Ariana+C

=Ariana C's 9th Grade Book Review=

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!
(A Clockwork Orange) Anthony Burgess' book //A Clockwork Orange// is scary. Scarier then any other dystopian period book I've gathered the courage to read, like "Brave New World" or "1984". To start off, the term "a clockwork orange" means someone who has self restrained his own free will. This title is highly appropriate for the books main character, Alex, because he is actually mentally excited by violence, and must go on until there is no more violence to be had in the situation, such as a dog salivates when he's hungry and sees a person he knows can feed him. Alex, the clever and quick-witted leader of his gang "the droogs" parade the streets, raping and/or killing everything in sight. In this time, drugged milk is the new cocaine, such as the halucinagenic "Soma" in //Brave New World//. The Droogs hang out at milk bars and speak in Russian Slang, which occurs about 40 times a page. A bunch of shit goes down and Alex in convicted for the murder. After two years of prison life, Alex cleverly pretended to have acquired an infatuation with religion in order to read the descriptive violence in the bible. He feigns his interest so well, he gets a job as the assistant to the reverend guy of the prison. But this is when Alex is chosen to be but under "the Ludovico Technique". When thinking about this experiment, I always think of the experiment they did on dogs. Whenever a bell rang, the same group of dogs would be fed. Soon the group of dogs began to salivate at the sound of a bell. This is what the prison dudes did to Alex, but in reverse, forcing him to take drugs making him sick while watching violent movies. The reverend of the prison, however, warned the scientists against this, saying that "Moral choice is necessary to humanity". Now Alex is out in the world again, completely "healed" and a whole bunch of bad crap happens to him inflicted by the people he once victimized. He is now unable to stop anyone from hurting him, because of his now natural reactions. But soon, he is locked into a room and tortured. After attempting to end his own life by jumping out of a window, Alex wakes in a hospital and learns the government does not want to get bad press from the Ludovico Treatment, and has reversed the treatment. In order to keep Alex quiet, he is given a great job. Of course he is now excited about returning to his life of ultra-violence. He now has a new gang of "droogs" to beat people up and stuff. But Alex is no longer excited by the violence, and soon a random meeting with one of Alex's ex-droogs who now has a children makes Alex consider raising a family of his own. Though it could be just as destructive as he.



OOKAAY totally forgot I was supposed to write what I thought
//A Clockwork Orange// is more psychological than dystopian (dystopian meaning pessimistic view of the future). It questions and plays with our ability to choose between good and bad, as the government does with Alex. Alex, himself, was an unlikely protagonist to the average non-psychopath. As I desperately plead with Alex to let one girl go unraped, he mercilessly played with their lives as if he were a mean God with a magnifying glass. As I kept reading though, I had to ask myself whether this man was the hero or the villain.