Friday Focus: Focus on Character

Characters! An essential part of most books!

As I mentioned in my last post, the main character in A Clockwork Orange is Alex. He lives with his parents, or his “pee and em,” as he also calls them (that's his dad and mum, I think, but it might also be the other way around..). And, as I also mentioned, he’s a bit not nice. Or, more accurately, a nasty piece of work. Alex is fifteen years old (woo, look at me, repeating myself again), quite partial to classical music, and likes violence. A lot. Maybe a bit too much…

Alex has these three droogs (friends-ish) called Dim, Pete, and Georgie, and they all go about bothering people. Or assaulting people, if you want to be specific. The other three are older than Alex, but seem to follow his lead anyways (at least so far...). There isn’t that much information about them, except that, to Alex, Dim is quite dim. Also, none of his droogs seem to be quite as happy with being Alex’s inferiors as Alex thought… (I actually know some more stuff, as I finished the book on the plane last night, but I’m not telling, as I’m saving that part for next week.)

(I’ll give you a little taste, though, since I’ll be putting it in this Sunday’s post.)

Since I’ve read a bit more than last time, I’ve also encountered some more characters, mainly related to a "little" (oh, what a liar I am) run-in he had with the police, which I will give you all the details of in my next post (again with the lies… I’m disappointed in me). There’s the policemen, or millicents, as Alex calls them, who are really mean and not like police should be at all. And the people at the prison (specifically the wardens) are all quite unfriendly (understatement). There is also this one prisoner that comes along and messes up everything for Alex.

Then there’s also the people they’ve assaulted. There’s the couple in the cabin, the “starry teacher type veck”, the shop owner and his wife, Billyboy and his droogs (the other gang from my last post), and the lady with the cats (you’ll hear more about her on Sunday. Promise).

As to what I think of the characters… I like Alex. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do not approve of 99% of what he does, but I’ve grown attached to him. Sort of. I especially like the way he speaks, and the way he narrates the story. I like the way he refers to himself as “Your Humble Narrator” (humble… heh…), and the way he refers to people as “my brothers”, even the reader. It’s just the way the word makes you feel like he knows people without knowing them, and it makes him appear really sure of himself and a bit cheeky, and I love it. Makes me feel all happy for him, which is a bit weird…

Anyway; Dim. I don’t like him. He just seems annoying. I know Alex finds him a bit annoying, so that might be why, but I still don’t like him. Georgie and Pete seem more decent (at least as decent as one can be while being a criminal teenager), so I don’t really feel any specific way about them… I mean, they're horrible, but as characters they're all right.

This is nothing like what they look like in my head, and I haven't seen the weird eyelash thing mentioned in the whole book, but it's an interesting look...

And that’s it for today, kids! (Please tell me there are no actual children reading this. Children should be kept as far away from this book (and anything related to it) as possible.)

-Ellen Johanne