It may not be nice to be good

I find the scene before Alex goes to the Ludovico's technique, where he talks to the prison charlie interesting. I think it is here that Burgess's main message in the book is stated most clearly. The main message, or what I gather anyways, is that a good act is only good if it is chosen. What he is implying by this message is that liberty is paramount, even if evil is committed because of it. This is all well and good, until one considers that in this world, there are many actors. In this world, you have to compromise things that you want in order to live. In this novel, I think Burgess does not consider the plight of those who suffer by Alex's hand. he also neglects to confront the fact that an act is only bad if the thing acted upon is a being. For example, If I burn my favorite book, that is not bad because I have not harmed anyone (except myself), in the process of doing it. Anyways, the Prison Charlie does not realize that in a way, they have already forced Alex down a path, at least for the most part. Prison has two purposes, one I agree with it, and one I do not. The first is to reform people so they do not pose a danger to those around them. The second is vengeance. Anyways, my point is that Alex's freedom has already been sacrificed for the majority. He has already been forced to not do evil. If one objects to this and says, oh but we should not limit the individual in order to safeguard society. Well, society is actually full of many individuals, and it would not be far to give some special allowances to be evil in order to give them the choice between good and evil.

Chapter 21

Burgess wrote A Clockwork Orange in three parts, each with seven chapters.  When the book first came out in the US, however, the last chapter was cut until a later edition was published.  The version we read included the last chapter, and I can't decide which one would have been a better ending.  The last chapter was interesting, but it almost gave too much closure.  Alex has his mind and compulsions back, he has new friends, and  he's thinking of his future; it landed with a thunk right back where it started.  However, it added to the cyclical nature of the book, and it developed Alex a little more. The end of the second to last chapter is more open, and I really liked the last paragraph.  I felt like it had more impact than the last chapter did.  I like the idea of ending with "I was cured all right."  There is something liberating to the reader, and, even though you know Alex is just going to go be violent again, the reader isn’t forced to encounter that fact without the last chapter, although that might be part of Burgess’s point.  It’s hopeful and almost cheerful.  The last chapter might work better as an epilogue, so it’s still there, but it doesn’t feel as much part of the story.  Even as it is, it seems a little tacked on.  I like the ending of the 20th chapter, but I wouldn’t want to change any meaning that Burgess wanted with the 21st.  The book was also written as three parts of seven chapters each, and I wouldn’t want to mess up the evenness of that either.  It would be better if the changes in the last part of the book were less abrupt; everything felt really sudden, whereas the beginning of the book felt a lot more smooth and well-paced.  Burgess said in his introduction that the last chapter is for Alex to grow up, and it shows that violence is juvenile, but I didn’t find that it showed that very well, and the concept seems too optimistic, especially given the rest of the book.

Nadsat as an indicator of a lack of empathy

I found Anthony Burgess’s references to World War II very off-putting in this book.  As part of the Ludovic treatment, Alex sees films from WWII featuring both German and Japanese soldiers.  However, it isn’t clear that Alex really understands what he’s seeing. He refers to it by the name “the 1939-45 War,” so he clearly knows the history to some degree (105). Yet later he refers to a swastika as “that like crooked cross that all the malchicks at school like to draw” (113). He also uses the words “Nazi” and “Germans,” which indicates the degree of specificity of his understanding (113). Yet, it feels as though he lacks a deeper emotional understanding or any sort of empathy related to the situation. Even while watching atrocities of the Holocaust with “Germans prodding like beseeching and weeping Jews – vecks and cheenas and malchicks and devotchkas – into mestos where they would snuff it of poison gas,” Alex has to feign an emotional response (119). He has to force himself to cry, and his experience of what he is watching is very distant. In this case, and somewhat throughout the book, his nadsat and casual language acts as a distancing mechanism separating him from the darkness and reality of what he describes.  The insertion of “like” in this sentence adds uncertainty, and though it is false uncertainty it still separates Alex in some way from what he is saying.  Furthermore, his many words “vecks,” “cheenas,” “malchicks,” and “devotchkas” that replace “men,” “women,” “boys,” and “girls” function as a dehumanizing step that removes the inhumanity from violence.  It might be grave to hit a man, but is it as bad to tolchock a veck? If these Jewish people are forced into rooms where they will die, that sounds a little harsher than them being “prodded” and “snuff[ing] it.” Alex’s language reveals his callousness, and perhaps explains or merely illustrates how he and his droogs can live with their own violence and crime.

First Impression

I've noticed that Burgess uses repetition in a lot of things.  He has to repeat a lot of the words he uses in order to make their meanings more clear, but he also repeats several phrases, such as "what's it going to be then, eh?"  For the first while, the author slips the reader into Alex's routine, where they beat some people and rape some people, and it all seems very practiced.  They go out more than once in the beginning of the book, and each time is similar to the first in execution.  The repetition creates an almost circular feeling to the story which heightens the sense of being in Alex's mind.  Alex gets hung up on a few things to the point of being obsessed.  He loves the music he listens to, and he also loves the way the blood spills out of people and how violence makes him feel.  Because of the emotions triggered by his activities, he does them a lot, and he doesn't seem to need anything else in his life.  Alex really likes routine, and he also likes to know that he is in control of his life.  I was particularly struck by how eager Alex is to assert his authority over his droogs.  He is always thinking about how he is the leader and how he can show the others that he is in charge.  He is the first one to rape girls, the others only attack after he does, and he tells the others what to do.  The sense of routine in the book creates an interesting tension for the reader.  What Alex does is shocking, but Alex is comfortable.  For a couple of the scenes, I had to go back and read them again once I realized what was going on because they were described in such a manner-of-fact way that I didn't fully understand what happened until it was almost done.

First look

I thought one of the most striking scenes occurred on pages 13-14, where Alex and his droogs encounter and abuse a "pyahnitsa" (drunkard). The man is very drunk, and he sings a song with the ambiguous lyrics "And I will go back to my darling, my darling, / When you, my darling, are gone," and then in the next breath states "Go on, do me in, you bastard cowards, I don't want to live anyway, not in a stinking world like this one" (13).
The stark contrast between these lines is obvious. In his song, the man uses the word "darling," which is both affectionate and classy, something an old movie star would say. The song's structure is grammatically sound, with correct comma usage for the direct address of "my darling," and the more formal "I will" compared to a contracted "I'll" or "I'mma." In his own speech, the man is less coherent and much less proper in his use of language. He contracts "don't" instead of using "do not" and uses the informal euphemism "do me in" as well as the less than polite "bastard cowards" and "stinking." Burgess even uses multiple comma splices to express the rhythm and perhaps the uneducated or desperate nature of the man and his statement.
Yet the juxtaposition of these two speeches also reveals inherent similarities. Both have a sense of apathy in their tone, with the song revealing it through an apparent non-reaction to the addressee being "gone," not if but "when." The man's speech is even more clearly apathetic, with a statement that he wouldn't mind being killed by the droogs. This apathy, doubled in impact, is fascinating to consider, especially in the context that much later in the book Alex hears the same song lines repeated again.