Burgess’s Thesis on Free Will in A Clockwork Orange

Burgess’s thesis in A Clockwork Orange is by no means subtle. Through his use of extreme circumstances and harsh violence set against the backdrop of a dirty, industrial city we find that free will never is. The environment in which Alex was raised directly affected his ability to make good choices. As he watched his parents subsist on government jobs and measly, sparse surroundings, he fought back against the thumb that crushed them. But by doing so, he became that very thumb.

The government in place in this novel was one of totalitarianism – a form of communism. Alex tells us that the “…law for everybody not a child nor with child nor ill” was to go to work. You can tell by the effort it took (all the sighing, the slow movements) that his mother wasn’t excited by the prospect of working – she just did.

As the people operated the machinery of government, the corrupt politicians/ministers oversaw it. While the people sighed and sauntered, these privileged few ran the show. By that point, most people had been beaten into submission and merely accepted their fate; not Alex however. Alex used these very people as his role models (though he never missed an opportunity to mock them – “Minister of the Interior or Inferior”).

He dressed like them and learned from them that to have power, you must seize it and that only the strong will survive. The point here is that free will when encased in oppression isn’t free. Alex’s mother didn’t choose to go or not to go to work based on her emotions or thought processes; she just did.

Kant would argue Burgess by claiming that oppressing the free will of all for the benefit of ‘most’ is ethical. However, under the dystopia that Burgess created, no man is truly free and so there isn’t a benefit of ‘most’ to be had. ‘Most’ people were scared, but law-abiding. This could not be said for Alex, his droogs and others of his generation hellbent on seizing control.

By including chapter twenty-one, I believe Burgess is trying to show that the experiences foisted on Alex ultimately lead to his desire for change – for conformity rather than control. I don’t know that this change is anything more than a reaction to his treatment and reinstatement, i.e., I am left to wonder if it is legitimate. I want to be an optimist and say that ultimately, at some point, Alex could institute the changes shown in the last chapter, but my experiences have lead me to doubt and question that very thing.