Individual Vs. Society

5 Pages 1186 Words

The Individual and Society

“I and the Government of which I am a member want you to regard us as friends. Yes, friends. We have put you right.” In A Clockwork Orange Alex’s’ war with society is evident from the start of the novel. By using “ultra-violence”: murders, rapes and gang beatings, Alex terrorizes the society in which he lives. Society seeks to destroy the individual who clashes with their ideals. By using Ludovico’s Technique on Alex, Society is able to destroy Alex’s ability to terrorize but at the same time destroying Alex’s ability to choose Good or Bad. Society and Man will always be at war but ultimately Society will sacrifice the individual for the perceived greater good of Society.

Alex’s’ values and his version of fun is so contrary to the values held by the other members of society that a regular evening for Alex and his friends can leave both physical and mental scars in the bodies and minds of regular people for the rest of their lives. On a typical evening of ‘ultra-violence’ Alex and friends gang rape a woman and laugh while her husband looks on in horror. “Dim and me grabbing the slobbering writer (guy) who is past struggling really, just muttering out with slack sort of (words) like he was lost in a milkplus bar, and Pete and George had theirs.” When Alex and the writer guy meet again many years later and the pain in the writers’ life is still overpowering, having lost the woman he loved to a gang rape. The values which Alex held were so contrary to the values of the society that Alex’s’ fun ruined the writers’ life. Differing values destroying lives is evident in Giordano’s’ poem “The rules.” Giordano asks if he can succeed in a world where values such as honesty are no longer valued. “I play by the rules/but Lord/ Does this mean that I am destined to lose?”

The values of an individual are often different to the valu...