It's not the ending we wanted, but we all saw it coming...

Every chapter of A Clockwork Orange has managed to horrify me as much, if not more, than the previous. By the last chapter, I think everyone knew something horrible was going to happen, the only question was what could possibly make it any worse? That's when I began to read the last chapter which paralleled the first chapter in many ways. The only way A Clockwork Orange could continue to get more horrifying is if Burgess suggested in the final chapter that the cycle of awful violence was only going to begin again.
After seeing the terrifying effects of Alex's treatment, I began to pity him. To see him return to his old ways completely changes my mind. The treatment Alex received was inhumane and it is difficult to say that I am in support of it, but I am. As far as I am concerned, Alex deserves to suffer at the hands of all of those who he previously harmed. Once he gained back his ability to commit crimes, I expected him to show a new understanding and restraint of some type. After seing the suffering that he caused the writer and so many others. Because he has no remorse, I can feel no remorse for him as he is tortured by others.
It was interesting to see Alex discuss the process of growing up and he seems to admit that he deserves to suffer for his mistakes, as it is only natural. While I don't feel that this recognition makes him a better person, I do think it shows that he has matured, first accepting that what he has done is a mistake and then that the suffering is deserved.

The Ludovico Technique & Alex's future

Although Alex is a murderer and a sociopath and he deserves to rot in jail, his struggle against the government is not one of good vs. evil. Something that occurred to me over the past couple readings as Alex has endured the Ludovico technique, is that the government's opposition to a senseless murderer like Alex does not make it a force for good. The Ludovico technique (which trains people to become sick at the sight of violence by chemically inducing nausea while watching violent films) has a Pavlovian effect on Alex and forces him to react to certain stimuli in fixed ways like how a computer reacts to commands the same way every time you click or type them in. In the jail, the priest objects to the Ludovico technique by saying that it is wrong because it takes away Alex's right to choice, and therefore Alex's redemption will not be real. This is an important contention not only because they are prohibiting Alex from learning from his mistakes, but they are taking his humanity away which is extremely unethical. Not only do the officials administering the drugs to Alex watch and laugh sadistically as Alex screams and vomits uncontrollably and begs for mercy, but the mere idea of the government wielding the power of mind control is an extremely scary thought and why this is a dystopian society. This power is something that nobody should ever have and the fact that the government has it provides the means for them to rule tyrannically. Perhaps this is the only way to reform Alex, but it's not worth the cost. This kind of mental conditioning is a form of slavery.

Looking forward, I am intrigued by what Alex's life will be back on the outside. Clearly Alex will not resort to his old ways, but how will his life be different? What will his parents say when they see him for the first time after his release What if he is put into a situation where he has to protect himself and is unable to?

Alex's "Reformation"

After the incident in prison where Alex unwittingly killed another person, he is sent from the Staja to another reformatory center, one that uses a much different technique to "fix" prisoners. Alex's daily routine involves being injected with what I assume are sedatives, and then being strapped to a chair and being forced to watch "the ultra-violent" as he calls it, for hours on end. Aside from this "torture session," Alex lives a relatively comfortable life. His daily meals consist of "ice cream and a nice hot chasha of chai," and his room is well furnished, with a large bed, as opposed to the cramped jail cell in which he previously was residing (99). His new surroundings seem less and less like a prison, and more like a hotel.

However, Alex soon begins to make some dire discoveries. The injections that they give him make him feel weak and hazy, the door to his room is locked at all times, and the windows have bars. This place seems to be more than it seems.

So how does this prison work, if it offers startlingly plush amenities but still relies on drugs and submission? Through a series of films, Alex has been trained to associate violence with nausea. As a result, when he goes to hit a stage actor, he simply cannot. Not for a lack of desire to harm, but because he is overwhelmed with a sense of sickness when he reaches to strike him.

This new type of reform takes away one of the basic fundamentals of freedom: choice. Alex is not driven by a desire to do good or a desire to avoid evil, rather, he simply cannot do anything that was programmed into his mind as being evil. For me, this was startling. Alex has become nothing more than a government automaton, who responds this a certain way to Stimulus X, and that way to Stimulus Y. A seemingly benevolent government interested in the well-being of society has now resorted to brainwashing to subdue its populace.

I'm interested to see how Alex responds to violence in the outside world.

Psychological Manipulation: Old Habits Die Hard

In the latest sections of reading, we find out a bit more about Ludovico's Technique that Russell had posted before about. Essentially, Alex is strapped into a chair and then graphic, violent films are played on a large screen in front of him. He is forced to watch the entire time since there are clips that hold his eyelids open.

