A Clockwork Orange - Chapters 8-12 Discussion
- LoveHatesYou
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A Clockwork Orange - Chapters 8-12 Discussion
I look forward to hearing from you guys!
- knightss
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How many people are reading with us?
lets find out where everyone is in the book and restart our conversations and debates.
Please post here if you are going to read with us. maybe we should hold off on this weeks topic to allow everyone to catch up to where we are. if you want to join but havn't started reading yet don't worry. go get the book, we arn't that far in and i'm sure emily wouldn't mind waiting if it means more people will join our conversation.
- LoveHatesYou
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Cheers,
Jupiter
- jsavage
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- jsavage
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here alex is in jail (which he views as a zoo full of animals) and only wants his gain his freedom. he finds an opportunity from the chaplain to use his connections to better his chances of getting out. then along comes the new "treatment" option. the chaplain says "goodness comes from within. goodness is something chosen, when a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man." <and becomes a clockwork orange?> again, the idea of free will comes up. alex is still very violent in prison and doesn't seem to have any desire to change but he wants to be free. but, what he doesn't realize is that while the treatment may give his body freedom (from a jail cell) his mind/freewill will be compromised.
a new theme i found emerging is the government's need for a "treatment" option. the government being overwhelmed with the status of crime in society and the overfilled jailhouses is willing to dabble in risky psychological experiements on criminals. their only goal is to lessen the burden on prisons.
some interesting quotes
"each man kills the things he loves, as the poet-prisoner said. here's the punishment element, perhaps. the governor ought to be pleased" (PG 114)- this quote refers to the use of ludwig van in the violent movies that cause alex such anguish. here they are punishing him by taking away something he enjoys that is normally socially acceptable (versus the violence that is not).
"delimination is always difficult. the world is one, life is one. the sweetest and most heavenly of activites partake in some measure of violence - the act of love for instance; music for instance. you must take your chance boy" (PG115) - again, they are not only curing his violent behavior. are they also taking away Alex's ability to enjoy music/love?
alex (post treatment) - "violence is wrong because it's against like society" here's a new theme - Compromise. alex is giving in to social norms (partially due to the treatment), but i have to ask -is everything that goes against or challenges social norms wrong!? i don't think so.
alex also compromised in going through with the treatment. at several times throughout the treatment, he thinks of refusing (while he still had the option to choose) but decides to stick it out, knowing it's his only chance to get out of jail.
Dr Broadsky - "we are not concerned with motive, with higher ethics. we are only concerned with cutting down crime." (PG126)
i believe there are fallacies on the part of the government as well as alex. in a desperate attempt to ease the burden on prisons, the government is overreacting with an unconventional treatment method and actually experimenting on humans with no concern for the effect it has on any human who endures it. alex is also desperate to gain freedom from prison. he committed a vulgar and brutal crime, but doesn't feel he needs to be in prison to serve his sentence. they both are compromising/bargaining something.
and finally another quote from alex "they weakened me down, brothers, to a like shadow of what i had been in the old free days" (PG119)
- LoveHatesYou
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"alex (post treatment) - "violence is wrong because it's against like society" here's a new theme - Compromise. alex is giving in to social norms (partially due to the treatment), but i have to ask -is everything that goes against or challenges social norms wrong!? i don't think so. "
and
"Dr Broadsky - "we are not concerned with motive, with higher ethics. we are only concerned with cutting down crime." (PG126) "
I think you nailed some of the central themes. Those are the problems that nag the reader. Is it right? I don't think so, but in the novel, society seems to feel it had no choice.
- LoveHatesYou
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"alex (post treatment) - "violence is wrong because it's against like society" here's a new theme - Compromise. alex is giving in to social norms (partially due to the treatment), but i have to ask -is everything that goes against or challenges social norms wrong!? i don't think so. "
and
"Dr Broadsky - "we are not concerned with motive, with higher ethics. we are only concerned with cutting down crime." (PG126) "
I think you nailed some of the central themes. Those are the problems that nag the reader. Is it right? I don't think so, but in the novel, society seems to feel it had no choice.
- knightss
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That government was looking for a "treatment" because of overcrowding. we are still dealing with that problem today in our prison systems. not to mention the fact to keep prisons running costs a hell of a lot of money that comes out of our tax dollars. Emily should know this pretty well... in Cali they plan to shorten many inmates prison sentences due to overcrowding.jsavage wrote:
a new theme i found emerging is the government's need for a "treatment" option. the government being overwhelmed with the status of crime in society and the overfilled jailhouses is willing to dabble in risky psychological experiements on criminals. their only goal is to lessen the burden on prisons.
"Our prison system is a powder keg. It poses a danger to the prisoners, a danger to the officers? and a danger to the well-being of the public if?as the federal courts have threatened?we are forced to release prisoners because of overcrowding."
http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/press-release/5089/
The fact that alex and the other prisoners gang up on one of the inmates was due to the fact of overcrowding. If i remember correctly the man was pleasing himself while in bed next to alex? now maybe that wouldn't call for them beating him up but i think i'd be a little angry too if i were in that situation. I know that he dies, but i don't think alex planned to kill him... i also don't think it bothered him much that he did kill him.
- jsavage
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I agree with you, that this Ludovico Technique is not the answer. Criminals cannot and should not be reformed by means of pavlovian conditioning. But I also do not believe that the current prison system encourages rehabilitation either. (I know, I'm arguing with myself here!) I feel that there are societal and economic circumstances that influence or possibly cause criminal acts to occur. In the beginning of the book when the criminals were rampant, it seemed that Alex and his droogs were a bit jealous or at least annoyed by the "starry" people with nice homes. This may partly explain their need to steal, but it doesn't explain the excessive violence.Those are the problems that nag the reader. Is it right? I don't think so, but in the novel, society seems to feel it had no choice.
So, criminal behavior needs to be addressed, but institutionalizing criminals only removes them from the rest of society until their sentence is served. But does spending time in a prison make you less of a criminal? If anything I believe it makes people more angry and ambivalent.
Unforunately, this is very similar to the way society treats people with mental illness and even the elderly. Sweeping problems under a rug doesn't "cure" them. It just lessens the burden on society (this sounds familiar..). I don't have the answer, but someone should re-invent the wheel here! Any ideas..?
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