Clockwork Orange-myth And Heroes

I'm going to talk about the notion of anti-hero by describing the main character of clockwork orange a movie made by Stanley Kubrick in 1971 which shows the consequences of the violence in our society with irony and pessimism. You could see some extracts showing us the multiple aspects of this character.

In futuristic London where society is dominated by totalitarism and chaos, Alex DeLarge is the leader of his "droogs", an ultra violent group : even if he's sophisticated on some points (his favourite music is Beethoven 9th symphony) he's portrayed as a sociopath who robs, rapes, and assaults innocent people for his own amusement.

On one side, we picture him as a villain ; he and his group beat a poor elderly tramp, Alex rapes a woman while singing "Singin' in the Rain". On the other side Alex is an antihero for his brutality : and here is the amazing feat of movie which lead us to identifie to Alex, then at least support him even in his most disgusting and despicable acts. Why ? Because he's a true charmer, truth talker, he's has lot of charisma, he embodies liberty, well i shall say anarchy in this context but every adolescent even one day thought about this : total liberty, no boundaries...

In the following scene, Alex invades the mansion of a wealthy "cat-lady". There, we can see that Alex's immorality is reflected in the society in which he lives : the lady love for hardcore pornographic art is comparable to Alex's taste for sex and violence. And here Kubrick plays a lot with this identification to Alex until pushing us back in our last moral corners : did this scene which is murder (he killed the woman with this phallic statue)eventually make you laugh or make you sick ? We eventually develop a kind of awkward sympaty, admiration for him...

After this scene, he is captured and sentenced to 14 years in prison. The Minister of the Interior arrives at the prison looking for test subjects for the Ludovico technique, an experimental aversion therapy for rehabilitating criminals within two weeks; Alex volunteers. In fact this solution is a purely pragmatic one designed to rid the streets of criminals and free up prison space for political prisoners : he's the archetype of the demagogue politician...

The process involves drugging the subject, strapping him to a chair, propping his eyelids open, and forcing him to watch images of violence. He realizes that one of the films' soundtracks is by his favourite composer, Ludwig van Beethoven, and that the Ludovico technique will make him sick when he hears the music he loves. He begs the doctors to end the treatment, but they do not listen to his pleas. It is a true therapeutic torture and this part of the movie shows us alex as a victime : the violence is here legalized, medicalized yet as crual and immoral as the violence imposed by alex to his victims. And after this inhuman experiment, he's not a human anymore : devoid of free will he can't feel the emotions linked to sex or violence, he can't even love beethoven's music : as a consequence he's an easy prey for the predators like him in the past because he's powerless in front of the violence of world which didn't change. He's convicted to always suffer like the Christ (that why he decides to kill himself and goes back to the hospital)... At this moment we have

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