A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange

For years the movie A Clockwork Orange has been considered one of the most controversial movies ever made. The story follows a young hoodlum named Alex whose daily life is filled with violence and perversion. At home Alex’s family appears to be completely normal. His mother and father both work and they all live in a small home in England. But during the nights Alex and his three “droogs” conquer the cities by expressing their love for rape, murder and theft. After numerous successful nights of vandalism Alex has become a very controlling leader of his gang. When his three friends try and tell him that he has to start being nicer to them, Alex physically attacks and inures two of the gang members so that they never question him again. Unfortunately this only results in all of his gang tricking Alex and abandoning him for the police to find after they flee from the scene of a murdered woman. While in prison, Alex hears about an experimental treatment that cures any prisoner of his violent habits and allows them to be released from prison. Alex is immediately interested and is eventually taken into the program called the “Ludovico technique.” After a period of time Alex is released from the prison because he can no longer commit violent acts without feeling sick to his stomach. Even after this treatment, Alex is far from cured. He now wanders the streets abandoned by everyone, including his family and friends, and is unable to fend for himself because it will only result in more sickening feelings. In the end of the movie Alex is eventually driven to the point where he wants to commit suicide because everything in the world that he has ever loved now sickens him. After a failed suicide attempt, the Ludovico technique is seen as a terrible treatment and is shut down. Alex no longer feels sick when he sees violence and sets out to find a new gang.

There are many psychological aspects that are introduced throughout the movie. First, the classical conditioning Ludovico technique used to cure Alex is very similar to Pavlov’s dog experiment. In Pavlov’s experiment he studied the amount of saliva dogs produced when introduced to a certain stimulus. He repeatedly rang a bell right before feeding the dogs so that the dogs became accustomed to the sound of the bell whenever they were about to eat. Eventually the dogs associated the bell with the food and would start to drool whenever the bell was rung, even if no food was present. In the Ludovico technique, Alex was given a serum that made him feel incredibly nauseous. While he felt these terrible feelings, he was forced to watch videos of violence and rape for long periods of time. Eventually, Alex’s body began to associate the nauseous feelings with the disturbing videos to the point where he wouldn’t