Part One, Chapter 1 Summary:

In futuristic London, fifteen-year-old Alex narrates in "nadsat" slang from the Korova Milkbar, where he drinks drug-laced milk with his three friends, Pete, Georgie, and Dim. Three girls down the bar catch Alex's attention, as does a drugged-out man near him. An old popular song on the stereo gains Alex's disfavor, and he hits the drugged-man before they leave the bar.

The boys see an elderly professorial man outside, a rarity since the police shortage and preponderance of gangs has made the streets unsafe. They feign disgust at the supposedly lewd material contained in the man's inoffensive science books, rip up the books, strip him and beat him up before letting him go. The booty from his plundered pants - love letters and a little bit of money - is inconsequential, and they move on.

They decide to do something generous with their money so they have an incentive for more shop-lifting and so they have an alibi for future need. At a bar they spend all their money on drinks and food for some poor old women. They go to a candy and cigarettes store and, with masks of popular figures on, rob and beat up the owner and his wife. They check back in with the old women and make them confirm their alibi. Two cops come in later and the women vouch for the boys.

Analysis

The opening line of the novel - "'What's it going to be then, eh?'" - is repeated four times in this chapter and starts each part of the novel. Though in different contexts, each use stresses free will, the ability to choose for oneself how "it" will turn out "to be."

The importance of free will for the individual is the major theme of A Clockwork Orange, but Burgess immediately treats the reader to an array of events that suggest why free will is dangerous. Unhampered by law-enforcement, Alex and his friends are free to do what they will - which notably involves harming others.

Just as Burgess will explore this theme in much greater depth throughout the novel, Alex is a much more complicated character than his bare actions suggest. While he is lawless (indeed, his name can be read as A-lex, or a Latin-derived "without law"), he is almost respectful of the professor's privacy when Dim reads out loud the love letters, not to mention his feelings of goodwill when he buys drinks for the old women. Moreover, he expresses disdain for the pop music he hears at the Korova Milkbar, indicating he has more sophisticated interests than his teenage friends. (His name is also an allusion to Alexander the Great, indicating his leadership abilities.)

Burgess spends much of the novel parodying 1950s and 60s British youth through a frightening projection of them. Aside from their penchant for violence and drugs, the teenagers in the novel wear ridiculous fashions and speak in the odd Russian-influenced slang nadsat ("nadsat" is similar to "teen" in Russian, and it means "teens" in the novel). Alex is not a mere parrot, however; he uses nadsat in more creative and even poetic combinations than his friends do (yet another meaning in his name is "lex" for "lexicon," or dictionary). Their mixer of choice, milk, speaks volumes about their infantile behavior and lends Freudian connotations to their sex drives, while the childish tinge of nadsat - "appy polly loggies" for "apologies" - reinforces their immaturity.

Part One, Chapter 2 Summary:

Alex and his friends leave the bar and beat up an old, dirty man who sings old songs. They pause to let him condemn a world that allows young men to do harm lawlessly, and tells them to kill him, as he'll be better off that way. They beat him until he bleeds badly. They come across a rival gang, led by Billyboy, in the middle of raping a young girl. They fight with chains and razors, and despite being outnumbered six to four, Alex's gang prevails with Dim's strength. The cops come, probably alerted by the raped girl, and both gangs scurry away. Alex and his friends hide in an alley lit up by the glow of televisions in apartments. Dim wonders about life on the moon and stars.

They steal a car and joyride into the country, terrorizing pedestrians along the way. They drive up to a cottage labeled "HOME" and Alex convinces the woman inside that he needs to call an ambulance for his sick friend. When she opens the door, he and his masked friends run inside. The attractive woman's writer husband is also inside, and Alex inspects his manuscript titled "A Clockwork Orange." Alex rips up the manuscript while the others beat up the man and eat the food in the house. The boys take turns raping the woman while making the man watch. They smash up the objects in the house and leave the occupants moaning on the ground.

Analysis:

The manuscript of "A Clockwork Orange" states the main thesis of the novel: that any restriction of free will turns humans into machines - or, in the imagery of the title, it makes the fleshy, sweet, orange-ness of humans into a deterministic clockwork mechanism. The title also suggests an orangutan, a near-human that does not have our degree of free will. Still, Burgess presents great evidence for the contrary view that unfettered free will is destructive, here in the old man's howls against the lawlessness of the world and in the boys' continuing horrific actions.

Alex's thirst for violence is not as thuggish as his friends' is - far from it, in fact, since he reprimands them for their sloppy eating in the "HOME" cottage. He has an aesthetic thrill for violence, and this aesthetic purity is far divorced from any ethical purity, as we will see more of in Chapter 3.

Burgess also outlines the seemingly socialist state of futuristic London. The landscape is grim and government-owned (everything is "Municipal"), movies are produced by "Statefilm," and television is a numbing medium that sedates the masses. These features are only minor exaggerations of capitalist society, and Burgess demonstrates - notably in the television example - how they insidiously curb the free will of the citizenry.

The boys' forcing the man to watch his wife's rape foreshadows what will happen to Alex in Part Two. In both cases, the person forced to watch has his free will restricted and must experience something unpleasing to his nature.

Part One, Chapter 3 Summary:

The boys' car runs out of gas and, feeling hateful, they push it into a nearby body of water. They take the train back to the center of town and cause some damage on the ride. They return to the Korova Milkbar, where the drugged man still babbles away. Teens pack the place. In a pause between songs, a woman sings a piece of an opera Alex knows, and it affects him deeply. Dim mocks her and Alex hits him. Dim threatens to beat him up, and Georgie and Pete affirm Dim's right to be upset. They plan to meet up tomorrow. They go home separately.

Alex goes to his parents' flat in Municipal Flatblock 18A. He eats the dinner his mother has left out for him, then retires to his room. He blissfully listens to a violin concerto on his stereo, imagining himself raping young girls as he listens. He ejaculates at the piece's climax. After, he listens to Mozart and then his favorite, Bach. He thinks more about the people at the "HOME" cottage and wishes he had beaten them harder.

Analysis:

Alex's love for music takes center stage here in his defense of the woman in the bar and in his blissful experience in his room. In both cases, his appreciation for art is matched only by his desire for violence. In the former, he is woken from his dreamy respect for the pure beauty of the woman's voice only by smacking Dim. In the latter, his genuine aesthetic appreciation for the music is quickly overtaken by his lust for violence and sex.

Though Alex is a thug, he is a sophisticated one. He is not a mechanical clockwork orange, since he has the potential for great humanity and sensitivity, but the question remains if it would be better to turn him into a clockwork orange and restrain his free will. The drugged man in the Milkbar has turned himself into a clockwork orange by rendering himself insensible, but even this was a free choice.

