Lit Circle, deuxieme partie

Section A

This book is incredibly fascinating and haunting, as it not only explores the hidden underbelly of crime that our modern youth is partaking in, but it also glances into the psychology of pathological "evil". It follows an extraordinarily atypical teenage boy, Alex, and his brutally violent and sexually exploitive escapades, and chronicle how his criminal tendencies are an unremovable part of his psyche. Despite very mentally manipulative techniques designed to dislodge all ideas of destructive activity from his brain, Alex is still inclined towards rape and brutality, as well as his other favorite form of violence, virtuoso classical music.
Themes throughout the book include:

• The concept of true criminality- Are humans born with an unremovable sense of violence that is simply buried under society's teachings?
• Is removing criminal tendencies from people though mind-altering techniques ethical? Should the human brain be tampered with in order to eradicate dangerous people from society?
• The line between music and  pure violence
• Is someone who is merely altered to fit into society's norms worth anything as a person?

Section B

Literal Question: Why did Alex return to having a gang after being betrayed in the past?

Bigger Question: Why did Burgess have Alex gradually regain and then lose his passion for violence naturally? Was this intentional to prove a point about human character? If so, what does it prove?

Section C

pg 115: "Delimitation is always difficult. The world is one, life is one. The sweetest and most heavenly of activities partake in some measure of violence- the act of love, for instance; music, for instance."
This quote is very interesting as it probes into the idea that life cannot easily be dividied into good and evil- that many things that are considered to be holy, such as music, can be interpreted in terms of violence.

Literature Circle Response

Since I am quite familiar with the general plot structure of the book "A Clockwork Orange", I cannot make a truly speculative prediction in terms of the direction that the book is taking. I know that Alex will proceed to be mentally proccesed through the Ludivco Technique in attempt to be converted into a model citizen.

When reading this book, I can only really imagine the world presented in terms of screenshots from the movie. I have not actually seen the movie, but I have seen stills from it, and therefore it has been rather difficult to formulate my own ideas of what Alex and his droogs actually look like. However, I do not have any idea of what Stanley Kubrick's vision of Alex's environment looks like, so that aspect has been left to my imagination. I envision Alex's world as one completely corrupted by material wants and greed, underscored by a rampant delinquent juvenile population. His world is overrun by selfish lawmakers and easily bribed policemen, and innocence is lost at a very early age. In this world, 10 year olds follow charming strangers into drunkeness and then their bedrooms, and laugh as they are drugged. The streets are incredibly unsafe, and schools for the negligent are filled to the brink.

This book is a very cynical take on a dystopian society, and in a twisted way seems to attempt to prove that human nature is the reason why utopia is never possible. Also, ironically, the glamorization of violence in this book reminds me of how the book itself is glamorized, and how Alex DeLarge is still a popular symbol in teen culture.

The only difficulty I had in reading this book was in deciphering the language of Nasdat, which is a dialect that Alex and his droogs use consistently, intermingling with regular English.

I solved this problem by researching the language and discovering multiple sites that serve as dictionaries. By seeing other peoples' translations of the dialect, reading the text became increasingly easier.