The Four Droogs

The Four Droogs

An Analysis of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange, a science fiction novel, written by Anthony Burgess in 1962, was later made into a film directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1971. The crime/science fiction film takes place in a dystopian future in England where the main character Alex, goes on crime sprees around the city with his three “droogs.” In the book and in the movie, the language can be hard to follow because Alex and his three friends who he calls his “droogs,” have their own slang called Nadsat. In the iconic image I chose from the film, Alex and his three droogs are about to walk past a drunk homeless man who is lying on the sidewalk. In the film, while the camera shows them walking towards the homeless man, Alex is narrating, saying how much he hates drunk people. After the drunk homeless man tells Alex and his droogs why he hates the world so much, they then beat him with the canes they always carry around. Stanley Kubrick did a great job, setting the scene to show the audience how violent Alex and his droogs are, just by this one iconic image.

The most obvious element in the photo is the shadows. The image is so

Alex and his droogs are walking into some sort of tunnel where the homeless man is lying. The walls closing up show how all four men are closing up to gang up on the homeless man who is helpless. Alex, the leader of the group, is the second one down the line when they are walking towards the man. Each of them has a different pose, which shows their power in the group. Alex has his cane behind his neck witch his arm wrapped around it showing he is the leader of the group who makes the first hit on the homeless man. You can see how the others follow Alex because right after he takes the first hit at the homeless man, all three droogs join in. In the image, the other three droogs are walking with their arms down, showing that they are the