After reading more about Ludovico's Technique, I think find myself somewhat sympathetic for Alex. From a psychological standpoint, Ludovico's Technique most closely resembles classical conditioning: by showing Alex extremely violent and gut-wrenching films, they hope that he will come to associate even small acts of violence with nausea and therefore end his violent streak. However, it isn't a perfect fit in that usually the uncomfortable feeling comes from an outside source (ex: getting pricked by a needle, electric shock, etc.), while in Alex's case it comes from himself. This begs the question: if Alex is so troubled by seeing violence, how come he hasn't been bothered by it before? After all, he has committed some very violent acts in the previous few chapters. Granted, the violence in the films is stronger than the violence he has committed, but it seems so strange that he would suddenly be so affected by it -- unless he actually isn't.

I'm speculating that the injections that Alex receives daily are what's actually affecting him. Of what we've seen so far of them, they definitely affect him physically, the first time rendering him so weak that he has to get around in a wheelchair. That sick feeling that he gets while witnessing the violence onscreen is most likely due to the drug's influence (though this hasn't been completely confirmed in the story yet). If that is the case, then I don't really think I agree with Ludovico's technique in that it isn't genuine; Alex isn't actually feeling remorse or sickness from violence, the drug is just creating a mental barrier between him and his ability to be violent. In a reverse-psychological way, Dr. Brodsky is really twisting Alex's mind by tricking him to think that he himself is against violence when it is just the effects of the drug. However, most of my criticism of Ludovico's Technique is that Alex's desire and impulse to commit violent crimes hasn't actually been cured. After a treatment session when an officer dares Alex to punch him in the face, Alex still attempts to hit him, only he can't because he immediately feels a wave of nausea which stops him mid-punch. The doctors haven't cured him at all, only taken away his ability to fight.

Overall, the latest chapters in A Clockwork Orange have raised a good question: is it better to reform criminals or simply pacify their ability to commit future crimes?

A Cure for Evil?

In the most recent reading of A Clockwork Orange, we learn of a new, experimental treatment, Ludovico's Technique, that can supposedly "make a good man" (83).  The treatment is described as inhumane as the prison's religious figure says that it it causes people to cease to be humans. First off, this is a state prison and this technique is being supported by the government, a frightening thought. But can you really have any pity for Alex? I am torn on this issue.
Alex has shown no remorse after two years in prison and has just killed another person. I'm extremely doubtful that prison is going to make him a better person when he gets out. I'm skeptical that any treatment can fix Alex's violent ways, though, regardless of how horrible it may be. With all of his horrible crimes still fresh in my memory, I'm not necessarily opposed to whatever horrible treatment awaits. At the same time, Alex seems to be walking into something terrible without understanding what he is doing, and for that I feel a little pity.
So far, McCarthy has not failed to continue to surprise me every chapter by consistently creating one scene more horrible than the last. I can only imagine that this treatment will trump all the horrors we have witnessed thus far.
On an unrelated note, I found it interesting that Alex showed acknowledgement that he is writing the novel, referring to himself as the narrator. This raises interesting questions about his education, as he seems to hate the highly educated. If he indeed wrote the novel, did he chose the title and what is the significance of the title? I'm still not sure how the title, as we saw it in the writers house earlier on in the novel, is significant to the text, especially if Alex chose to name his story after the writer's story.

Alex's Mind

In my mind, the most interesting aspect of A Clockwork Orange thus far has been Alex's psyche and how the author Anthony Burgess has Alex narrate the story to give the reader a feel for what is going on and uses the name of the novel to show and not tell how he thinks. Burgess (thus far) has not explicitly analyzed Alex's mental state but has Alex narrate the story, thereby giving the reader glimpses into the reasoning behind his behavior. Although Alex is clearly very disturbed, he is no normal sociopath. Despite his thirst for "ultra-violence", Alex clearly retained some skewed perception of right and wrong, evidenced by when he did not let Dim defecate on the carpet of the writer's home (23). This leaves the reader to ask why Alex would think this behavior is wrong when he had just had a hand in beating the writer nearly to death.

"A Clockwork Orange" is a metaphor for Alex's mind because Alex's mind clearly works in a certain way that while does not make sense, is consistent. In other words while nobody can figure out why his mind works the way it does, it can be understood how it does. From examining his behavior, the reader can figure out what makes Alex tick. For instance, you can figure out that he derives pleasure from  "ultra violence" because he refers to it with pleasure as if hurting people satisfies an addiction-like need, you can figure out that listening to classical music soothes him because of his reactions to listening to it, and you can also figure out that he is very self conscious because he is acutely aware of fashion. While it is impossible to derive what makes Alex tick, you can depend on Alex's consistency and rely on him to tick. Just like clockwork. I interpreted the 'Orange' part to mean that his mind is made up of sections that are independent of one another. This is because some parts of his mind are normal and make sense and are considered normal to many other people (for instance, nobody would think that finding classical music relaxing is weird) while some parts are very disturbed and uncommon (like his affinity for violence). The contrasting characteristics that he shows indicate a fragmented psyche that is mixed and matched with many random traits. This is in contrast to the vast majority of people in the world who's minds are more like one entity and fit into the constructs imposed by society.

A Satire of Youth Culture

At first, much like everyone else in the group, I was completely baffled by the lexicon of Anthony Burgess. I couldn't begin to understand why an author would intentionally want to make his audience struggle to comprehend his narrative, especially using a mixture of Russian and Cockney English that Burgess calls "nadsat." (Nadsat is, incidentally, used similarly to Newspeak in George Orwell's 1984.) Upon doing some further research on the author, I learned that Burgess has always thought of youth culture as conformist, passive, and arrogant. I think he does an admirable job of commenting satirically on elements of youth culture, including but not limited to music, fashion, and social norms. 

Music is reflected in a number of ways; we see Alex and his "droogs" listening to a pop song called "You Blister My Paint" on page 4, but the reader learns later that Alex has what seems to be an intense respect for classical music, going so far as to call Dim a "filthy drooling mannerless bastard" when he disturbs Alex's listening to opera (28). Music in the 1960s was incredibly different from what you or I may listen to (the number-one hits of 1962, the year in which A Clockwork Orange was written, included The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons and Ray Charles). I, for one, am unsure if Burgess is commenting on the music of his time or attempting to guess cynically at what the music of the future may be. I will look forward to discussing Alex's love of opera, as its contribution to the plot and his character still confuse me.

The fashion in A Clockwork Orange baffles me more than just about anything else. We see Alex, Pete, Dim, and Georgie wearing jackets with raised shoulders, tights, and oddly shaped "jelly moulds," each with a different shape. (Dim's is a clown's head, while Alex's is a spider, Pete's is a hand, and Georgie's is a flower.) Women wear wigs and sexualizing makeup, along with name tags of their current sexual partners. This may parody the "Sexual Revolution" of the 1960s, when widely available birth control caused young women to, from their point of view, take back some of their power in sexual relationships, changing the dynamic between American men and women permanently. I found it interesting that Burgess highlights the sexual attributes of his young characters so abruptly, and I am looking forward to seeing what my other group members think about this very same thing. 

In short, I have become far more accustomed to "nadsat" and think it adds an entirely different dimension to Burgess' writing - the reader has to pause and soak up his message, which can give one more time to think about the author's intentions. The most prevalent message I have gotten so far is that Burgess was a bit of a cynic when it came to youth culture, and I am anticipating more of this satire as A Clockwork Orange continues.

Sources:
http://www.severing.nu/music/1962.html
http://www.helium.com/items/94715-a-guide-to-nadsat-talk-in-anthony-burgess-a-clockwork-orange
http://www.alternet.org/story/153969/how_the_sexual_revolution_changed_america_forever

The Dynamic and Relationships of Alex's Gang

While reading A Clockwork Orange, I initially hadn't given Alex's "droogs" much thought; throughout the first two chapters, there seemed to be little depth to them besides simply following Alex around. That being said, there was the exception of Dim, who was additionally described as being very intellectually challenged but strong.

However, when reading chapter 3, I was very surprised to read the milkbar scene in which Alex overreacts at Dim for disturbing his enjoyment of the opera music playing in the background. Calling him a "Filthy drooling mannerless bastard" (28), Alex also reaches over and punches Dim in the mouth. But what really surprised me were the actions of Dim, Pete, and Georgie; Dim, hurt, responds by saying "I'm not your brother no more and wouldn't want to be" (28) and Pete and Georgie tell Alex that his violence was unnecessary.

Dim, despite his mental disadvantage, is somewhat admirable in this scene in that he doesn't just accept Alex's violence and moves on- he voices his own opinion that he did nothing wrong and even rises to Alex's challenge to fight him. In recognizing unnecessary/uncalled for violence and questioning why he should take orders from Alex, he presents himself as more than just a brute.

Pete is also worth mentioning in that he sticks up for Dim and even threatens Alex, stating "if it had been me you'd [hit] you'd have to answer" (29). Pete's response to Alex's actions reveal a great deal about the gang, their dynamic, and the power structure of it. Right from the start, it is strongly suggested that Alex is the group's leader in that he calls the shots and orders the rest around for the most of the first two chapters. However, it is shown through this interaction that Alex isn't actually the leader, nor do the other three characters consider him to be so in spite of his insistance that "somebody has to be in charge" (30). Though they accompany Alex in terrorizing the public at night, they have backbones. In this respect, Dim, Pete and Georgie distance themselves from the typical, mindless cronies that are all too commonly seen on TV, in literature, or other media.

Beginning to Understand Alex's Disposition

The crimes that Alex commits are so horrifying that it is difficult to look past them and understand him as a person. In the first four chapters we have learned a fair amount about his character so that we can begin to understand him.
First, Alex seems to be a religious character. He has mentioned a "Bog" four times in a context where "God" would be appropriate. He finally makes this connection clear when he states "that self is made by old Bog or God" (40). In The Road, we saw that the criminals seemed to be godless characters, but Alex almost uses religion as a justification for his actions. He argues that because he was made as he is by God, enjoying violence, it is only natural for him to follow his impulses to rape, pillage, and murder. While many seek religion for hope, Alex seems to seek justification.
A second interesting quality that Alex possesses is his love of music, specifically classical and opera, not the music one would expect a thug to listen to. He argues that violence and art go well together. Initially it seemed as though music was something pure to Alex, as he is furious when Dim disrespects the woman in the bar who sings opera. In chapter four, however, we see that music is not so much something pure, as much as it may be a way for Alex to express his emotions, along with his violence.
A final quality, which is still unclear to me, is Alex's hate for intellectuals. He loves art, especially music, which is written, as is a book. Yet he seems to despise books, tearing all literature he finds to pieces (the old man's books and the writer's "A Clockwork Orange"). When he recalls the writer and his wife later, in chapter three, he becomes more enraged and wishes he had beat them worse. I don't yet understand Alex's hate for intellectuals but I'm sure we will be able to understand more as we learn more about him.

Pletchoes, Molokos, Baboochkas and Communists

A Clockwork Orange opened up with one of the most confusing and disturbing first two chapters I have ever read. The main character, named Alex, apparently seems to be leader of a gang of three other guys, who he calls his droogs. Together, he Pete, Georgie and Dim roam the streets of what I assume to be New York and rape, steal and otherwise plunder innocent vecks.

Now, I, along with the rest of the group, was completely baffled by the lexicon that Alex uses. His words seem almost like gibberish mixed with slang, but in reality, his words are slang terms loosely copied from Russian. I found this page extremely helpful in deciphering a bit of what these guys have to say. But what intrigued me the most was why Anthony Burgess chose Russian.

 Date: November, 1962

A Clockwork Orange was published in (you guessed it) 1962, in the height of the Cold War. In fact, October 14-28, 1962 marked one of the greatest standoffs in history: the Cuban Missile Crisis. By creating a dystopia in which lawless bands of thugs roam American cities, Burgess is clearly hinting at a Soviet takeover.

The fact that the society that Alex and his droogs inhabit, one of lawlessness, gang fights and illicit drugs, is intended to represent the American fear that the USSR could ruin American culture and poison everything that Americans hold dear (like alcohol).

Actually, that brings up a good point. Many Americans saw a communist takeover as oppressive, and would result in a restriction of their rights. In this pseudo-Soviet society, alcohol is banned, and as a result, Alex and his friends must resort to peeting their milk with "knives in it...and this would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one" (1). He also mentions armed policemen who roam the street, most likely to deter thugs like himself, every freedom-loving American's nightmare.

This brings me to my final point on the topic of Alex's lexicon. Burgess intentionally chose a language like Russian to flesh out the "otherworldly" aspect of his work. By using words like "vellocet" or "chelloveck," he creates a language that only a few people will understand. Even if someone DID understand Russian, it might be hard to recognize the changes that Burgess makes to the words. In effect, Burgess creates a new language simply by replacing a few words, and forcing the reader to figure out what the words mean in the context of the otherwise normal English (which is also somewhat odd, I'll discuss that later).