Analysis Of The Main Characters In A Clockwork Orange
Alex
Alex is the main protagonist of this novel who also acts as the first-person narrator. He is a fifteen years old boy who highly regards violence as a pure satisfaction. Due to such belief, Alex is deemed as a criminally insane protagonist. He has exhibited a very destructive and violent behaviour in the first half of the story. He claims that he never regrets and feels any guilt when committing such actions because doing bad things is just as natural as doing good as long as it is done using one’s free will.“Our pockets were full of deng, so there was no real need from the point of view of crasting any more pretty polly to tolchock some old veck in an alley and viddy him swim in his blood while we counted the takings and divided by four, nor to do the ultra-violent on some shivering starry grey-haired ptitsa in a shop and go smecking off with the till's guts. But, as they say, money isn’t everything.” As explained in the quotation, Alex states that money is nothing compared to the satisfaction he experiences when committing violence. His pocket is actually full of money when he steals some from the old man and lady. The excitement he feels when he hit the victims is the main point of his action.
Despite his love in doing brutal and violent things, Alex surprisingly develops his own aesthetics by listening to classical music. It is quite interesting to see the way he still has a capability to appreciate beautiful things that makes him humane even after committing evil deeds. However, it turns out that he regards music just the same as violence because both give him powerful sensation and whenever he listens to it, he keeps picturing violence in his head. As stated in the quotation below, Alex describes his feelings about music in a such poetic passage, proving that he really has a sense of aesthetics even though being criminally insane. “The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk around my bed. Then flute and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers.” However, the creation of this character actually have a deeper purpose than what the readers may see from the surface.
Anthony Burgess implies that Alex is a symbol of individual freedom in making choice and his character serves as a reaction against the cruelty of oppressive state. His character is more than just being a man who loves violence. Therefore, the readers are allowed to have various interpretations regarding his true nature, whether he just becomes a static protagonist or undergoes character development as he grows mature. “But first of all, brothers, there was this veshch of finding some devotchka or other who would be a mother to this son. I would have to start on that tomorrow, I kept thinking. That was something like new to do. That was something I would have to get started on, a new like chapter beginning. That’s what it’s going to be then, brothers, as I come to the like end of this tale. You have been everywhere with your little droog Alex, suffering with him, and you have viddied some of the most grahzny bratchnies old Bog ever made, all on to your old droog Alex. And all it was was that I was young. But now as I end this story, brothers, I am not young, not no longer, oh no. Alex like groweth up, oh yes.” As shown in the quotation above, Alex truly undergoes character development which is revealed near the end of the story. After going through so much hardships from being psychologically tortured, forcibly conditioned against his will, and turned into a mindless and passive man instead of being ‘good’ as the result of the behavioural intervention technique, Alex finally regains his free will and starts to change himself into more mature boy with wiser way of thinking. He naturally comes to realization that his life should be fixed as he grows old. What makes him even more interesting is the fact that he never regrets his past life as a criminally insane boy. He embraces the past as a part of his adolescent life which is a life stage where human is prone to act dumb and reckless.
F. Alexander
F. Alexander is an anti-totalitarian activist and also the author of A Clockwork Orange. He is portrayed as a father figure for Alex during the boy’s accidental visit to his house. While Alex always act on his own emotion, Alexander in the opposite is an intellectual activist whose belief and action depends on abstract ideas and theoretical approach to help humanity for a greater purpose. Therefore, Alexander never truly understands Alex’s suffering because he never gets in touch with the actual reality. He only regards Alex as a victim of modern age as stated in the quotation below.
"And what do you get out of all this, sir? I mean, besides the pretty polly you'll get for the article, as you call it? I mean, why are you so hot and strong against this Government, if I may make like so bold as to ask?" He gripped the edge of the table and said, gritting his zoobies, which were very cally and all stained with cancer-smoke: "Some of us have to fight. There are great traditions of liberty to defend. I am no partisan man. Where I see the infamy I seek to erase it. Party names mean nothing. The tradition of liberty means all. The common people will let it go, oh yes. They will sell liberty for a quieter life. That is why they must be prodded, prodded – "And here, brothers, he picked up a fork and stuck it two or three razzes into the wall, so that it got all bent. Then he threw it on the floor. Very kindly he said: "Eat well, poor boy, poor victim of the modern world."
F. Alexander, despite being an intellectual, cannot provide realistic solution to help Alex fixing his life. Much worse, he and all his fellow anti-totalitarian supporters try to exploit Alex’s status as a victim of modern world to gain public awareness about the cruelty of government and force him to join his activism. By acting this way, Alexander has exhibited a trait of hypocrisy because the way he forces Alex to join his cause contradicts his liberalist ideology to fight for freedom against the totalitarian state.
"Public meetings, mainly. To exhibit you at public meetings will be a tremendous help. And, of course, the newspaper angle is all tied up. A ruined life is the approach. We must inflame all hearts." He showed his thirty-odd zoobies, very white against his dark-coloured litso, he looking a malenky bitlike some foreigner. I said: "Nobody will tell me what I get out of all this. Tortured in jail, thrown out of my home by my own parents and their filthy overbearing lodger, beaten by old men and near-killed by the millicents – what is to become of me?" The Rubinstein veck came in with: "You will see, boy, that the Party will not be ungrateful. Oh, no. At the end of it all there will be some very acceptable little surprise for you. Just you wait and see."
