I will go through each of the three parts of this book, and give an in-depth look at Alex, his views, thoughts and escapades. In the first part we will see Alex as a young rebellious youth with no concern for the affect he has on others. Then in part two I will introduce a young man without a name merely a number, who chooses to give up his free will and let the state reform him. Finally in part three there will be a man that has regained his freedom of choice and has grown compassionate to those around him. In each part I will talk about the religious side, focusing on original sin, and the forces that contend for governmental power that are labeled Pelagain and Augustinian. Another major point that I will touch upon in each part is the play on light and dark that represents good and evil. This is a theme that runs through the entirety of this novel.

In Part one the novel draws us to a young and rebellious youth named Alex. He doesn’t

Alex takes time to read it “The attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this I raise my sword-pen--” Alex doesn’t really fathom this, for he lives in a young physical world, not in the world of ideas (Mathews, 37).

As he is in the station he says, “I had become a thing.” In Alex’s words to the police there is a feeling that he is physically exhausted yet, he is still unwilling to surrender to the state, “and I thought to myself, Hell and blast you all, if all you bastards are on the side of the Good then I’m glad I belong to the other shop” ( ). In the prison we come across the play on white and black. “The white of the doctors, the black of the prison cell, the white of the technicians, the black of the chaplain, the white of the interrogations room, the black of Alex’s reentry into society- all carefully balanced inversions” (Petix, 130).

In Ludovico’s type of reform they sit him in a seat with his eyes prided open and force him to watch films of people committing violence. While he is watching these films they give him drugs to induce sickness and nausea (Stinson, 58). Alex’s choice to allow the state to perform this on his further shows how he is a product of his environment. “He is member of a generation that is not allowed to see, but forced to “viddy” and “glazz”, and in choosing the Ludovico technique he makes the innocent mistake of trusting the State (Mathews, 40). He becomes their machine, a clockwork orange, they rob him of his choice and even by mistake his love for classical music. Alex is so completely helpless that he is afraid of his own dreams and thus leads to him contemplating suicide. He is so distraught that they took away his one true pleasure he even says so, “I don’t mind about the ultra-violence and all that cal. I can put up with that. But it’s not fair on the music. It’s not fair I should feel ill which I’m slooshing lovely Ludwig van and G. F. Handel and others. All that shows you’re an evil lot of bastards and I shall never forgive you, sods”(Mathews, 41).

In part one there are many examples of the play on white and black implying good and evil. “It is most clearly seen as Esther Petix states in the final night raid by Alex and his gang. “So we came nice and quiet to this domy called the Manse, and there were globe lights outside on iron stalks…..and there was a light like dim on in the one of the rooms on the ground level, and we went to a nice patch of street dark…They [the droogs] nodded in the dark….then we waited again in darkness”’ (Petix, 129)

In Augustine’s view, human nature had been vitiated and corrupted as a result of Adam’s sin, and all of Adam’s descendants are in a “penal” condition wherein they are effectively prevented from choosing the path of righteousness by ignorance and the irresistible urging

Some topics in this essay:
Esther Petix, Alex Staja, Orange” Alex, Original Sin, Geoffrey Aggeler, Bog Good”, Clockwork Orange, Pelagain Augustinian, John Stinson, Georgie Dim, original sin, play light dark, it’s fair, alex takes, alex doesn’t, attempt impose, esther petix, choice choose, don’t allow, play white black, rebellious youth, allow self,