Calculated Captivity

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of the reader, Burgess reveals the outcome in a way that causes a sense of relief and is pleased to see Alex back to ‘normal’.
It is fascinating to consider that Burgess may have written A Clockwork Orange as a prophetic view of warning to future societies. He was a peaceful person who didn’t want the stark consequences of the fictional Alex to become a grim reality. Through the first of three parts in the novel Burgess displays Alex as the embodiment of all that society would like to ignore or eliminate - but can’t. This first person narrative is told by Alex a youth of fifteen, who spends his nights with his “droogs”, terrorizing the public with their bits of “ultra violence” and engaging in the old “in-out in-out”. He beats the elderly, fights other gangs with his “britva”, robs stores, breaks into houses, rapes young girls, drinks milk laced with drugs (moloko) and is eventually convicted of murder. Burgess portrays the immature Alex, as a mixture of good and evil possibilities ...

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to transmit any fears or worries of a corrupt society directly onto Alex.
First impressions are not entirely difficult for an author to create, but by the second part in the novel Burgess attempts to change that impression. He draws the reader emotionally closer to Alex. As the second section begins Alex pleads for the readers sympathy when he says “…and this is the real weepy and tragic part of the story beginning, my brothers and only friends, in Staja (state jail that is) Number 84F” (61). Burgess implies that the reader should feel sorry for Alex because he has lost all freedom, and also feel lucky to be held in a position of friendship with this disturbing character. At the ...

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