Preview

A Clockwork Orange

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1747 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange

The freedom of choice and the rehabilitating form of corrections encase the realm of A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess. It produces the question about man's free will and the ability to choose one's destiny, good or evil.
"If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange-meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or State"(Burgess ix). Burgess expresses the idea that man can not be completely good or evil and must have both in order to create a moral choice.
The book deals upon reforming a criminal with only good morals and conditioning an automated response to "evil." Burgess enforces the idea of the medical model of corrections, in terms of rehabilitating an offender, which is up to the individual. That one should determine the cause and then find an exclusive treatment to resolve that individual's case, then apply it. This is the case with the character Alex, a juvenile delinquent introduced into prisonization then conditioned by governmental moral standards. This lack of personal moral choice imposed upon Alex creates conflicting situations in which he has no control over. This is apparent when trying to readjust into society. As conflicts arise within the spectrum of criminal justice the main focus is revolved around the corrections aspect of reforming the criminal element. Within the confines of the seventies Londoner. The character, Alex is created as the ultimate juvenile delinquent leading a small gang. Living within his own world the use of old Londoner language and attire reflect the non- conformity with society. Let loose within a large metropolitan, Alex is engulfed in the affairs of several criminal practices, from rape to aggravated assault. As a juvenile delinquent, Alex is finally caught and seen as an adult offender. Like all offenders he promotes his innocence and sets

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Good and evil are polar opposites, yet one cannot exist without the other. To understand this intricate relationship, one must have a clear understanding on what exactly good and evil are. These two are not always so black and white, but good can be defined as acting agreeably with societical and personal values. Evil can be defined as going against those values. However, as societies and humans differ, so do their moral codes. What is seen as good in one society or time may be seen as evil in another. Two more factors to consider are intentions and actions. They are two separate entities. Actions are seen, and judged, by everyone else, but intentions are known only by the doer. This is why there is no clear-cut line between good and evil.…

    • 1002 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Notebook

    • 1033 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Notebook is one of my favorite love movies of all time. The reason I love this movie so much is because that main characters Noah and Allie go through so many trials and finally end up together in the end. This movie I feel shows me how strong their love for each other really was and I now feel as if it is meant to be it will always find a way. Looking at the movie as a reference to get a better understanding of how lifespan development works, I realized that most of the trials that Noah and Allie went though were part of stages of development. The theory of stages of development was created by Erik Erikson, he believes that we go though certain stages in our life and if we do not get passed them properly we will end up with underdeveloped skills in our lives. The Notebook has many different stages that the main characters go though such as, stage eight, integrity vs. despair, stage five, identity vs. identity confusion, and stage six, intimacy vs. isolation.…

    • 1033 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The film opens with a close up shot of Alex dressed in white with gray suspenders showcasing his false eyelashes on his right eye and with the brim of his pork pie hat tilted slightly downward. His ominous blue eyes peering right through you as if you did not even exist. Slowly the camera pulls back as Alex takes a sip of drug laced milk revealing the type of company he keeps. His “droogs” as Alex called them were seated next to him on a bench in the Korova Milk Bar. The Korova Milk Bar was decorated with nude figures of women posed as if they had fallen backwards and they attempted to catch themselves by putting their arms behind them. The flats of their stomachs doubled as a table where glasses of milk could be placed. Other nude statues…

    • 2151 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gene Forrester Character

    • 742 Words
    • 3 Pages

    No person is truly good or truly evil. In A Separate Peace, John Knowles describes the conflict between good and bad. Gene Forrester is a prime example that good and evil are embedded in everyone.…

    • 742 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    12 Angry Men

    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages

    3. “I’m going to kill you,” and the kid screamed it out at the top of his lungs. Don’t tell me he didn’t mean it. Anybody says a thing like that the way he said it, they mean it.…

    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    12 Angry Men

    • 611 Words
    • 3 Pages

    1.How do you think you might have acted as a juror in this case ? How would you had interacted ?…

    • 611 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Kesey’s renowned novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, is a tale of self actualization under manipulation and deceit of institutions and repression. Though the novel may be original in it’s setting and characters, the origin of the plot is one as old as time. Many parallels can be drawn from Kesey’s piece to others such as Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the Christian Bible, and, perhaps most notably, Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. The themes and central topics of both Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest bear an uncanny resemblance, however, different conclusions may be ultimately drawn. Both Kesey and Salinger address the topics of undiscovered and repressed sexuality, self-realization, clothing as symbols, insanity, unreliable narration, and the role of women; however, Kesey leads to a pushback against leadership and repression, while Salinger focuses on the loss of innocence and superficiality of society.…

    • 2363 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    12 Angry Men

    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Twelve Angry Men is a play about a young boy on trial for murdering his father. If the boy is found guilty, he will be sentenced to death. The jury men are very aware of this fact, most are perfectly fine with sending this boy to die as one man searches for the empathy of his jury peers. One by one the jury begins to sway toward the not guilty plea, as every fact thrown into conversation gets disproved. Now, one lone juror faces not the pressure of his peers but the pressure of his emotional attachment to the case to see that the boy be punished. This finally leads to Juror #3’s inevitable surrender of not guilty.…

