Alex Delarge is a very peculiar character; the psychopathic embodiment of Harvey’s denoted schizophrenic condition. Presented as the by-product of British traditionalism and the monotony of modernist housing, he has been thoroughly studied as the quintessential postmodern anti-hero. The first half of the film follows Alex and his droogs roaming around the modern British landscape in search of immediate satisfaction. Primarily expressed in the form of random acts of aggression, his happenings and attitude exemplify a broader symbolic purpose. His desire for immediacy illustrates a contemporary need to act on ones individual whim rather than for the good of the total community. In their book “Speaking Science Fiction”, literary critics Andrew Sawyer and David Seed supplement this position by suggesting that Alex “is the perfectly alienated subject of modernism”, and that his actions are indicative of divisive social classes (Sawyer and Seed, 2000, 85). Looking closer then at those particular characteristics which seem to alienate him, one might first begin by examining the code of communication that is shared by Alex and his droogs. It is a loose combination of regional, international and marginal influence, which is combined into a vocabulary that ultimately represents both his inner madness and an overarching cultural disintegration. It is a language which is a reflection of the places that he is shown inhabiting (i.e the record store, the delapidateid theatre, the milk bar) Sawyer and Seed go on to further suggest that the “effect is a language that functions as part of the narrative material which sets the story in the future; while remaining fairly comprehensible, it is also ‘foreign’ enough to distance Alex’s time from our own.” (Sawyer and Seed, 2000, 85). Although positioning Alex as alienated might seem contradictory to Harvey’s definition, the fact that his |
actions and attitude are situated quite contraryto the themes of progress and utopia, that he has an unabashed love of “Ludwig Van”, and that his persona is constructed of unstable desires, he can be considered as a postmodern individual. Turning then to another example of this deconstructive alienation it is appropriate to examine the latter half of the film, once Alex has been incarcerated for murder. After a short term in the traditional prison system, he volunteers for an experimental, “modern” procedure that is to remediate and reintroduce him into the society from which he came. As a result of the Pavlovian procedure- whereby music and images are interlaced to cause a reactive sickness- he must now confront his own disjointed character flaws head on. What is ultimately uncomfortable about the now infamous image of Alex strapped to the theatre seat is that the viewer is left to choose which part of Alex to feel sympathy for; the remediated individual who can no longer enjoy the truly visceral qualities of life, or the hooligan who has been tampered with and further fractured by the technologies of modernization. After pressure from the media mounts, the film ends with Alex being “rewarded”, as it were, with the medical procedure providing him with the inverse result of his original punishment. Illustrated by Alex once again returning to his primal self but now in the dream world, all the themes of the movie are assembled into one “reality”.
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As with the dense layering of seemingly differentiated plot lines-used as a method for invoking a subjective response to a film-the complex overlaying of multiple characterizations only seeks to further perpetuate the canonical theme of chaos. As explained by Harvey: “…the most problematic facet of postmodernism [is] its psychological presuppositions with respect to personality, motivation, and behaviour. Preoccupation with the fragmentation and instability of language and discourse carries over directly, for example into a certain conception of personality. Encapsulated, this conception focuses on schizophrenia (not, it should be emphasized, in its narrow clinical sense), rather than on alienation and paranoia” With this in mind, two differing techniques of illustrating this character fragmentation can be ascertained by looking to Alex from Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange" and Sam Lowry from Terri Gilliam’s “Brazil”. |
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