A Clockwork Orange By: Anthony Burgess

             The human spirit can take two forms, that of evil or that of good. The novella, A Clockwork Orange, is a look into the depths of the human soul and analyzes how these different types of spirits react in society. While the novel was written as a satire, thus making it completely overblown in a certain matter, it, at the same time, does a great job of making the reader think. A question that arises during the novel is can you force the evil to be good and vice-versa? Burgess once again does a great job looking right into the heart of the question. The analysis of good versus evil and its transformation from one form to another and the immense imagery created by the presence of descriptions of the music being played in certain scenes in all of Anthony Burgess' novels greatly parallels other books, such as The Straw Dogs.
             Burgess defines moral freedom as the ability to perform both good and evil (Burgess VI). In his introduction, he states that if one "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 color and juice but is in fact only a clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State." Burgess goes on to say, "It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil. The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate."(Burgess VII) This hypothetical type of clockwork orange nowhere appears in the novel because Alex is neither totally good nor totally evil but a mixture of both. This remains true even after Alex's conditioning by the Government. It is true that the Government tries to make Alex totally good through conditioning; however, since it is a coerced goodness, against Alex's will, total goodness is not achieved. Although Burgess considers one kind of clockwork orange inhuman, he does allow for another kind of ...

More Essays:

APA     MLA     Chicago
A Clockwork Orange By: Anthony Burgess. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 11:54, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/93512.html