A Clockwork Orange Violence Essay

The Significance of Violence in A Clockwork Orange

Written in at the beginning of the 20th century, the Futurist Manifesto marked the entrance of humankind into a new era – an era of technology, speed, movement, youth and violence. The Futurist Manifesto rejected past values, especially in art: “art, in fact, can be nothing but violence, cruelty and injustice” (Marinetti, The Futurist Manifesto). In the 20th century what seems to be a true human nature shows – its aggression, need for destruction, need for speed, and need for changing the moral values which the whole humankind stands upon. Even though it was written at the beginning of the century, later events of the same century will make all these suspicions real (namely the World Wars). As a consequence of this new rearranging of the world, many of the authors wrote in a pessimistic tone. Seeing that the world took an aggressive turn, Anthony Burgess’ A

Alex’s violence is a sign of a revolt. However, Alex is just one of the examples of individuals who do not yet understand what they are revolting against. He believes that violence is a way of expressing himself freely and a sign of his freedom. When the government takes that from him, he loses his sense of self. Even though droogs do despicable things in the novel, government’s violence is much more serious problem than the gang’s: government takes Alex’s freedom of choice, which is basically a crime against humanity. This is what the futurists were against. The Futurist Movement was against following the old rules that in the modern society worked no more. They chose basic human instinct – aggression – as a way of expression. As a consequence, the old ways of ‘controlling’ a deviant behavior seemed archaic. That is why the government in the novel could only respond to violence with violence, since they have no solution for the newly established ways of