The Fantasmatic Body in A Clockwork Orange Kylie Hess College

Commonly used to help, medication has been associated in a positive light. Vaccines help protect against diseases, asthma inhalers help relieve asthma attacks, and anti-nausea medications help alleviate queasiness. In A Clockwork Orange, Alex is subjected to drugs that produce negative effects on his body to make him feel worse. Through the use of nausea-inducing medication and graphically violent, sexual films, the Ludovico Technique acts as a fantasmatic body which alters Alex’s sense perception by conditioning him to become gravely ill at the mere thought of violence.

According to Assenka Oksiloff in “Eden is Burning: Wim Wenders’s Techniques of Synthaesthesia”, a fantasmatic body is “a fictional unity of the senses which acts to confirm the ostensibly organic integrity of the spectacle and the spectators” (34). In other words, an inherent being has the ability to unite the senses in an imaginary projection in order to preserve the performance and the viewpoint of the viewers. This concept is important because it allows for open interpretation of how an event is perceived. Each person can see an image and associate and comprehend the “spectacle” in front of them, but it will not necessarily match the understanding of others....