second prompt essay

2004. Critic Roland Barthes has said, "Literature is the question minus the answer." Choose a novel, or play, and, considering Barthes' observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers answers. Explain how the author's treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

author's note: oh my god this essay is a rambling, nonsensical disgrace to A Clockwork Orange and the English language. I can't concentrate on anything right now, I'll see if I can fix it later.

In his 1962 novella A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess questions the merits of moral righteousness in a situation where there are no alternatives.

The protagonist, Alex, is a teenage delinquent with a posse and a love of classical music. After a burglary is botched by the actions of a mutinous minion, Alex is sentenced to undergo a particular sort of aversion therapy for his severe, repeated transgressions. Rendering him incapable of reverting back to his violent habits, the treatment makes Alex less than human. He is victimized by society and subjected to a few beatings, but he's been conditioned to feel intensely sick when exposed to negativity (and classical music). Ultimately, the spell is broken, so to speak, and Alex returns to his criminal life, only to find that he has outgrown his taste for violence and decides he wants to settle down with a family, and then he reflects on life and stuff.

After the treatment is finished, the newly-reformed Alex is essentially thrown out onto the streets. He goes home to his parents' house, and his mother assumes he has broken out of prison illegally. She and her husband inform Alex that all of his belongings are gone, and they have rented out his room and can't accommodate him anymore. The new boarder berates Alex, causing him to break down and leave. He then goes to a library, where a bunch of old people beat him, and then some former gangmates-turned-policemen break up the violence and take Alex out of town where they beat him more themselves as revenge for their treatment under Alex's leadership. Burgess means to show that "evil" must always be a viable option, or "good" won't mean anything. Alex is nice and reformed, but society still abuses him because of his passivity to it.

After being brutally beaten, Alex wanders until he finds a familiar-looking house. The resident is very hospitable, and sympathetic to what Alex has been through, and opts to allow Alex to stay. They both come to realize that this is the house in which Alex murdered an old woman and got sent to prison. The man realizes Alex killed his wife, and acts to both exact revenge and show the faults in Alex's treatment. He traps Alex and forces him to listen to Beethoven's Ninth, prompting Alex to attempt suicide. Once fully recovered, he discovers the treatment has worn off and he can now choose to be violent again, though he also discovers he's lost his taste for it.

While the treatment is in effect, Alex becomes a hollow shell. His superficial goodness (or rather, his lack of badness) means nothing because acting badly is an impossibility. When the treatment is broken, he is free to act as he pleases, but at this point he is truly reformed. He entertains the idea of settling down with a family, and imagines that his son will act out in the same ways he did, and he'll tell his son to behave, but he won't, and he shouldn't, because the ability to choose "evil" is what makes us human.