"O my brothers": Reading the anti-ethics of the pseudo-family in Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange

College Literature, Spring 2002 by Davis, Todd F, Womack, Kenneth

With the outlandish nuances of his Nadsat verbal system in place, Alex establishes the ideology of his pseudo-self, the interpersonal doctrine of free will that ultimately characterizes many of his dealings with the various pseudo-families depicted in Burgess's novel. For Alex, the idea of free will-the glorification of the self-determined individual whose actions are not, and cannot be, controlled by any outside force, spiritual or material-represents a radically truncated and undeniably immature philosophical position based upon nothing more than desire and self-indulgence. Unable to grasp how the structures of his pseudo-family, other broader cultural systems, and the material reality of his existence impinge upon and essentially diminish much of his "free will," Alex blindly follows the patterns of destruction modeled by his peer group in an effort to eschew any notion that others might exert various measures of control over him. Blinded by his immaturity and self-indulgence, Alex offers an irreconcilable system of good and evil: "This biting of their toe-nails over what is the cause of badness is what turns me into a fine laughing malchick. They don't go into what is the cause of goodness, so why of the other shop? If lewdies are good that's because they like it, and I wouldn't interfere with their pleasures" (Burgess 1987a, 40).

Alex's laissez-faire approach to good and evil neglects to account for his infringement of the "pleasures" of people who avail themselves of an ethical doctrine based upon goodness. Whose free will should prevail, then, when opposing systems clash? Quite obviously, the limitations of material goods, governmental systems, and our very own mortality undermine any unqualified notion of free will. Of course, Alex scarcely begins to admit that his terrorist activities often infringe upon the free will of others, nor does he recognize the wide ranging forces at play in his own life that temper, if not destroy, any semblance of free will. Thus, Alex's immaturity drives his desire for adopting such a free-market approach to the ethics of good and evil. Intellectually ill-equipped and unable to render distinctions about the conflicted nature of our world-as well as the inevitable friction created by clashes between good and evil as they vie for position within a finite space-- Alex, through the guise of his pseudo-self, embraces an untenable ideology made possible only by his youth, a twisted language of convenience, and the ritualized use of drugs and classical music that function as the wicked machinery of his misanthropic behavior. It is only through this convoluted system of self-delusion, then, that Alex can continue to subscribe to such a flawed ideology of free will.

For this reason, Alex's belief system necessarily alters his (and our own) understanding of the elaborate metaphor that informs A Clockwork Orange's title. Alex first encounters the urtext of Burgess's novel in the hands of F. Alexander, who denounces the imposition of governmental policies upon the individual for its creation of a kind of clockwork orange, a mechanical creature devoid of the human capacity for enjoying free will.6 Yet Alex, flush in the throes of his pseudo-self, misreads and confuses Alexander's cautionary dictum for his own self-indulgent ends. Rather than astutely heeding Alexander's words as a warning about the inherent dangers in all forms of hierarchical power structures-including governments, religious organizations, educational institutions, and even families themselves-Alex co-opts the writer's clockwork orange metaphor as a means for justifying the pseudo-self that sanctions his horrific violations of the humanity of others. In a lengthy diatribe that mimics Alexander's own contentions about the mechanization of the self by the government, Alex reveals the real motivation for his adoption of Alexander's arguments regarding free will: "What I do I do because I like to do," he confesses (Burgess 1987a, 40). Unable to comprehend the philosophical implications of the writer's words, Alex deliberately allows himself to function as Alexander's ideological marionette in order to sate the hedonistic desires of his pseudo-self.7