violence to the patient produces symptoms of nausea/vomiting. This is meant to act as an aversion of violence - the patient should no longer commit crimes of violence due to the negative associations that they will now have towards these violent actions. 2. How does Burgess problematize the purpose and implementation of the ‘technique’? Burgess addresses how unethical the technique is through the Prison Chaplain. The prison Chaplain seems to be scared of the idea of the Ludovico technique and is strongly against it. There are doubts to how the technique will work out and the Prison Chaplain agrees that the technique is not suitable for its purpose. The Prison Chaplain implies that the technique is
1. What is the Ludovico Technique? How is it meant to work? Pay close attention to the text in your response. The prison Chaplain confirmed Alex’s idea of the Ludovico technique as a technique that is meant to be a sort of treatment that “gets you out (of prison) quickly and makes sure you that you don’t get (back) in again.” It is said to work by showing a series of a special type of film to the ‘patient’ and injecting something that is said to be vitamins into the patients arm after every meal. We can imply that the injections are not vitamins from the suspicious response of the doctor when Alex asks him if the shots are injections of vitamins. Alex asks “Vitamins, sir, will it be?” and Dr. Branom responds with “Something like that.” After being injected with the drug, the patient (Alex) became very weak and needed a wheelchair to move. This further suggests that what are being injected are not vitamins, but it is in fact some kind of drug. After Alex was shown the special films he showed drug inducing symptoms of nausea, lethargy, and weakness. Showing graphic images of violence in the special films allowed the drugs to operate on his system. The administering of drugs and the technique of showing violence to the patient produces symptoms of nausea/vomiting. This is meant to act as an aversion of violence - the patient should no longer commit crimes of violence due to the negative associations that they will now have towards these violent actions. 2. How does Burgess problematize the purpose and implementation of the ‘technique’? Burgess addresses how unethical the technique is through the Prison Chaplain. The prison Chaplain seems to be scared of the idea of the Ludovico technique and is strongly against it. There are doubts to how the technique will work out and the Prison Chaplain agrees that the technique is not suitable for its purpose. The Prison Chaplain implies that the technique is