Burgess explores free will in other subtle ways, as in his description of the municipal painting of workers in the hallway of Alex's flat. The painting resembles Soviet Communist artworks that depict healthy, proud state workers, further evidence that the world of A Clockwork Orange is socialist. This type of government, Burgess implies, also turns its citizens into clockwork oranges, mindless tools of the state. And while teens have disfigured the painting in their typical obscene ways, there is something rebelliously creative about the act; they refuse to be turned into clockwork oranges and lose their free will.

Part One, Chapter 4 Summary:

Alex wakes up the next morning tired and not wanting to go to school. His parents go off to work, as is required by the government, and he dreams that Georgie and Dim are ordering him around in the army. He wakes up to answer the door for P.R. Deltoid, his "Post-Corrective Adviser." Deltoid warns him that his name is being connected to the fight with Billyboy's gang last night and that the next time he gets in trouble, he will be sent to jail. Alex placates him but privately justifies his actions, bad though they may be.

Alone, Alex reads a typical newspaper article about "Modern Youth" which blames youth's wildness on lack of parental and academic discipline. The only article Alex has read on this subject with which he agreed instead religiously condemned adults for creating such a violent world. He turns on the radio and listens to some classical music, and remembers reading another article that argued that an appreciation of the arts would domesticate youth; Alex finds that classical music always riles him up for violence.

Alex takes the bus to his favorite record store, where two young girls browse through the pop records. The clerk sells Alex the Beethoven's Ninth Symphony recording he has been waiting for, and Alex invites the two girls, Marty and Sonietta, back to his place to listen to music. After treating them to lunch, he takes them back, listens to their pop records, gives himself an aphrodisiac shot with a needle, and has sex while listening to the Beethoven. At first the girls are drunk and do not mind, but when they sober up they call Alex a beast and leave in a huff. Alex goes to sleep.

Analysis:

Alex states his belief in Original Sin, the Biblical idea that evil is natural in man and is not a product of the environment: "...badness is of the self...and that self is made by old Bog or God." His assertion jibes with the article condemning adults and pointing to Original Sin: "IT WAS THE DEVIL THAT WAS ABROAD and was like ferreting his way into like young innocent flesh." While Original Sin implies a certain lack of free will, since God has sown the seeds of sin and the individual has not chosen it, it has a far greater degree of free will than in the belief that the environment has determined one's behavior, as the farcical Deltoid and the typical newspaper article believe.

Moreover, Alex time and again insists that he does evil because "what I do I do because I like to do" - he is in full charge of his actions. He also claims that modern history is the "story of brave malenky selves fighting these big machines" of repressive society, furthering his and Burgess's argument that free will at all costs is necessary, even if not always productive.

Still, there is faulty logic in Alex's reasoning. Bad behavior violates what philosopher John Stuart Mill called the "harm principle" in his work On Liberty. In it, Mill argues that any action is allowable so long as it does not cause harm to anyone else. Alex says he would not interfere with the actions of those who do good, and he expects the same in return; the difference, of course, is that bad behavior harms others, while good behavior benefits others.

Part One, Chapter 5 Summary:

Alex wakes up at night and tells his parents, who have come home, that he is feeling better and ready to work this evening, since they believe that is how he spends his nights. His father politely inquires into what he does, but Alex is evasive. His father relates a dream he had last night about Alex's being beaten by the kind of boys he used to be friends with before Corrective School. Alex reassures him he will be all right and gives him all his money.

Alex leaves the flat and finds his gang waiting for him near the entrance. They claim they were worried they had offended him, but they also sarcastically refer to his ordering them around. When Alex asserts his authority, they introduce a new, more democratic way of running things. They also want to pull off bigger robberies, and are prepared for one tonight. Alex is against the idea, but he acquiesces.

Georgie wants to drink first. On the way over, Alex hears some Beethoven and it inspires him to pull his razor on Georgie, who uses his knife in defense. Alex slashes Georgie, who drops his knife, and Dim attacks Alex with his chain. Alex slashes him deeply and reasserts his leadership. He wraps one of his handkerchiefs around Dim's bleeding wrist and they go to the same bar as last night. Pete buys drinks for the old women from before. Alex presses Georgie for his plan for the evening, which is to go to a rich woman's home in Oldtown. They leave.

Analysis

Alex's justification to his father about the nature of his "work" - that since Alex never hassles him for money, his father should not inquire into his business - also confirms the problematic idea that free will should always be upheld. Since Alex does not bother his father for the profits of work (money), his father should allow Alex the freedom to do what he wants and maintain his privacy. However, his father does not know that Alex's money is "ill-gotten." Therefore, by not infringing upon Alex's free will and privacy, he allows Alex's evil acts to continue. While this non-infringement associatively violates Mill's "harm principle" (see analysis of Part One, Chapter 4) since his father allows Alex to continue harming others, it is still necessary, Burgess would maintain.

The vocabulary of the book also reflects ideas of free will. Deltoid's habit of ending sentences with "Yes?" - which Alex notes he has picked up - seems almost like an invitation to exercise free will. Deltoid is asking for affirmation, just as the "'eh'" from the opening lines of each part - "'What's it going to be then, eh?'" - is an offer for Alex to make his own choices. However, when Alex uses it with his friends, his tone of "yes?" is more commanding; he does not want his friends to exercise as much free will as he does.

Nadsat more saliently demonstrates these ideas. For instance, we learn from the sentence "Pete had given old Dim the soviet not to uncoil the oozy" that "soviet" means "order." Ironically, the boys had just expressed their desire for the gang to become more democratic, yet orders are still given. Moreover, the word "soviet" alludes to Soviet Communism and the rigid hierarchies of power that corrupt system had behind its façade of equality. While Burgess criticizes capitalism as well, often through the mouth of Alex, it is clear he despises the oppression of Communism far more.

The weapons of each character are representative. Alex uses a razor, a tool whose conventional use is for the face and neck, appropriate for someone whose mental and speaking powers are superior to the rest of the gangs'. Dim uses a brutal chain as one might expect from such a lumbering tank. Georgie wields a knife, a more conventional weapon but one appropriate for a betrayal, which it appears he is mounting. Pete, notably, refrains from fighting here - perhaps he is the most mature.

Part One, Chapter 6 Summary:

The gang travels to the rich neighborhood of Oldtown. They reach the house they plan to rob. They see an old woman inside pouring milk for her cats. Alex rings the door and gives his usual routine through the mail-slot about his friend needing help. The woman is resistant, and Alex pretends to leave. He has Dim lift him up to the second-floor window.

Alex climbs through and goes downstairs to greet the woman and her many cats. Alex slips on a milk saucer and she uses the opportunity to hit him, but he regains his composure and knocks her down. The cats attack him as he goes for a bust of Beethoven. When the woman scratches his face, he knocks her on the head with a silver statue he had previously taken.

