A Developmental Study of Alex in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange

Synopsis of A Clockwork Orange

In A Clockwork Orange, the main character is that of a mildly

young
child of 15 who, along with his fellow friends, or "Droogs", partake in
evenings
of Ultra-Violence. Ultra Violence consists of random beatings, theft,
destruction, and rape. The main character, Alex, is the self-proclaimed
leader
of the pack, and makes judgment on their actions pending on his mood.
His Droogs
eventually find themselves under his direct rule, following his every
word, and
decide to challenge his authority.
The three Droogs (Dim, Georgie, and Pete) join Alex on his romp
to a
local "fat farm" to pillage the goods therein. Inside, Alex stumbles
upon the
owner of the resort, and after a length scuffle with her, ends up
giving her a
blow to the head with a rather large, ceramic replica of an erect
penis. When he
leaves the outer gates of the complex, Dim surprises him by smacking a
milk
bottle against his face. His counterparts escape while little Alex is
left
bleeding and blinded to deal with the police.
Upon interrogation of Alex, he discovers that the blow he
delivered to
the young lady was a fatal one. He is charged with first-degree murder
and
sentenced to 14 years in prison. While there, he befriends the resident
minister
and becomes a helper to his service. The minister, Alex soon discovers,
is a
part in a new form of treatment that is trying to be implemented
prisons to
help "cure" inmates from committing acts of violence. Through luck and
discussion with the higher officials in the prison, Alex is chose to be
a guinea
pig for the experiment, and is sent to become "inoculated from
violence".
The treatment consisted of Alex being strapped down to a chair
in front
of a cinema screen, having electrodes attached to his head, and being
kept
focused by small pairs of clamps used to disable his ability to blink.
This,
along with the injection of an experimental serum, is monitored whilst
he views
movies of UltraViolence. The serum leaves him vulnerable to his
surroundings,
which are destructive films, and induces such feelings of helplessness,
fear,
and near-death paralysis, similar to that of drowning. Alex soon
associates this
feeling of distraught with the violence, and with the background music
being
played throughout the entire ordeal: Beethoven, Alex's main love. The
final
result is that whenever Alex is confronted with either violent acts of
any kind,
or the sweet strings of Ludwig Van, he is soon on his knees in pain and
agony.
When he is released, his parents abandon him. He meets up with a
few
members of his old gang that have turned into crooked cops, and with
their
newfound power and long-lasting loathe of Alex, they beat him much and
leave him
for dead, this of which brought on the sickness that he was conditioned
for.
Stumbling in the dark for help, he comes across a polite looking
residence that
looked vaguely familiar. Eventually, Alex realizes that he is in the
presence of
a former victim of his, but believes that the owner would not recognize
him.
To his dismay, the author did recognize him after hearing Alex
sing a
song in a very similar fashion to the way his attackers did 2 years
ago. After
slipping a sedative into Alex's wine, Alex wakes up to find himself in
a locked
room on the second floor of an apartment high-rise. Through the
floorboards,
Alex starts to hear the hateful sounds of Beethoven, and goes into his
sickness
fits. No exits, No escapes. His only way out is to jump out of the
closed window
and end his life. He does just that.
Alex wakes in a hospital. The author was jailed for attempted
murder,
and the government officials that started the program were ridiculed and
harassed out of their positions. Alex finds himself broken and hurt,
but his
thoughts are that of the Ultra-Violence. Alex was cured and ready to
live again.

