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Author: Subject: Book Club: A Clockwork Orange

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  posted on 14/12/2004 at 09:15 PM
In my eyes there is a sense of the breakdown of the old-young divide demonstrated several times in this book, rather than the possible clashes of the social mores of the generations.
The violent boy of yesterday becomes the same violent man of today when Alex reaches manhood, only he is now struggling with the responsibility that adults of his own age are often avoiding, as seen when the old gang rivalries flair up leading to Alex's beating by the police but similar rivalries, but at a more 'adult' level lead to far greater ill. The party political struggles, which lead to the near suicide of our hero through systematic abuse of him n the name of one-upmanship on the crime issue, are simply a scaled up version of the gang wars of his younger days. On the one hand authoritarian against agressively non-authoritarian, on the other suave and 'polite' against uncouth, smelly and overweight.
On the other hand there is the alternative displayed with the familial bliss which leads our Alex into his own reflections of his arriving maturity.

Sorry if there are any foolish gaps in my argument, I cannot find my copy of the book.

 

____________________
Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum.

And the third angel sounded, and a troll army did descend upon the world.

 

Coward




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Registered: 12/8/2005
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  posted on 17/8/2005 at 02:52 AM
A lot of you who have read this book believe Alex is the hero of the story,but no he wasn't, guess again.


[Edited on 17/8/2005 by shadow_hunter]

 

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  posted on 18/8/2005 at 01:03 PM
quote:
A lot of you who have read this book believe Alex is the hero of the story,but no he wasn't, guess again.


We tend as a rule to be unimpressed with cryptic know-it-allism here. If you have an insight, feel free to share it. If you don't, I'd very much appreciate it if you didn't pretend as though you did.

 

____________________
"I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again."

 

Coward




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  posted on 19/8/2005 at 12:45 PM
i believe i gave you all enough time to think about the answer to my previous post. now it's the time for what you all have been waiting for. F. ALEXANDER, was the true hero of the story.for those of you who don't remember, he was the writer that was trying to stop the government that was in office from getting elected for another term
 

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  posted on 31/8/2005 at 05:55 PM
You seem to be mistaking the term 'hero', as regards someone to whom one must look up and show respect, with 'hero' as protagonist.

 

____________________
Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum.



And the third angel sounded, and a troll army did descend upon the world.

 

Fanatic




Posts: 580
Registered: 31/12/1969
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  posted on 7/9/2005 at 04:03 PM
It's my position that the character of F. Alexander was simply used as a counterpoint to the (confusingly named) protagonist Alex's presentation of thoughtless victimhood. F. Alexander would represent Sartre's doctrine ("I am condemned to be free") in stark contrast to Alex (the organic automaton, or "clockwork orange").

Actually, Alex himself might have been struggling all along with an attempt not to bear responsibility. When Alex suffers nausea, it is ostensibly because he is prevented from making any choices or decisions. On the contrary, Jean-Paul Sartre's famous nausea (from his 1943 book Being and Nothingness ) stems from the overwhelming responsibility that comes from absolute freedom of choice. From this perspective, F. Alexander could easily represent that facet of Alex that knows that despite an unhappy childhood, cultural oppression, race or class, or any other of the things we conveniently use to blame for the state of ourselves, he still does bear responsibility for his own actions.

We might be talking about the same guy here.

 

____________________
"I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again."

 

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  posted on 9/9/2005 at 09:46 PM
Upon further thought I do not see how F Alexander is any more of a heroic figure than Alex. All that can qualify him as 'hero' is his social responsibility because he does not feature enough to be called the major character, but this apparent worthiness is counterpointed by his vindictiveness and the self-serving nature of his desire to use Alex in order to further his own political drives. This is without even mentioning the vengeance he sought for the death of his wife, which he blames on Alex using the shakiest of pretexts; the fact that she died, or gave up on life, soon after the attack is merely his interpretation of the nature of her illness (if memory serves). He is no more worthy a hero than Alex, the Lodovico technicians, the chaplain or the social worker.
When Alex commits his crimes he often has a twisted, but coherent, rationale behind his choices, for example striking Dim for his interfering with Alex's enjoyment of the woman singing, or his disgust at the vulgarity of the drunk man leading to a violent beating. F Alexander, on the other hand, epitomises the hypocrisy of the liberal political view. That he seems to consider the brutal means to his ends justifiable speaks volumes. he finds the curtailment of choice an infringement on social liberty, however driving someone to attempt suicide is allowable because it serves his purposes.

 

____________________
Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum.





And the third angel sounded, and a troll army did descend upon the world.

 

Fanatic




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Registered: 31/12/1969
Status: Offline

  posted on 9/9/2005 at 11:02 PM
@W0rmW00d

I really don't think that F.Alexander swallows the idea that choice has been curtailed, which is why I compared him to Sarte (although he would be a manipulative, self-serving version of Sartre).

For those unfamiliar with the doctrine underlying the statement "I am condemned to be free" (and are also reading this... which narrows my audience to around three of you), I'll try to sum up. Sartre's basic argument is that the one thing we can never be free from is the freedom to choose; and we have all in our younger days played the game about how refusing to choose is a choice in itself. The "nausea" that Sartre talks about stems from being overwhelmed with true responsibility of any and all potential choices. One shouldn't throw oneself off a cliff or blow one's brains out, but one knows that they could (and, by implication, might ) do so at any moment. This basic knowledge (that freedom exists not in the here and now... as all our actions are directed towards result which are not now , and therefore do not really exist per se and is therefore inescapable for us) is unbearable for most people. The majority deny their own responsibility, but the few who are able to face up to these facts are overcome with "nausea" and sickness at the scope of it. Sartre's doctrine takes on an interesting twist in the works of psychoanalyst Erich Fromm (specifically, Fromm's 1941 classic Escape from Freedom) .

I think F. Alexander was banking on this. He realised not only that the Ludovico technique could not possibly cause one to cease being free (since freedom does not exist in the present, it can not be escaped), but also that Alex would not be able (as most people aren't) to bear that freedom. He was banking upon Alex's taking his own life when he realised that despite what the government had done, he was only playing along with them about how effective it was. If Alex were truly made into a "clockwork orange" (or had been one all along), then he could not possibly make the decision to become suicidal over what had been done to him, and F. Alexander must have known that perfectly well.

The game was beneficial even to Alex, until it meant that he must endure beatings rather than admit to himself that he still could make his own decisions. That is when he became sick, overwhelmed and suicidal. As we know, though, Alex did not kill himself (rather, he chose not to kill himself); instead he chose to continue playing the game that he was robbed of his ability to choose.

F. Alexander was ostensibly a vengeful creep with an axe to grind against the government and would permit and even facilitate all of this, but as literary creations in a single work are the product of a single mind, I think this character is used to demonstrate Alex's (possibly unconscious) knowledge that, try as he might, he was only playing the role of a pawn. And he had made the decision to do so himself.

 

____________________
"I believe that woman is planning to shoot me again."

 

Extreme Fanatic




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Registered: 31/12/1969
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  posted on 10/9/2005 at 05:43 AM
You know, these discussions are starting to get kind of interesting, even to someone who has not read the book. I think I just may go out and buy a copy myself, just so I can justify joining in. I need a good mind-stretch.

 

____________________
"You can tell by the scars on my arms and the cracks in my hips and the dents in my car and the blisters on my lips that I'm not the carefullest of girls." - Dresden Dolls, "Girl Anachronism"

 
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