Hearing sirens and realizing the woman may have called the police after he first came to the door, Alex quickly opens the front door to warn his friends to leave. Dim is standing there; the other two are running away. Dim tells Alex he can meet the police when they come, then hits Alex's eyes with his chain. Alex cannot see, and the police arrive immediately and arrest him. He tells them to get his traitorous friends, but realizes it will do no good. The police drive him away, happy to have bagged Alex, a well-known criminal. An ambulance drives the other way for the old woman. The cops continue to hurt Alex as they arrive at the police station.

Analysis:

Alex's inability to see at the end of the chapter ironically foreshadows Ludovico's Technique in Part Two, in which his eyes are kept open. However, here it symbolizes his blindness in the whole chapter. He does not recognize the warning signs that his friends are planning to betray him, and he commits two noticeable mistakes that lead to his being caught. First, he believes that he overhears the woman talking insanely to her cats rather than to the police. Second, he goes for the bust of Beethoven and allows the cats and the woman to attack him. The greater irony here is that his love for music now victimizes him violently, as opposed to allowing him to victimize others. This, too, foreshadows Part Two.

Burgess continues to expose the corruptness of the state Alex lives in. The police are just as fond of violence as he is, and they happily beat their victim in retribution for his own crimes.

Milk has previously been used as a symbol of youth's sexual immaturity; they lap it up childishly with drugs at the Korova Milkbar, and Alex has a somewhat obsessive relationship with women's breasts. The old woman here provides milk for her cats. In a sense, this episode plays out as revenge for Alex's sexualized violence. The old woman, completely devoid of any sexuality, attacks him with her army of cats, conventionally feminine creatures.

Part One, Chapter 7 Summary:

Alex is taken to an office with four policemen at the jail. He hears the police beating the prisoners in nearby cells. When Alex refuses to speak without a lawyer, the top policeman punches him in the stomach. Alex retaliates with a kick to the shin, which provokes a beating at the hands of all the policemen until he vomits. Deltoid comes in and promises to be at his trial tomorrow. Before he leaves, he unexpectedly spits in Alex's face.

Alex gives a long statement of his violent past for the police. He is taken to a cell where he fends off the other criminals. He finally falls asleep and dreams of being in a big field and listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. He is woken and taken to the top policeman again, whose stern demeanor makes Alex realizes the old woman he beat has died.

Analysis:

The top policeman justifies the brutal treatment of Alex by saying "'Violence makes violenceŠHe resisted his lawful arrest.'" However, Alex has proven that violence can spring out of the self and not the environment. The police act much the same way; they have just as violent tendencies as Alex and, being powered by the state, their tendency toward corruption is greater.

Deltoid, too, has some shadows under his seemingly sympathetic exterior. While his spitting in Alex's face appears to be out of angry disappointment, perhaps he finally feels free to harm Alex in a way he could not before.

Alex's dream, in which he mixes up the words to Beethoven's Ninth with words relating to his recent beatings, foreshadows the mind-control experiments in Part Two. Even the beatings have seeped into Alex's brain and made music less pleasurable for him - an effect that will soon become much more prominent.

Part Two, Chapter 1 Summary:

Alex is now in State Jail Number 84F, where he is identified as "6655321." He skims over the events two years ago that led to this - his parents' grief, his lower court meeting, his time in custody, and his trial, where he was sentenced for 14 years. In prison, he has had to deal with brutal wardens, homosexual prisoners, and mindless labor. He has learned from his parents that Georgie was killed during a robbery.

Alex plays solemn music on the stereo for the chaplain in the Wing Chapel on Sunday morning. The chaplain asks the prisoners if they will continue to remain criminals and end up in Hell, or if they will repent and become religious. A minor disturbance provokes the guards to beat up some prisoners. Alex relates that the chaplain took him under his wing when Alex got interested in the Bible. As part of his education, he is allowed to listen to classical music on the chapel stereo while he reads the Bible. The sex and violence in the Bible appeals to him most.

The prisoners end the sermon by singing a hymn. After they leave, the chaplain asks Alex for news from the prisoners; he uses this information to gain the good graces of the Governor for career advancement. Alex lies about a cocaine shipment and asks to be given the new treatment he has heard about that quickly frees the prisoner and ensures he remains free. The chaplain says that the treatment - Ludovico's Technique - is still in the experimental stage, and he doubts whether a technique can make a man good, since goodness is chosen. Alex is sent back to his cramped cell with an assortment of despicable prisoners.

Analysis

"'What's it going to be, eh?'" is asked at the start of Part Two, as it was in Part One. In Part One, Alex asked his gang what crimes they would commit that night; here the chaplain asks the prisoners what they will make of their lives. The question invites the listener to exercise his free will, since it gives him the power to decide what his future will be. However, in this case the chaplain asks and does not expect a response, nor does he even want one, as evidenced by the guards' action at the first sound of noise. Despite this question, the prisoners' free will remains severely limited.

Nevertheless, the chaplain does have some profound philosophical thoughts, and he spells out the major theme of the novel: "'Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.'" Burgess shares his doubts that forced goodness is equal to chosen goodness. Without free will, whatever goodness humans have is inauthentic and inhuman.

We also see further evidence of depersonalization in the novel. Alex is given number 6655321 for his identity and his address is no longer flatblock number 18A but State Jail Number 84F. The last three digits of his identity number add up to 6, while the number of digits, seven, is equal to the number of chapters per part; this lends some symmetry to the number as a whole, and reinforces the structural symmetry of the novel that will reveal itself in Part Three.

Part Two, Chapter 2 Summary:

A new prisoner's homosexual advances on Alex provoke a fight, and his cellmates back him up. They beat up the prisoner, then hold him while Alex beats him into unconsciousness. Alex has a nightmare of playing in an orchestra. In the morning, he finds that the prisoner is dead. The prisoners blame each other, but they put most of the accountability on Alex's shoulders. They tell this to the guards, and later the Governor and the Minister of the Interior visit Alex. The Governor says "'Common criminals'" such as Alex need to be cured of their criminal reflexes, and the Minister of the Interior says the Governor can use Alex as a "'trailblazer.'" Tomorrow, he says, a man Brodsky will deal with him.

Analysis:

The Minister of the Interior refers to the criminal impulse as a "'reflex'" that needs curing. The word "reflex" implies his belief that prisoners do not exercise free will in choosing immorality; they do it unconsciously, reflexively, in a way that seems predetermined. Hence, it makes sense that "'Punishment means nothing to them'"; if the prisoner has exercised evil unconsciously, then the threat of punishment is not a valuable deterrent. Only if the prisoner has consciously balanced the gains and costs of exercising immorality and receiving punishment can punishment act as a deterrent, since he may decide that the punishment is not worth the satisfaction of the criminal act.

