Is Britain able to allow us to be free , truly, a Utopia would be deemed as impossible at this time we are always watched by the onlooking eye we are surrounded by tools of propaganda, propaganda tools just like Alex, Alex is a propaganda tool of a dystopian totalitarian state, within the story he became non-human, a tool in society with the means of propaganda to help the highest paying bidder achieve their goals, although I feel by the end of the book he is fully aware of his power, or the power given to him by the government which up until he attempted suicide he was unaware.
Alex is Clockwork orange but not throughout the book, yes admittedly what he does do at the beginning is deemed as wrong and against all moral restraints set by civilized society, Clockwork Orange;
‘Clock work orange – by definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil. If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange—meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice, but is in fact only a clockwork toy wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State.’ (Burgess)
He does partake in bad/evil but there is also a goodness within him which is not quiet obvious to see, his choices define him, choices. once he goes to prison he becomes interested in god and the bible but is soon experimented on, forced into good choices, which gives him no choice, a product of a Dystopian state with a Totalitarian Government. He cannot make the choices he wants to make, he isn’t give the chance to change because he is constrained to do so, the shackles of prison are never let go. The opposing regime use his trigger,Beethoven against him, to enable a propaganda, he was now a robot;
‘Robot- a person who acts and responds in a mechanical, routine manner; automaton.’
Upon a trigger he can be controlled, stopped, this forces him to attempt suicide. once healed the Government use him as a tool of there own and so on it goes until the book shows his full recovery at the end by giving him two paths to take one back to his old habits one to a new life. Though the below passage from the book show he looks to fine a mother to his son, maybe a moment of change and coming of age.
‘And nor would he be able to stop his own son, brothers. And so it would itty on to like the end of the world, round and round and round, like some bolshy gigantic like chelloveck, like old Bog Himself (by courtesy of Korova Milkbar) turning and turning and turning a vonny grahzny orange in his gigantic rookers.’
A Clockwork Orange has given me a insight to what a Dystiopia could look like and what we read in this novel has much resemblance to what is happening today, although seen as a separate dimension I can almost place myself in this world when reading the news and/or walking at night (?) Something I must pursue through my performance work.
