urgess Clockwork Orange is a novel by Anthony Burgess, an English writer and composer, published during the 1960’s that has been met with a lot of criticism and stirred up a lot of controversy, which makes it a particularly interesting novel to review. The book is well known for its extremely descriptive accounts of violence and viciousness. Which leads us to question why would this novel ever be considered a masterpiece? It is particularly that mixture of violence and beauty that is found in the book that makes it such. The book is narrated by the main protagonist Alex, in a futuristic setting where the government ruling over the state is an oppressive and tyrannical government. Alex is the leader of a gang who spends his time fighting and, as horrifying as it is, raping people. As …show more content…
The 15 year old at the time could not cope with the different patterns and lifestyle changes that prison life introduced but eventually learned to adapt. He became strangely entranced with the bible which, in his mind, gave him his needed dose of violence, drinking and erotica. Alex’s life begins to change after he fights and kills his cellmate. The government decide to conduct an experiment in which they brainwash Alex in order to turn him into a peaceful human being. The process involved the protagonist being injected with a chemical that would make him vomit and get headaches, all the while being strapped to a chair and made to watch horrible and gruesome violent scenes. After 2 weeks, he started associating the violence with nausea and painful headaches, just like Pavlov’s dogs associated the bell ringing with food and started to salivate at the mere ring of the bell. Alex was in a sense “cured” of his violent streaks. The government considered this rehabilitation a success and planned to implement it state wide. After Alex’s release his victims sought to take revenge for all the crimes he committed against them and as he tried