He has a point, much as it conflicts with Burgess's views. Alex shows little remorse for the prisoner's murder, much as he shrugged off his murder of the old woman (caring more, instead, about his prison sentence). While Alex has expressed his free choice to do evil, there does seem to be something mechanical about his actions. Nevertheless, he exercises some free will in his immorality regardless of his lack of reflection after the fact, and this is what is important. Perhaps the retrospective contemplation of why one has done good or bad is more a sign of maturity rather than an absolute indicator of free will.

Part Two, Chapter 3 Summary:

Alex is taken to the Governor's office at night. The Governor admits he does not like the new orders for Alex; he believes in eye-for-an-eye justice, and thinks the State should "'hit back'" at criminals rather than try and convert them from "'the bad into the good.'" He informs Alex that he is to be "'reformed'" by a man named Brodsky tomorrow, and should be out of jail in two weeks. Alex signs a paper for his "Reclamation Treatment."

Alex is sent to the chaplain, who confidentially tells him he is against the treatment, which will eliminate Alex's desire to "'commit acts of violence or to offend in any way whatsoever against the State's Peace.'" Alex claims it will be nice to be good, though he does not really believe this. The chaplain warns him that it may not be, since perhaps choice is more important than goodness. Still, he hopes that by choosing to be deprived of the ability to make ethical choices, Alex has somewhat chosen goodness. The chaplain, worried about Alex, cries and pours himself a drink.

The next morning, Alex is sent to a new building nearby that resembles a hospital. Dr. Branom, assistant to Dr. Brodsky, signs Alex in, and sends him off to a clean bedroom, where he changes into new pajamas. As Dr. Branom examines Alex, he explains that they will show Alex "'special films,'" and that after every meal he will receive a shot in the arm. After he leaves, Alex thinks about getting a gang together after he is freed to hunt down Pete and Dim; he will be careful not to get caught again, since the State has gone to so much trouble to reform him. He is fed a good meal, and later a pretty nurse gives him a shot. He finds himself weak afterward, and a male nurse pushes him off in a wheelchair.

Analysis:

The chaplain continues to spell out the major theme of the novel: that the ability to choose, even if the choice is evil, is more important than forced goodness. He does bring up the infinitely cycling possibility that choosing to not choose somehow overrides the eventual lack of free will. However, the human still chooses to lose his humanity and become a clockwork orange in this case, so the initial choice is lost, as is the humanity associated with it.

Alex makes an unintentional pun when he says that the vitamins "would put me right." While he thinks the vitamins will help his health, he does not realize that they will be instrumental in literally putting him in the right - making him good. Burgess ominously foreshadows the treatment for the reader and Alex - a combination of the "'special films'" and the shots - but Alex, who is now the unknowing innocent, does not understand what exactly Ludovico's Technique comprises.

Moreover, he has not understood what his punishment has meant. He promises to be careful not to get caught for crimes after he is freed, since the State has done so much to make him good. Of course, not getting caught is not the point of rehabilitation; not wanting to commit any more crimes is. This is Burgess's counterpoint to his argument; with incorrigible criminals, perhaps the only pragmatic solution is to force them to become good.

Part Two, Chapter 4 Summary:

Alex is wheeled to the unconventional movie theater; a bank of little meters is on one of the walls, and a dentist's-style chair with protruding wires faces the screen in the middle of the floor. Still weak, Alex is helped into the chair. He thinks he sees and hears people behind the film projection holes in the back. One of the three doctors straps Alex's head to the chair to keep his head still and force him to watch the screen; Alex does not understand, since he wants to look at the films. The doctors also clip Alex's eyelids to keep them open. The doctors say the film will be "'A real show of horrors'" and stick wire-laden suction pads on Alex's head, stomach, and heart.

Dr. Brodsky enters, and the lights go out and the film starts. The film graphically depicts two young men beating up an old man. As Alex watches this, he feels physically unwell, and attributes this to his malnourishment. The next film displays a brutal gang rape. Alex feels much worse despite knowing the films cannot be real, and when the film finishes, Dr. Brodsky makes a statistical note of Alex's reaction. A third film shows brutal violence done to a human face. Alex feels even worse, especially since he cannot vomit for some reason and cannot avert his propped-open eyes. The fourth film is of an old woman beating beaten and burned alive. Alex begs the doctors to allow him to vomit, but they assure him the films are not real. He watches the next film about Japanse torture in World War II, and begs the doctors to stop the film. They laugh and tell him they have hardly started.

Analysis:

Ludovico's Technique is finally exposed in the exact midpoint of the novel (note that the original British edition has 21 chapters as opposed to 20 in the American edition; this is the 13th chapter and therefore the midpoint). The reader understands that the "vitamins" Alex believes he has received have something to do with his intense negative reaction to the films. It appears that the doctors are conditioning Alex to equate violence and criminality with displeasure. Alex's free will to watch the films at the beginning is quickly undermined and, by the end of the chapter, he has no free will over either his reactions or the doctors' actions.

The choice of a war torture film is not incidental on Burgess's part; the doctors are sadistic torturers themselves, reveling in their violent experimentation on Alex. Their sarcastic remarks to the helpless victim are reminiscent of the sarcasm Alex and his gang used on their victims. Moreover, their act of forcing Alex's eyes open is similar to Alex's forcing the man from the "HOME" cottage to watch the rape of his wife. (Note that in that scene, the man's glasses "were cracked but still hanging on," ensuring he could still see the action.)

A few ironic puns shed more light on this chapter. One of the doctors calls the films "'A real show of horrors'" in response to Alex's slang usage of "'horrorshow.'" Alex's long-standing association of goodness ("horrorshow" means "good" or "well") with horror and with sight comes back to hurt him. In addition, the slang for cinema, "sinny," alludes to the sin prevalent in the films. That the doctors' method of mind-control is film (and government-produced film, at that) reminds us of Alex's disdain for television and Statefilm as methods of mass media mind-control.

Part Two, Chapter 5 Summary:

Alex endures more violent films as the doctors monitor his reactions. Finally, they stop for the day and send the sickly Alex back to his room. Dr. Branom visits and correctly predicts that Alex has recovered physically. He informs Alex that he will undergo two more sessions tomorrow, a prospect that horrifies Alex. The doctor explains that Alex's body is learning to dislike violence, which is what any "'normal healthy human organism contemplating the actions of the forces of evil'" should feel. Alex believes the doctors are doing something to make him feel ill, not healthy, but Dr. Branom assures him otherwise.