"There's only one veshch I require," I creeched out, "and that's to be normal and healthy as I was in the starry days, having my malenky bit of fun with real droogs and not those who just call themselves that and are really more like traitors. Can you do that, eh? Can any veck restore me to what I was? That's what I want and that's what I want to know." Kashl kashl kashl, coughed this Z. Dolin. "A martyr to the cause of Liberty." he said. "You have your part to play and don't forget it. Meanwhile, we shall look after you." And he began to stroke my left rooker as if I was like an idiot, grinning in a bezoomny way.
The readers may find F. Alexander as the only good and saintlike character when he is introduced at first, but it is revealed that he is flawed as well. From the conversation above, it seems that the act of hypocrisy is at its finest when Alexander and his comrades choose Alex to become a sacrificial pawn to benefit their plan in overthrowing the government. He tries to sacrifice one person’s freedom to protect the liberty of the whole people which makes his character is nothing much different from those who have been involved in Alex’s suffering when being imprisoned.
P.R Deltoid
P.R Deltoid is an overworked civil servant who is ordered by the authority to watch out Alex’s behaviour. He seems genuinely care about Alex, as shown by the way he presents himself as a Post Corrective Adviserduring his visit to Alex’s house. He wants to remind Alex that his troublemaker trait can bring him to nowhere but miserable life. It is implied in the quotation below that he is not really interested in his own job as an employee due to the description of himself living in a sick community. "Just because the police have not picked you up lately doesn't, as you very well know, mean you've not been up to some nastiness. There was a bit of a fight last night, wasn't there? There was a bit of shuffling with nozhes and bike-chains and the like. One of a certain fat boy's friends was ambulanced off late from near the Power Plant and hospitalized, cut about very unpleasantly, yes. Your name was mentioned. The word has got through to me by the usual channels. Certain friends of yours were named also. There seems to have been a fair amount of assorted nastiness last night. Oh, nobody can prove anything about anybody, as usual. But I'm warning you, little Alex, being a good friend to you as always, the one man in this sick and sore community who wants to save you from yourself." However, Deltoid’s genuine concern towards Alex does not last long when he finds out the fact that Alex has committed rape. He has lost the capacity to hold his patience even longer towards Alex’s determination to stay evil. He spits to Alex’s face and decides to hand him to the authority without even feeling sympathetic anymore.
Minister of Interior
The minister of interior is a high-ranking government officer and the mastermind behind the recreational treatment (Ludovico Technique) experienced by Alex. The minister establishes this kind of brainwashing program to reduce the crime rate. However, it actually turns out that the minister has a hidden motive. As clearly implied in the quotation below, he is a sly politician who uses Machiavellian way to gain his ambition without putting any concerns to ethics."The point is,” this Minister of the Inferior was saying real gromky, "that it works." Furthermore, it is later revealed that the real intention of this brainwashing technique is to win the hearts of people in the next election. By reducing the number of juvenile crimes, the minister will become the only one whom public should be thankful for and such achievement will give him a higher chance to gain victory.
“Then I viddied there was a very boastful article about this Ludovico's Technique and how clever the Government was and all that cal. Then there was another picture of some veck I thought I knew, and it was this Minister of the Inferior or Interior. It seemed that he had been doing a bit of boasting, looking forward to a nice crime-free era in which there would be no more fear of cowardly attacks from young hooligans and perverts and burglars and all that cal.”
Prison Chaplain
Prison Chaplain serves as a character who gives Alex a preach about free will during his imprisonment. In front of Alex, he voices his rejection towards the Ludovico Technique, stating that such experiment can possibly remove Alex’s ability to use his own will in determining moral choice between good and evil. He is probably the only man who genuinely believes that Alex has a potential to be good without the intervention of external influence. His belief is based on Alex’s fondness towards classical music despite having a violent behaviour. “It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. It may be horrible to be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some ways better than a man who has the good imposed upon him? Deep and hard questions.” The quotation above reveals the fundamental theme in this novel. Through the chaplain’s belief on the importance of free will, the readers are convinced about the fact that he does not want Alex to be good by force. Due to his upbringing as a Christian, the chaplain emphasizes that God blesses human with the existence of free will because they are inherently capable to perform both good and evil deeds. Thus, he convinces Alex to determine his own choice. According to his belief, when Alex’s capability of making choice is stripped, he ceases to be a human.
In addition, it is also possible to assume that the chaplain is quite naive by nature. He somehow believes that Alex truly wants to be a good man by accepting the offer to become an object of Ludovico Technique. He fails to realize Alex’s true intention when accepting such offer which turns out to be getting out of the prison and continuing his destructive behaviour. Furthermore, the chaplain’s character is also flawed by the fact that in the beginning he only becomes so vocal about free will in front of Alex but never does the same thing when facing people from the state. The chaplain’s position as an employee of the state and his desire to be promoted higher than his current rank become the reason why he chooses to be silent in front of them."Choice," rumbled a rich deep goloss. I viddied it belonged to the prison chaplain. "He has no real choice, has he? Self-interest, fear of physical pain, drove him to that grotesque act of self-abasement. Its insincerity was clearly to be seen. He ceases to be a wrongdoer. He ceases also to be a creature capable of moral choice." "These are subtleties," like smiled Dr. Brodsky. "We are not concerned with motive, with the higher ethics. We are concerned only with cutting down crime.”
However, as revealed in the quotation above, the chaplain is back to his consciousness and bravely voices his opinion about the terrible effect of Ludovico Technique. He openly criticizes the state officials for the first time. After witnessing how Alex has become so passive due to his free will being taken by such experiment, the chaplain no longer cares about his position in the prison and finally shows his sincere concern towards Alex’s current state. He has regained his freedom in speaking up the truth without being afraid losing his job.
