Friday Focus: Focus on Social Studies

Now, to relate this book to themes we have been working on in class…

To be honest, in A Clockwork Orange, society is a mess. There are a lot of things I can talk about, but one of the things that stands out to me the most is police brutality (I know, I know, crime literally takes over the city at night, a whole generation have turned into violent criminals with no moral compass whatsoever, what happened to parenting, bla, bla, bla… Don’t you worry, I’ll get there eventually).

The police brutality in the book is technically not the same as the police brutality we often hear about in the media. The things we hear about today are characterizes by racism and oppression of minorities. In A Clockwork Orange, police brutality (as far as I can tell) is more related to an unhealthy attitude towards criminals in general, in addition to police exploiting the power they have been given by the authorities.

Ouch...

So, what do I mean by an unhealthy attitude towards criminals? Well, I think the meaning behind it is nicely summed up in this little quote, brought to us by the Governor of the prison: 

“An eye for an eye, is what I say. If someone hit you you hit back, do you not? Why then should not the State, very severely hit by you brutal hooligans, not hit back also?” (p. 70).

Fight fire with fire. What a great idea. Totally. So great. You have no idea. 

Not only does this way of thinking not make any sense at all (don’t hit people, or I’ll hit you!), but it leads to a bit of a problem in the prisons… And by that I mean that the prisons are full to the brim (and a bit more), the prisoners are treated horribly, and no one seem to want them to be reformed. 

And I imagine that the way they are treated give them very little reason to want to change their 

ways…

Now, at least unemployment isn’t an issue in this society. Why? Because, apparently, there is a law against it. And I’m not even lying like I did in that one post, there really is a law, and I have proof.

After his mum tells him that she has to leave, Alex tells us this “Which was true, there being this law for everybody not a child nor with child nor ill to go out rabbiting.” (p.28)

(Rabbiting means working. As in working in general, not just work involving plant-eating mammals with long ears and an affinity for bouncing.)

I’m not sure how much people earn, though. I imagine Alex and his family aren’t that rich, but there are definitely differences between how much different people earn. The woman with all the cats, who I mentioned in an earlier post, was very rich, and lived in a rich part of the city, while Alex and his family seem to be living in an area that is a bit shabby.

And then there are all the teenagers running around in the streets and causing trouble to the point where other people are VERY cautious about going out at night. And they should be, because they will probably end up hurt in some way or another. And maybe killed. (Or worse, expelled! …I’m sorry… I had to…)

I assume this is the part where they "bother" the "starry schoolmaster type veck," but I haven't actually seen the film, so I don't know for sure. Let's hope it's not completely wrong...

Now, A Clockwork Orange doesn’t really gloss over anything, and you don’t really get the objective side of things. There are no numbers, but rather just how people experience it. And the people who experience it are so used to it that it’s not really portrayed as a big deal. Yes, it’s horrible, but you can’t really expect anything else, and so on...

And then there’s the fact that the person telling us about things isn’t really a model citizen, either...

When Alex talks about these things, it’s in an almost disinterested way (unless it’s happening to him, of course). He is used to violence, whether it is he and his friends who are being violent, or the police. In addition to this he is used to the living conditions, the economy, and all those things, and this influences the way he describes it, and how much of it he describes. 

In other words, there are probably more problems in the society Alex lives in than the problems we are told about, and there is probably more to the problems we have been made aware of, too.

(Wow, two actual pictures this time! I'm spoiling you...)

- Ellen Johanne