Alex considers refusing treatment tomorrow when a Discharge Officer enters and asks Alex where he will go when he is freed. Alex says he will go back to his parents, who have not been informed of his impending release. The officer shows Alex a list of jobs he can take when released, but Alex thinks he will pull a robbery by himself. Before he leaves, the officer asks Alex if he would like to punch him in the face, "'just to see how you're getting on.'" Confused, Alex punches, but the officer ducks and smiles. Alex briefly feels sick, and considers the entire experience odd.

That night, Alex has a nightmare that repeats one of the films he saw about gang rape. In the dream he leads the rapists, but soon feels sick and travels through gallons of his own blood back to being awake in the bedroom. Alex wants to vomit, but finds the door locked and windows barred. He sees there is no escape from this situation. Afraid to go to sleep, he finds he is soon no longer sick. Still, he soon drifts off into a dreamless sleep.

Analysis

Dr. Branom's statement that Alex is learning to feel what any "'normal healthy human organism contemplating the actions of the forces of evil'" should feel is inaccurate. Alex never contemplates, but only reacts. He still has a reflex to violence; only instead of it automatically giving him pleasure, it now causes agony. There is no free will in his conditioning. Though he still has enough free will to try to punch the officer, he soon feels sick; one can imagine that after some more treatment, he will not even attempt to punch anymore. He is becoming a clockwork orange whose feelings can be quantified, as the doctors' measurements suggest.

But the treatment goes beyond physical influence - it is starting to creep into Alex's mind. Alex says that "'A dream or nightmare is really only like a film inside your gulliver,'" and the connection brings us back to the socialist use of mass media as mind-control. Burgess's second greatest fear after the government's overt restriction of free will through Ludovico's Technique is its covert restriction through the media.

Alex's irritation over a nurse's singing a pop song foreshadows his ill reaction to classical music in the next chapter.

Part Two, Chapter 6 Summary:

The next day, Alex wails for the doctors to stop the film of a robbery and beating; his sickness is even worse than it was yesterday. However, the doctors show him a World War II Nazi film depicting death in many forms. The soundtrack plays Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and Alex calls it a "'sin'" to mix Beethoven up with such violent films. When the film is over, the doctors are interested to see Alex has a love for music. They ask Alex what he thinks they are doing to him; he correctly believes the shots they give him make him ill, and he associates that illness with the films. Alex pleads with them to keep the music out of the technique, but Dr. Brodsky believes that many activities, even heavenly ones like music, contain some degree of violence. They say he has made his choice, and despite his protestations, insist he is not yet cured.

Alex says the remainder of the two weeks is horrible. When he tries to prevent the administration of the shot at one point, the staff hits him and forces him to accept the shot. Another time he tries to knock himself against the wall unconscious, but the violent act only makes him sick.

One morning, a doctor tells Alex that he can walk, rather than be wheeled, to the films, and that his injections are finished. He is still strapped to the chair to watch the films and, curiously, he still feels sick. He cries at the thought that Ludovico's Technique will affect him forever. The doctors make sarcastic remarks and wipe away his tears so he can continue watching the Nazi films.

At night, Alex thinks of ways to get out. He bangs on his door and pretends to be sick. A doctor opens the door and Alex prepares to strike him. Before he can, he sees an image of the doctor hurt, and after the initial feeling of joy, he feels horribly sick. He falls down into bed, and the doctor tells him to give him a hit. When Alex cannot, the doctor hits him. Alex goes to sleep with the "horrible and wrong feeling that it was better to get the hit than give it."

Analysis:

Alex's free will is now completely gone; his body will no longer let him perform violent actions, even against himself. Worse yet, he now negatively associates classical music with violence. Although music has no ethical connotations, as Burgess demonstrates amply throughout Part One, it has deep aesthetic meaning for Alex. No longer, however, thanks to the sadistic efforts of Dr. Brodsky, who seems to relish the destruction of Alex's only "heavenly" love.

The continuing sadism of the staff is now associated with that of Nazism, most specifically when they make Alex cry while he watches film of weeping Jews. A further association comes when nadsat is described as "Propaganda. Subliminal penetration." While this may be true, the government is penetrating minds through far more overt means - not only Ludovico's Technique, but its other forms of mind-control through mass media.

Part Two, Chapter 7 Summary:

Alex must go through one more big day of treatment before his release. Instead of the hospital pajamas, he is given his old street clothes to wear, and they give him his old razor. An audience of important men, including the State Governor, the chaplain, Chief Guard, and Minister of the Interior, sit in the cinema. Dr. Brodsky introduces Alex as a violent hoodlum who has been converted into a peaceful, decent young man over the past two weeks, whereas two years of prison only made him worse.

The demonstration begins. A spotlight shines on Alex as a big man comes over and insults him. The man flicks Alex with his fingers and causes pain in other ways as the audience laughs. Alex reaches for his razor, but the mental image of the man in pain makes him sick. He roots around for cigarettes or money to give to the man instead. The man continues insulting and flicking him, and Alex tries to give him the razor as a present. The man rejects it, and Alex licks the man's boots. He receives a kick for his efforts, and Alex hopes merely hugging the man's ankles will stop the sickness. But the man falls from it, and Alex gets sick again. Alex helps him up.

Before the man can hit Alex again, Dr. Brodsky stops the demonstration. He lauds the experiment, but the chaplain objects that it removes moral choice. Dr. Brodsky and the Minister of the Interior justify it on the grounds that it cuts down crime and frees up the congested prisons. Alex yells out that he has been turned into a clockwork orange, though he is not sure why he used those words. A professorial type in the audience says Alex has made his choice, and the chaplain argues against this, using the word "Love" frequently.

Dr. Brodsky segues from the discussion of love to the next demonstration. A scantily clad, beautiful young lady accompanies Alex on stage. Alex's first thought is of having violent sex with her, and he immediately gets sick. To remedy the sickness, he throws himself at her feet and makes a worshipful speech. The woman bows to the audience and leaves, and Alex feels foolish. He notices how the men ogle the woman. Dr. Brodsky and the Minister of the Interior proclaim the experiment an unqualified success. The chaplain says "'it works all right, God help the lot of us.'"

Analysis:

As the chaplain explains, Alex's choice to do good is not a choice at all, but a reaction to the pain his original immoral desires cause. It is still a reflex and has turned him, as Alex himself says, into a clockwork orange, half-machine and half-man. Moreover, the chaplain denies that Alex's original choice to lose his free will justifies the treatment; Alex did not know what he was getting into, and now he has no way out.

The State is less interested in rehabilitating Alex for moral reasons than it is in using Ludovico's Technique for pragmatic measures. The Minister of the Interior's comment about relieving the congestion of prisons echoes his previous statement about needing more space for political prisoners. The State seems to be hatching even more insidious plans to deny the free will of the populace.

We are treated to more evidence that the State is just as immoral as Alex was. They enjoy the violence on display as if it were a show, and ogle the attractive woman "with dirty and like unholy desire." Whether they do so with the same violent mindset Alex once had is unclear, but they seem almost more like clockwork oranges than he is; the professor whose "neck [has] like all cables carrying like power from his gulliver to his plott" resembles Alex when he was strapped into the chair.

The sole bright spot in the chapter is the chaplain's boldness in speaking his mind. After refraining previously for fear of hurting his career, someone with something at stake has finally taken a moral stand against the State.

Part Three, Chapter 1 Summary:

After interviews and more demonstrations and a night of sleep, Alex is a free man. He asks himself "'What's it going to be then, eh?'" and decides to get some breakfast. He eats at a workers' joint nearby, and the sight of the workers groping the waitress makes him sick. He buys what appears to be a Government newspaper, which boasts of having made the streets safe the last six months with a bulked-up police force. He sees a picture of himself and a laudatory article about Ludovico's Technique.

He plans to go home, listen to music, and plan what to do with his life. He is surprised to find the flat is cleaned up, functional, and the painting of workers no longer has any obscene graffiti. He unlocks his door and finds his parents eating breakfast with a burly man. The man tells Alex to leave, while his mother cries and fears Alex has escaped from jail. The man is introduced as Joe, a lodger, but he claims he is more of a son to Alex's parents than Alex is.

Alex tells Joe to clear his stuff out of his room, but he finds his room is completely changed - the police took away his possessions in compensation for the victims, the victims being the cats. His father explains that they have a contract with Joe for two years and they cannot kick him out. Alex cries, but Joe urges the parents to remain tough. Alex says no one loves him and that they all want him to keep on suffering; Joe says Alex has made others suffer and deserves to suffer himself. Alex leaves, making them feel guilty and claiming they will never see him again.

Analysis

The structural symmetry in the novel commences; each chapter in Part Three has something in common with its mirror-image chapter from Part One, such that Chapter 1 here connects with Chapter 7 from Part One, Chapter 2 goes with Chapter 6, and so on. In Chapter 7 of Part One, Alex was taken to the police station where he was beaten the police, notably a big, fat policeman, spat upon by P.R. Deltoid, put in a terrible cell, and told he had committed murder. Here, he is released from his murder sentence, finds his home is no longer his home, is rejected by his parents (in lieu of P.R. Deltoid, a semi-parental figure), and emotionally beaten by the big, burly Joe. The symmetry of the novel acts like the classical musical pieces Alex loves, with repeating motifs and juxtapositions, and magnifies the huge reversal in Alex's life. The "'What's it going to be then, eh?'" at the start of the chapter solidifies Alex's alienation; this time he asks only himself the question, but the reader knows Alex's loss of free will means he has little power to change his life.

In addition, there has been tighter State control in Alex's absence. The streets are safer, everything is more functional, and the police have greater control. Just as Alex's free will has been cut, so has that of the everyday citizen; but while the citizens live in a physical police state, Alex's police state is mental.

The use of a lodger to displace the rightful son is perhaps an allusion to Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, in which three lodgers dominate the house of Gregor Samsa. That Gregor has metamorphosed into a cockroach augments the allusion; Alex, too, has lost part of his humanity.

Part Three, Chapter 2 Summary:

Alex goes to his favorite record store in the cold winter morning. The place is swarming with teenagers, including one at the counter. Alex asks for a Mozart symphony but the counterman plays him the wrong one in the listening-booth. Regardless, the music makes him sick from its association with Ludovico's Technique, and Alex runs out of the store to the Korova Milkbar.

Alex orders a laced milk drink. After he drinks it, he has strange visions and babbles odd words. He has a vision of statues of God and angels and saints and feels heavenly for a moment before he feels suicidal. But the thought of slitting his throat with his razor makes him sick, so he decides to go to the public library and find other ways to kill himself. He relishes the thought of making everybody - his parents, the doctors, Joe, and the government - feel sorry for his death.

At the library, Alex finds that a medical book full of drawings of diseases makes him sick. The Bible, with its stories of violence, also makes him sick. He tells a man nearby that he wants to end his life. The man comforts him at first until he realizes who Alex is, and Alex realizes who he is: the man with the science books his gang beat up more than two years ago. The man tells the other old people in the library that Alex is the one who ruined the rare Crystallography books and beat him up. Alex says he has been punished and cured, but before he can go, several old men grab him. Alex gets sick as they hit him. An attendant tries to stop them but cannot, so he goes to call the police, a measure Alex never thought he would support. After more thrashing, the police finally arrive and break up the fight.

Analysis:

Just as he could not knock himself unconscious in the hospital, Alex lacks the free will even to commit suicide, as thoughts of violence make him ill. Likewise, violence done to him makes him sick beyond the physical pain of the beating. Ending his life now requires the same sort of creativity needed from his formerly violent ways.

The structural symmetry between Parts One and Three continues in this chapter to demonstrate how much Alex's life has inverted. In Part One, Chapter 6, Alex beat up and eventually killed an old woman before the police arrived. Here, old people take their revenge on him until the police come; in fact, the old people resemble the woman's cats as they swarm and claw at Alex. There are more opposites: Alex drinks the laced milk, whereas in the other chapter he tripped over the saucers of milk the old woman had left out for her cats. He also babbles like the incoherent drug addict he saw in Part One. The statue of God he sees is reminiscent of the silver statue with which he bashed the old woman's head, as well as of the bust of Beethoven he wanted.

His vision of God and the angels seemingly denying him entrance into heaven - "Bog and the Angels and Saints sort of shook their gullivers at me, as though to govoreet that there wasn't quite time now but I must try again" - indicates that for Alex to get into Heaven, he cannot rely solely on his reflexive goodness, since it is not true goodness. Somehow he must choose goodness for full redemption.

Part Three, Chapter 3 Summary:

The police beat back the old people, then address Alex. They turn out to be his old nemesis, Billyboy, and his old friend, Dim. They accuse Alex of starting trouble with the old people and put him in their car. Dim refuses to acknowledge his past with Alex. They drive him off into the country, pound him mercilessly, and leave him on the ground. Alex has little money and nowhere to go. He cries and begins walking.

Analysis:

Alex's victimization again turns ironically and symmetrically. In Part One, Chapter 5, he fought and defeated Dim for his insubordination. Now, Dim takes his revenge, along with Billyboy. That both have become policemen should come as no surprise: the State has consistently proven itself as corrupt as the purported hooligans who roam the streets, and now it truly is comprised of said hooligans.

