Moral Development In Anthony Burgesss A Clockwork Orange

When first published in 1961, the American edition of Anthony Burgess’s novel, A Clockwork Orange was published without it’s twenty-first chapter, outraging it’s author. But what, one might ask, could be so important in a single chapter to cause such an outrage? The answer is blatantly obvious. Omitting the final chapter of any book would likely cause much dismay to the author. But in the case of A Clockwork Orange, the final twenty-first chapter completely shapes the entire meaning of the novel by the hand of a single concept: moral development. Omitting the twenty-first chapter, there is not a sliver of it. Burgess himself says in the 1987 introduction that there is, in fact â€Å"not much point in writing a novel unless you can show the†¦show more content†¦This group is the closest thing Alex has to a real family, his real parents offering little more than a physical presence in his life. Living together in the seedy and dilapidated Municipal Flatbl ock 18A, Alex’s parents scarcely give orders around the house, and instead seem have been conditioned by Alex to act the way he wants them to act: â€Å"pee and em in their bedroom next door had learnt how not to knock on the wall with complaints of what they call noise.† What concerns they do express for Alex come through only in dreams, his father recalls a vivid dream of Alex lying in the street, beaten by teenage delinquents. â€Å"You were like helpless in your blood and you couldn’t fight back†(54). Alex, rather than trying to absolve his father’s fears, simply gives him money to him for Scotch instead, and sends all away â€Å"with loving smiles all around†(54). Because of his lack of any real parental influence, this leaves Alex’s droogs to play that role, a â€Å"pseudo-family† of sorts, a cheap imitation of the real thing. Unlike real family, (blood or otherwise) the pseudo-family provides only an illusion of genuine loving and caring, and most importantly, some twisted sense of belonging. It is the false families such as this that are the cause of the creation of Alex’s false identity, or his â€Å"pseudo-self,† or â€Å"individuals who remain unable to remain unable to maintain any real stasis between theirShow MoreRelatedTriumph of Free Will in Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange Essay2638 Words   |  11 PagesTriumph of Free Will in A Clockwork Orange  Ã‚     Ã‚   Amidst a population composed of perfectly conditioned automatons, is a picture of a society that is slowly rotting from within. Alex, the Faustian protagonist of A Clockwork Orange, and a sadistic and depraved gang leader, preys on the weak and the innocent. Although perhaps misguided, his conscientiousness of his evil nature indicates his capacity to understand morality and deny its practice. When society attempts to force goodness upon AlexRead MoreA Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess1960 Words   |  8 PagesAnthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange has been placed under much scrutiny by literary critics and readers everywhere. Furthermore, this highly criticized novel contains a myriad of ways to engage with the work, whether it is from the psychological or ethical perspective. Through College Literature Journal’s article â€Å"O My Brothers†, the unnamed author draws interesting connections between the main character’s development and how pseud o-families and pseudo- self plays a part on this said development