A Clockwork Orange Essay: B. F. Skinner's Conditioning

I decided I couldn’t believe in a God who would let something that terrible happen to a boy like Alex.” (pg.60). This does show that he left for himself and never wondered what it did to the people around him. And if they got hurt because of it. But the book also says “He was polite, friendly, well-groomed… he seemed extremely intelligent,

Detachment from reality (delusions), paranoia or hallucinations Inability to cope with daily problems or stress Trouble understanding and relating to situations and to people Alcohol or drug abuse Major changes in eating habits, Sex drive changes Excessive anger, hostility or violence Suicidal thinking. I will go back to this list and connect quotes from the book to prove that Alex was having many of these. For my first Scope I will prove and expand on how he segregated himself from society. The second will be that he through away a successful future and years of work. I will conclude with the fact that he lost the ability to judge the ability of himself and his body leading to his death.

Obscura: Critical Analysis The Holocaust was a tragic event to say the least. Millions of innocent people killed, but how? In the second chapter of Lauren Slater’s book, Opening Skinner’s Box, an experiment is described that attempts to explain the mysteries of obedience and authority.

Constantly being told how to feel, think, and live can create a world of rebellion as people fight for their rights and beliefs. Equality 7-2521 is proof of the fight that happens in one’s mind and how it is often translated into a conflict with others of different morality. Since the society Equality 7-2521 lived in had a more “popular” morality than the one he created, he was seen as an outcast and never fit in with his brothers. Leaving everything he knew, Equality 7-2521 risked his life to be different from others and was finally able to feel emotions that were trapped in him. He lived with confliction throughout his life trying to understand the morals he was unknowingly creating for himself, but in the end fought for a cause that meant something to him and impacted his world

According to Alex, the violent nature of youth in his society took away his free will - he had no choice but to conform and become just as violent as the rest (or so Alex claims). The wrongness of manipulation: Several people throughout the novel attempt to manipulate Alex's behavior – Dr. Brodsky and Dr. Branom manipulate Alex through the psychological conditioning of the Ludovico method, F. Alexander, Z. Dolin, Rubinstein, and D.B. da Silva try to use Alex as a piece of propaganda against the government's regime, and the Minister of the Interior attempts to show himself and Alex shaking hands as friends in order to undermine F. Alexander's

As I read more about Alex, I can not feel sympathy for someone that has no sympathy for his actions. Alex has no remorse for what he has done and he do as he please; “What I do I do because I like to do” (Burgess). Another example of Alex inability to feel compassion is when he raped F. Alexander’s zheena, while making him watch the whole scene; “Grab hold of this veck here so he can viddy all and not get away” (Burgess 22). This scene portrays how foul Alex is, as he goes back to the milkbar we can see that he showed no remorse; “We were all feeling shagged and fagged and fashed, it having been an evening of some small energy expenditure” (Burgess 26).

One of Freud’s theories is that the “Id – Ego combination dominates a person’s behavior until social awareness leads to the emergence of the superego, which recognizes that

He lives only by obeying to his own rules and the rules of nature but not following the law. Alex lives at his own interest. At one point, he is caught shooting a deer and is caught in between trouble because no Alex actually exists and also that he did not have a hunting license. When he Is finally let go he refuses to go get a hunting license because he believes that the government has authority to know Alex’s business and know what he hunts and what he eats. This goes back to the way that he wats to be free but also free from the entire world.

While this movie may not be for everybody it does contain an interesting and controversial commentary on society. It seems that the primary message argued in A Clockwork Orange is that through abuse Alex has been considered cured, people must not be used as scientific experiments even if the experiment is for the greater good of society. The needs of the many do not outweigh the rights of one and by breaking this moral code by the elected officials drastically changes the way the society favors their government and its practices. Social engineering is not the answer to eliminate a disruptive youth culture and maintaining order within society. Violent impulses, sexual urges, the enjoyment of music, participating in social camaraderie are all essential parts of the human experience and eliminating any part of that experience would eliminate what it means to be a

Alex has no regard whatsoever for the rights of others and the rights of society; the behaviour mentioned is common amongst psychopaths. Alex, spent his youth stealing, torturing,

The Id, Ego and Superego make complete sense to any person who might be interests in learning about the Psyche. Freud’s use of the psychoanalytic theory is relevant when explaining my current behaviour in regards to my past experiences that have occurred throughout my lifetime. Freud’s theory does apply to my own life as he made his theory a way to help understand and focus on the behavioural problems of the human being, and to resolve them in a way that forces me to accept my own destructive

A Clockwork Orange is set in a dystopian society, controlled by a restrictive, tyrannical government and denotes a substantial disaccord between the citizens and the state. The novel is narrated by fifteen-year-old Alex, who speaks in a fictitious argot known as Nadsat. Alex and his ‘droogs’ (5) – Dim, Pete, and Georgie – venture the streets in ‘ultra-violence’ (5), attacking, robbing, and raping whoever they please. One night, Alex is arrested amidst another criminal act, putting his ‘ultraviolence’ to an end. In prison, Alex is offered to take part in an experimental behaviour modification treatment, known as the Ludovico’s Technique (91) – an aversion therapy believed to eradicate his violent tendencies – in return for a reduced sentence.

A clockwork orange focuses around whether the government believe that the class structure and the government running smoothly and properly are more important than an individual's right to exercise their free will whilst simultaneously showing fundamental issues of human nature and morality. Burgess was a practicing catholic which may have influenced his moral views and have a part to play in the portrayal of people being inherently inclined towards violence. Burgess was inspired to write A Clockwork Orange during a visit to Germany in 1961. There, he observed a state-regulated, repressive country filled with communism which turned out to be a fundamentally flawed system according to Burgess as he said it ‘shifts moral responsibility from the

Freud argues that the unconscious molds the personality as it accommodates the id, the ego, and superego (Freud, 1962). Essentially, the id is primitive and is widely believed to already exist at the time of birth. It acts on the pleasure principle, which thrives on hedonism and abstains from pain. However, the id is detached from reality so it can only obtain gratification indirectly such as through reflex actions and mental images (Morris & Maisto, 2013).

The first aspect is the psyche which is structured into three, the id, ego and superego, all develops at different stages in our lives. The id is an important unconscious structure that contains basic instinctual drives when we are born. Freud believed that the id is based on our pleasure principle. For example, a baby needs or wants something such as milk, the baby