    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    12 Angry Men

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The most persuasive pieces in favor of the defense was that the old man wouldn’t have taken fifteen seconds to get to his front door from his bedroom. Especially because of the stroke he got the year before that caused something to his left leg. Another piece of evidence was that the woman didn’t have her glasses on when she ‘saw’ the murder being committed. While for the prosecution, the most persuasive evidence was that the boy was not able to remember the movies that he saw that night and no one recognize him where he went.…

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Good vs. Evil

    • 618 Words
    • 3 Pages

    With good being terms of excellent, high quality, right, well-behaved, or even righteous. And Evil being in terms of morally wrong or bad, misbehaved, characterized by misfortune, and even bad conduct, we ask ourselves what constitutes good and evil.…

    • 618 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Notebook

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The movie focuses on an old man reading a story to an old woman in a nursing home. The story he reads follows two young lovers named Allie Hamilton and Noah Calhoun, who meet one evening at a carnival. But they are separated by Allie's parents who dissaprove of Noah's unwealthy family, and move Allie away. After waiting for Noah to write her for several years, Allie meets and gets engaged to a handsome young soldier named Lon. Allie, then, with her love for Noah still alive, stops by Noah's 200-year-old home that he restored for her, "to see if he's okay". It is evident that they still have feelings for each other, and Allie has to choose between her fiancé and her first love.…

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Clockwork Orange

    • 1516 Words
    • 7 Pages

    A Clockwork Orange is a novel about moral choice and free will. Alex 's story shows what happens when an individual 's right to choose is robbed for the good of society. The first and last chapters place Alex in more or less the same physical situation but his ability to exercise free will leads him to diametrically opposite choices—good versus evil. The phrase, "what 's it going to be then, eh?," echoes throughout the book; only at the end of the novel is the moral metamorphosis complete and Alex is finally able to answer the question, and by doing so affirms his freedom of choice. The capacity to choose freely is the attribute that distinguishes humans from robots; thus the possibility of true and heartfelt redemption remains open even to the most hardened criminal. A Clockwork Orange is a parable that reflects the Christian concept of sin followed by redemption. Alex 's final and free choice of the good, by leaving behind the violence he had embraced in his youth, brings him to a higher moral level than the forced docility of his conditioning, which severed his ability to choose and grow up.…

    • 1516 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    12 Angry Men

    • 992 Words
    • 4 Pages

    After viewing and reading the various versions of your play, 12 Angry Men, I believe that there is room to state that it is a ‘timeless’ play. After being written in 1955, it was re-created at least a further three times at different stages in history with extremely minor differences.…

    • 992 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Notebook

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Notebook is a movie in which the main character Allie has Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease is marked by forgetting and repeating things, getting lost and confused, difficulties recognizing persons and objects. Symptoms usually appear after age sixty. Alzheimer's disease is not a normal part of aging and the cause is yet unknown. Alzheimer's disease is the fourth leading cause of death among adults and at present there is no known cure. The story begins in a nursing home where Allie and Noah (Allie's husband) stay. Allie needs to be there for care, but Noah doesn't. He stays to help care for her. He reads to her from a notebook about their life together. He hopes this will help her remember him, because her disease has progressed so that she doesn't remember him or her children. Allie believes that Noah's name is Duke; he tells her that because of the confusion which Alzheimer's disease causes she believes that this is a story about another couple. Noah reads that he fell in love with Allie at first site, but her parents say he is not good enough for her. Her family leaves town, and she starts college and he goes off to war. He writes to her every day for a year, but her parents keep the letters. She gets engaged, he works on a plantation house and fixes it up the way Allie wanted it. He hopes she will come back to him. She sees his picture in the paper with the house and decides to go see him before she gets married. They find the are still in love. Allie is torn between here fiancé and Noah. Allie decides to stay with Noah. While Noah is reading the story, she says she thinks she's heard this story before. Noah talks to the doctor and says he reads to her sometimes and sometimes she remembers. The doctor tells him not to get his hopes us, and seems skeptical that she remembers anything at all. Families of Alzheimer's desperately want to believe that…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Orange is the New Black

    • 1700 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Piper Kerman is a Smith College graduate who is serving thirteen months in prison, from 2004 to 2005, for a drug trafficking and money laundering crime she committed nearly ten years before. For most of her entire stay Piper is placed in a minimum-security prison in Danbury, Connecticut. I am from Avon, Connecticut so because her story was so close to home it immediately struck me as interesting. Her experience is eye opening, and as the book progresses you can see a slight transformation from a “normal” person to a hardened convict. Pipers book, Orange is the New Black, gives insight into the realities of women’s minimum-security prisons in the United States and how the criminal justice system works today. Which, as we find out, can be a long and frustrating process.…

    • 1700 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays