Essay, Research Paper: A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange
By: Anthony Burgees
Anthony Burgess was born on February 25, 1917 in Manchester, England. His true given name was John Anthony Burgess Wilson. He spoke eight languages, not including English. Burgess was a composer of music since the age of sixteen years. He taught himself how to read music and how to play the piano. The inspiration for A Clockwork Orange came while during World War II, when his wife was assaulted while he fought. She died about a month after the incident from internal bleeding, along with their unborn child, who was killed during the assault. He compensated by releasing his anger into A Clockwork Orange, in which a scene takes place that mirrors the traumatic incident. Anthony Burgess died at seventy-six years old on November 25, 1993.
In all of my reading, I have come to the conclusion that Anthony Burgess is the greatest literary genius of the twentieth century. His masterpiece, A Clockwork Orange, is unrivalled in depth, insight, and innovation. The novel's main theme deals with free choice and spiritual freedom. More specifically, "The ethical promise that 'A man who cannot choose ceases to be man" can be taken the theme of the novel. Anthony Burgess expresses his view that no matter how "good" a persons actions are, unless that person has free moral choice, he is spiritually damned. The novel revolves around one criminally minded teen, Alex, whose world consists of rape, murder, and ruthless violence. Alex is eventually setup by his "droogs" (friends) and is arrested and put into jail. After some time in jail, Alex is placed in a new rehabilitating program that uses electric shock therapy, new medicines, and exposure to violent film to promote good behavior. The program breaks all that Alex holds dear and builds him up with a new artificial conscience. This part of the novel presents the reader with a new, reformed Alex, an Alex without free will or freedom of choice, an Alex who has become a victim of medical research, or more like a guinea pig. Burgess considers this lack of freedom to be spiritually murderous and terribly wrong. Burgess knows that it is better to choose to be evil, than to be forced to be good. Alex is tormented by his new state of oppression. He is incapable of making any choice; he must always do what is good. Alex is then taken under the wing of a writer who is fighting the oppressive government. The writer greatly publicizes the oppressive rehabilitation the state put Alex through. But Alex is still tormented by his lack of choice, so tormented, that he even attempts suicide. While Alex is in the hospital following his suicide attempt, the tragedy of his oppression is highly publicized, in an attempt to stop public criticism, the state "fixed Alex." He once again has freedom of choice. Through these series of events, Burgess shows another conviction of his. Burgess believes that totalitarian governments take away one's individual choice and therefore suffocate his soul. The state in A Clockwork Orange is a general parallel to any overly oppressive or totalitarian government. Alex is a representative of the common man. "Burgess' attack on behaviorists and on totalitarian states is obvious" (Magill's Survey of World Lit. 293). By showing what torment Alex went through when rehabilitated by the state, Burgess shows his strong sentiment against governments taking away the choice of individuals, and therefore condemning the individual's spirit. Burgess's strong convictions on the subject of individual moral freedom seems odd and even backwards to some. But it is incredibly right when one grasps its full meaning. "Burgess replies...No matter how awful Alex's actions become, he should be allowed to choose them" (Magill's Survey of Long Fiction 370).To be forced to do good is truly wrong. If one is forced to do right, and he does what is right, it is not out of any ethical or moral conviction. When one does what he is forced to, he is merely a programmed pawn of the state. He becomes sub-human, he is merely a robotic existence. But when one has choice, he is an individual. When one who is free, chooses good, it is out of a moral conscience and good intent. He chooses to do good. The good done through free choice is infinitely better than the forced good of one who is oppressed into morality.
Burgess is correct when he states that evil has to exist along with good in order that moral choice may operate. He is not correct, however, when he states that it is inhuman to be totally good. He does not consider the possibility of totally good human beings that consistently choose good, either morally or amorally. One can have a perfectly good environment such as Heaven or the Garden of Eden where evil is only a possibility awaiting actualization by the free choice of totally good beings such as Lucifer the archangel or Adam the first man. Good beings may cause evil, and moral freedom only requires that one knows a possibility is evil before one chooses it. Only then can moral guilt be valid. If beings can only choose good or only choose evil, then they do not have moral freedom and the concepts of reward and punishment do not apply. Burgess calls such beings 'clockwork oranges' and says that they would be inhuman. Personally, I wouldn't use the word 'inhuman'. I prefer the word 'amoral' and believe that it is possible to have amoral humans who are still free. Such humans would not be clockwork toys that have no free choices. They would be created beings with plenty of free choices but no moral ones. In other words, the ability to do evil is missing or removed. All choices would be amoral. Such, I believe, will be the state of those humans who enter Heaven. There will be no sin and suffering in the future Heaven because I think that God will remove the possibility of sin and suffering. Only amoral good will be possible. This is a personal opinion which I think the Christian scriptures allow.
The new American edition of the novel A Clockwork Orange features a final chapter that was omitted from the original American edition against the author's preference. Anthony Burgess, the novel's author, provided for the new edition an introduction to explain not only the significance of the twenty-first chapter but was also the purpose of the entire book which was the fundamental importance of moral choice. Burgess states that the twenty-first chapter was intended to show the maturation or moral progress of the youthful protagonist, Alex. The omission of the twenty-first chapter resulted, according to Burgess, in the reduction of the novel from fiction to fable, something untrue to life. Human beings change, and Burgess wanted his protagonist to mature rather than stay in adolescent aggression. The twenty-first chapter shows this change, and the chapter is important because it includes Alex's mature assessment of his own adolescence and shows the importance of maturity to moral freedom which is Burgess's main point. Burgess has presented his definition of moral freedom in both his introduction and in his novel.
I believe that everyone should read this book, and the sad part is it is banned from many many schools around the country. 52% of all public schools have banned this book from being taught or even being in the library because of the violent content. The problem behind that is the book isn't all about violence, it is about moral decisions and weather or not it is right to change someone's thoughts. Weather or not a government should have control over your mind. I think that the use of Nadsat, an invented slag, is good. Burgees uses this language to show a difference between Alex and his droogs, friends, and the rest of the society that Alex lives in. It also is good because it lessens the violence, it does not excentuate the violence it helps to draw your attention away from what is happening, and to the thoughts of Alex.