Part Three, Chapter 4 Summary:

Alex walks through the rain to the "HOME" cottage. He knocks on the door and asks the man inside to help him, as the police have beaten him and left him to die. The kindly man takes Alex in, and Alex remembers he is the writer of the manuscript for "A Clockwork Orange." He feels safe knowing the man will not know him, since Alex used to wear a mask during his crimes. The man, F. Alexander, lets Alex take a hot bath and gives him food. F. Alexander says he read about Alex in the newspaper, and he feels it was providential that he came to him.

Careful not to reveal his past identity, Alex allows that he has heard of "A Clockwork Orange," though he has not read it. He relates his story, starting from the murder - though he fabricates telling details - through his treatment. F. Alexander is sympathetic to Alex and outraged that he has been turned into a "'piece of clockwork.'" He wants to use Alex to dislodge the "'overbearing Government.'" He also mentions that his wife died from a brutal rape and beating. Alex gets sick thinking about the episode, and F. Alexander sends him to bed.

Analysis:

The ironies pile up in this chapter. The story Alex uses about being in danger is now true. F. Alexander's comment about Alex's being a "'victim of the modern age,'" just like his dead wife, is packed with obvious irony, as well.

The symmetry continues. Instead of being fed by his parents, as he was in Part One, Chapter 4, Alex now receives a bountiful meal thanks to F. Alexander. And in lieu of P.R. Deltoid's visit, Alex visits the home of F. Alexander and gets far more kindly treatment and guidance.

Yet F. Alexander still wants, in his own words, to "'use'" Alex in his battle against the State. Even with those who trumpet the necessity of free will seem intent on co-opting whatever remains of Alex's freedom for their own agendas.

Despite these immense ironies and kind reception, Alex is clearly not reformed. He only cares about having killed F. Alexander's wife because the image makes him sick; he has no emotional remorse, only a physical reflex.

Part Three, Chapter 5 Summary:

Alex wakes from a peaceful, dreamless sleep. He finds a copy of "A Clockwork Orange" and sees the name of the author and his caretaker: F. Alexander. He reads some and makes out the main idea, which is that people are being turned into machines. The other idea about humans resembling fruit in God's orchard makes Alex wonder if the writer is crazy.

F. Alexander calls Alex down and tells him he has been on the phone with various people for hours. Alex says he thought the house did not have a phone, remembering the writer's wife saying that. F. Alexander is suspicious for a moment, then resumes telling Alex about his work. He says Alex can be a weapon in helping throw the present Government out of office in the next election. The Government's major victory, in its opinion, has been reducing crime through a brutal police force and Ludovico's Technique. He fears totalitarianism is on the horizon. He wants Alex to sign an article he has written about Alex's record.

Alex asks if he will be able to reverse Ludovico's Technique. F. Alexander sidesteps the question and shows Alex the article. It is a sad account of Alex's suffering and a proposal to defy the Government, and Alex compliments it with the word "'horrorshow.'" F. Alexander asks about the word, Alex explains it is nadsat, and the writer finishes up the dishes in the kitchen.

The door rings and F. Alexander lets in three men, Z. Dolin, Rubinstein, and D. B. da Silva. They observe Alex and discuss their plans for him as if he is not there. Alex speaks in more nadsat, and F. Alexander says he feels he has come into contact with him before. Speaking more carefully, Alex asks what will become of him. They assure him that "'the Party will not be ungrateful,'" and that he will receive a surprise. Alex wants to return to how he used to be, but they ignore his pleas. Alex screams that he is not dim, and F. Alexander wonders if Alex could be connected to the gang that raped and killed his wife. His friends try to calm him down. When Alex tries to leave, they restrain him.

The men, without F. Alexander, drive him to a flat in the city, his new home. They ask Alex if he was in the gang that raped and killed F. Alexander's wife. He admits he was, but says he has paid for his actions. They go to another room to do work. Alex lies on the bed for a while, feeling bad about his life and the world, before drifting off to sleep. He awakens hearing a classical music piece and feels sick. He yells for them to turn it off and bangs against the wall in agony, but the music stays on. Running around the apartment, he sees the word "DEATH" on the cover of an anti-government pamphlet. Another pamphlet has a picture of an open window on it, and both inspire Alex to commit suicide by jumping out of the window. He climbs out the open window in his room and jumps.

Analysis

F. Alexander and his friends are not much better than the Government. They, too, want to restrict Alex's free will and use him to prove a point; they, too, turn him into a clockwork orange. Having him sign the article is similar to the confession he signs for the police; at least with the police he got to tell the story in his own words. Making the liberal freedom-fighters somewhat totalitarian characters themselves allows Burgess to counter his own argument and balance out A Clockwork Orange.

The symmetrical pairing between this chapter and Part One, Chapter 3 centers around music. In the latter, Alex listened to the woman sing beautifully in the Korova Milkbar. She seemed like "some great bird [that] had flown into the milkbar," an ironic contrast to Alex's jumping out the window here. Moreover, she sang a part from an opera that connects with Alex's own suicide attempt: "she's snuffing it with her throat cut, and the slovos are ŒBetter like this maybe.'" But the most ingenious mirror-image comes with the pairing of his jump and his ejaculation at the end of Part One, Chapter 3. The ejaculation: "Šwhen the music...rose to the top of its big highest tower, then, lying on my bed with glazzies tight shut and rookers behind my gulliver, I broke and spattered and cried aaaaaaah with the bliss of it." The jump: Alex climbs "on to the sill, the music blasting away to my left, and I shut my glazzies and felt the cold wind on my litso, then I jumped," presumably to spatter on the sidewalk.

It is interesting to note that we do not learn F. Alexander's first name, much as we never learn Alex's last name. Alex starts referring to him as F. Alex, and their nominal connection makes them seem like a father-son pair. (Alex even refers to him as a "motherly veck," confusing the genders.) Burgess invites a Freudian reading here, since Alex, as the son, seemingly satisfied his Oedipal urges by having sex with F. Alex's wife, or Alex's "mother."

Part Three, Chapter 6 Summary:

Alex hits the sidewalk from his jump and, before he passes out, realizes that F. Alexander's friends had set it up for him to commit suicide so they could blame it on the Government. He comes to in a hospital. Bandaged considerably, he does not feel any sensation. A pretty nurse by his bed. Alex tries to tell her to sleep with him, but he cannot speak correctly because some teeth are missing. She leaves and Alex quickly falls asleep again, though he is sure the nurse has brought back doctors to look at him.

Alex wakes up later to find F. Alexander's friends in his room. They inform Alex that he has destroyed the Government's chances for re-election. Alex tries to tell them off for using him, but he cannot speak the words. They show him newspaper clippings that depict Alex as a victim and the Government as a murderer. The nurse ushers the men out so they will not excite Alex.