Aspects of Psychology

In A Clockwork Orange, Alex is portrayed as two different people

living
within the same body. As a mischievous child raping the world, he as
seen as
filth. His actions and blatant disrespect towards society are
categorized under
that of the common street bum. However, when he is away from his
evening attire,
he is that of suave. His clothing, his words, his overall attitude. The
distinction between the two is triggered by the gentle sounds of Ludwig
Van
Beethoven.
The psychology of Alex would be that of a serial killer. He is a
classic
example of Darwin's, Skinner's, Freud's, Erikson's, and Adler's major
theories.
Alex is not truly close to any other person that he comes in
contact
with in the film. He is using his parents for a place to live, and they
show no
emotion towards him, good or bad. His love for his gang is not that of a
male/male platonic relationship that is common in brotherhoods. It is
that of a
marriage of like interests, when the parties involved loathe each other
personally. Society is against him for all his mortal sins. The only
living
creature that he shows love for is his snake.
Darwin's theory of man having the same thought process's of
animals
holds an interesting bearing upon Alex. Alex's love is for his snake.
Generally
love is defined by an understanding, or a closeness between two items.
The snake
is represented by many things in the natural world today.
Freud's analyzation for the male closeness to the snake is that
the person
involved is questioning his sexuality, or his love towards the female
gender.
Alex keeps coming back to his snake after his nights on the town, and
his first
concern with life after he is paroled is his dear snake. This, combined
with the
fact that keeps his snake in a chest under his bed ( the most
recognized sexual
item in an average household), show's his inadequacies with his sexual
performance and his penis. He feels that by keeping in contact with his
snake,
he will be more of a man then he already is, thus making him more
noticeable and
attractive towards the opposite sex. Therefore, Alex doesn't view his
snake as
an equal, but as a greater being capable of becoming a close friend and
a
security blanket.
The snake is also used in many different cultures to represent the
evil and
hate that man kind dwells on. When something evil happens, culture
blames all of
it's fears upon the snake, the idol of fear. The love that Alex feels
for his
snake could fall under the love of understanding. With this love, Alex
feels
that he can relate to his snake, and to what society views the snake
as. Alex
finds the snake to represent sin and the hate that spawned the world as
we know
it today. In Genesis, the serpent convinced eve to disobey her god and
to eat an
apple from the tree of life, thus causing man to not be eternal, and
for woman's
childbirth to be complex and painful. In Christianity, the snake is the
originator of sin. Alex feels that he is the modern bringer of sin.
Alex often finds himself in many situations where he is surrounded
with
scenes of graphic sex or some sort of phallic reference. After a night
of Ultra-
Violence, Alex and his droogs find themselves relaxing at the Karova
Milk Bar
drinking Milk Plus, Milk Plus Dreminol, and Milk Plus Synthemesc. The
bar is
adorned with images and sculptures of naked women in various positions
of sexual
encounters, all of which with exaggerated colors and lengths of fluffy
hair.
This corresponds with Harlow's experiments with monkey babies finding
comfort in
soft items in times of distress. Alex finds comfort in the fluffy hair
and
softness of the environment of the bar. When he has committed an act of
distressing nature, be it violence or everyday normal occurrences, he
retreats
to Karova to bring him a feeling of warmth, satisfaction, and
justification of
his previous deeds.
This form of relaxation is common from children of broken homes.
Freud
believes that the self-image within a man is shaped in the first 5
years of life.
With the response that Alex's parents give to him in his home-life, it
is
obvious that they did not offer much love to the growing child. By
Freud's
belief, if the child does not receive the proper love from a mother
that it
should, it will find other means to replace the comfort that a mother
provides.
Alex's comfort was the violence and the pleasure brought from a night
completed.

There is no reference in the movie about Alex's parents being his

natural
born parents, or if one of them died and remarried. My beliefs are that
Alex's
natural born mother was beaten and eventually left his father. Alex was
in the
middle of this action, and like Bandura's findings, the child imitates
the
action that he views and takes it as natural, thus using it in everyday
life.
Alex's aggression upon society are truly the natural urges and feelings
that he
experiences, thus making him normal, being unaware of the wrongs that
his
violence induces.
In a Freudian aspect, this could explain a vast majority of his
aggression
that he displays. His actions interpret his hatred towards his father
for being
the reason he lacks a parental security blanket. As quoted in one of
the first
few scenes: "…and in the mess of wobbly chaos the drunken old malchek
had found
himself lying in, he had managed to be able to push out an ugly lyric
or two.
Now, the one thing that I truly hate in the world is a drunken old
malchek
singing out the songs of his father with an occasional "blurp,blurp" in
between.", this shows his loath for
1) Disrespect for music.
2) Drunks, and
3) Men in his fathers image.

The music was his salvation, for it could snap him in and out of
his
dementia. The music was used in a pseudo-Pavlov experiment to eliminate
Alex's
love for violence. In the experiment, Alex ingested a serum that would
induce a
deathlike paralysis. While the serum was taking effect, he was
bombarded with
sights of violence and the sweet sounds of Ludwig Van Beethoven, both
leaving an
impression in his psyche, relating the sickness to the sights and
sounds that he
was subjected to.
In Pavlov's experiments, his major goal was to prove that he could
train a
subject to give a conditioned response with no reinforcement. This was
accomplished by training a dog to salivate when he heard a bell ring.
The dog
was use to the sound of a ringing bell before receiving his food.
Eventually,
Pavlov removed the food from the experiment, but the dog retained the
conditioned response of salivating whenever he heard the bell ring.
Thus a
conditioned response without positive nor negative reinforcement. Alex's
conditioned response was to fall to the "sickness" when subjected to
Beethoven.
With the sickness being the conditioned response, there is no
Reinforcement
because the sounds of Beethoven were not intentional, thus not needing
reinforcement.
However, Alex's trauma could also be referred to as a Skinner
approach to
treatment. Skinner's theory was that one could achieve a conditioned
response by
giving the subject positive or negative reinforcement. In his
experiments, a
mouse was put in a cage with nothing but a pressable button and a
light. When
the bar was depressed, the light flashed and food was delivered into
the cage.
If the mouse were dropped into a similar cage, it would be safe to
assume that
it would retain the reaction to hit a bar and receive food. The
conditioned
response was to hit the bar when hungry. The reinforcement was the food
that was
provided by completing the response. In Alex's case, the reinforcement
would be
the metal satisfaction of not going through with his violent needs when
he is
subjected to violent surroundings.
In conclusion, the theories used as a basis behind Stanley
Kubrik's A
Clockwork Orange, resemble that of the theories that came from the
greater
thinkers of modern time. Alex, the guinea pig in this tale, is a
classic example
of many psychologist's case studies, and could be analyzed differently
from each.