Alex falls asleep and has several dreams about violence and sex, but he does not feel sick. He wakes up and finds his parents there. They apologize for helping drive him to suicide, and tell him Joe got beaten up by the police and went home. They ask him to live at home again, and when he says he will consider it, his mother cries. Alex threatens to hurt her if she does not stop, and he feels better saying so. He tells his father that if he lives at home, he will be the boss; his father agrees, and his parents leave. Alex asks the nurse if the doctors have been tinkering with his head, but he receives an elusive answer.

A few days later, doctors test Alex by showing him pictures and asking him what he thinks. He has violent and sexual reactions, and the doctors tell him he is cured. It appears that they have reconditioned him and reversed the effects of Ludovico's Technique while he was unconscious.

He recuperates for a while. One day, the Minister of the Interior visits, accompanied by the press. He shakes Alex's hand. The Minister encourages Alex to call F. Alexander's group his enemies. The Minister informs Alex that after F. Alexander "'formed this idea'" that Alex had raped and killed his wife, he became a menace and was put away for his and Alex's protection. He says Alex will be rewarded for "'helping us.'" The reporters take pictures of the two smiling, and the Minister gives Alex a stereo as a present. Alex asks for them to play Beethoven's Ninth, and everyone clears out while he listens. He signs something without knowing or caring what it is, and imagines cutting the face of the whole world with his razor while he listens. "'I was cured all right,'" he thinks.

Analysis:

Alex's free will is returned to him - or so Burgess would have the reader believe. It is true that Alex is "cured" and can again enjoy violence, not to mention Beethoven. His dream of his body's being drained of dirty water and refilled with clean water represents this curative transformation (an ironic one, of course, since Alex has lost his "clean" feelings and is back to his "dirty," violent ways).

However, Alex does not have complete free will. The Government uses him as a pawn, just as F. Alexander's group did. The setup even resembles the Government's previous treatment of Alex through Ludovico's Technique; he is helplessly confined to a bed, just as he was helplessly confined to the chair in the other hospital. Moreover, Alex continues to do things without thinking. He "smile[s] like bezoomny without thinking" for the camerawith the Minister - another sinister use of mass media - and carelessly signs something for the Government.

In a broader sense, Alex never thinks about any of his actions. In much the same way that he never expresses remorse for his violent past, he hardly considers why he performs violent acts - he knows only that it gives him pleasure. The major idea behind A Clockwork Orange is that the ability to choose makes one human, and that goodness is not authentic without free will. But Alex did not choose evil; he was born with it, like Original Sin. Only by dint of the Government's actions has he regained his reflexive taste for evil, suggesting his desires will remain mechanical.

The chapter ends on a pessimistic note as we learn that F. Alexander has been imprisoned, and the oppressive Government remains in power. Much to Burgess's chagrin, the American edition of his novel, and Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of it, omitted the final 21st chapter, leaving readers and viewers with this most un-horrorshow of endings.

Part Three, Chapter 7 Summary:

Alex sits in the Korova Milkbar and asks his three friends, Len, Rick, and Bully, "'What's it going to be then, eh?'" Alex is the leader of the gang, being famous, the oldest, and having the best job in the National Gramodisc Archives. Alex is bored, as he often is now, and wants to go. He punches a babbling addict before they go.

Outside, Alex gives the others permission to beat up an old man. They go to a bar and are about to buy drinks for the old women there, but Alex does not want to; he feels more like keeping his money these days for himself. Still, he puts in his money, and when he does he accidentally puts in a picture of a baby he clipped from a newspaper. The others laugh and he rips up the photograph. Alex calls them babies for spending all their time beating up others. He feels sick when he sees his beer and pours it out, then says he is going home. Bully, trying to take over as leader, says they will postpone their scheduled robbery; Alex tells them to carry on without him.

Alex leaves and walks through the streets alone. He reflects on the fighting between hooligans and the police, and wonders why he does not care about it so much anymore. His recent appreciation for more romantic, and less violent, classical pieces also confuses him. He wants some tea, and has an image of himself as an old man. At a coffee shop filled with harmless people, he sees a well-dressed Pete with, Alex is shocked to discover, his wife. He describes their middle-class life and invites Alex to see them sometime. They leave for a party.

Alex thinks that, at 18, perhaps he has gotten too old for crime, and compares himself to artists who were accomplished by his age. He imagines himself coming home from work to a woman and a baby boy. He thinks that youth must eventually go, since youth is like being a wind-up toy of sorts. He will explain this to his son, but he knows his son will not understand and will do what he did; and so it will go, round and round, like God turning an orange in his hands.

Alex resolves to find a wife. He blames his actions on his youth. He bids adieu to his audience.

Analysis:

Alex finally comes of age. He casts off his violent, immature past and embraces a peaceful, mature, middle-class lifestyle. The most important thing about this transition, as opposed to his previous two reversals, is that he willfully chooses to change. The thematic mantra of the novel is that the ability to choose defines humanity, but perhaps a more accurate definition is that the ability to choose defines adulthood. Youth, as Alex's images describe, is mechanical and deterministic. Youth functions like a mechanical, clockwork wind-up toy, and acts according to the determinism of God, who spins the orange that is earth. Only those who have seen enough of life to make informed choices can claim free will and escape from the fate of being a clockwork orange. Burgess chose Alex's maturation to come in the 21st chapter, since 21 used to be the voting age in Britain and is otherwise considered the rite of passage into adulthood. With it comes the title of adulthood and, though Alex is only 18 as A Clockwork Orange ends, his experience-packed life has sped him to that destination - a destination reached only through his own free will.

It is fitting that the crowning achievement of Alex's maturation is his desire to have a son. He is now ready to break free from the Oedipal relationship he had with F. Alexander, a substitute father-figure for his own effete father. However, Alex notes that his son will probably act rashly as a youth, as well; Burgess reminds us that Original Sin never goes away, but free will can be stronger.

• Biography of Anthony Burgess
• About A Clockwork Orange
• Character List
• Major Themes
• Glossary of Terms
• Short Summary
• Full Summary and Analysis
• Summary and Analysis of Part One, Chapters 1-4
• Summary and Analysis of Part One, Chapters 5-7
• Summary and Analysis of Part Two, Chapters 1-4
• Summary and Analysis of Part Two, Chapters 5-7
• Summary and Analysis of Part Three, Chapters 1-4
• Summary and Analysis of Part Three, Chapters 5-7
• Related Links on A Clockwork Orange
• Author of ClassicNote and Sources
• Purchase A Clockwork Orange and Other Works
• Test Yourself! Quiz 1
• Test Yourself! Quiz 2
• Essays on A Clockwork Orange
• Message Board on A Clockwork Orange