The title was taken from the Cockney Expression “as queer as a clockwork orange”, which was used to refer to a mechanically responsive (clockwork) human (orang, Malay for person). Clockwork Orange is about the application of Pavlovian or mechanical laws to an organism, which like a fruit, was capable of colour and sweetness.
The protagonist has been negatively conditioned to feelings of evil that prevents the exercise of his freewill. Alex is forced to undergo the Ludovico Technique, which is an aversion therapy to cure people who commit violent crimes for enjoyment. He was given a drug that induces extreme nausea while being forced to watch violent films for two weeks and forced to hear his beloved Beethoven at the same time. The treatment causes him to be unable to contemplate violence without crippling nausea. Likewise, he was unable to listen to Beethoven 9th without experiencing the same sensation. The Ludovico Technique is highly reminiscent of the notorious Project Mkultra, which is a form of behaviour modification. The scientist applied to Alex this technique to condition his violent acts with a sensation of severe physical illness, thus preventing him from being violent.
After the aversion therapy, Alex behaved like a good member of the society. The Chaplin criticises the Ludovico Technique saying that true goodness must come from within a person. The film embodies the mistrust of behaviourism, especially the perceived dehumanisation and lack of choice associated with behaviour modification methods.
Another film deals with the abuse of liberties both by Alex and by those using him for their various ends. Frank Alexander, writer and victim of Alex and his Droogs not only wants revenge over Alex and sees him as a means who will definitely turn the people against the government and its regime. Mr Alexander is afraid of this new government. He says:”…Recruiting brutal young roughs into the police; proposing debilitating and will-sapping techniques of conditioning. We've seen it all in other countries; the thin end of the wedge! Before we know where we are, we will have the full apparatus of totalitarianism.”
On the other hand, the Minister of the Interior later puts Mr Alexander away using the excuse of him being a danger to Alex. From what the minister tells Alex, it is clear that the author has been denied his ability to write subversively critical material of the current government, which is prone to cause unrest.
The character of Alexander was meant to be a satire of liberal hypocrisy. In his book, Mr Alexander is happy to describe Alex as a victim until he realises that he, the writer was a victim of Alex's thuggery. It is no coincidence that they have the same name, having undergone similar fates.
Another major theme of the film is about the power struggle between the old and young generations, corruption of police and troubles of future society. The story reveals that his friends had fallen victim to the states or had outgrown their destructive behaviour. Alex himself no longer finds pleasure in “ultra-violence” and yearns for a wife and a child. He knows that the generation after his will be just as destructive and will go on to the end of the world which is Burgess' ultimate deliberation on the unruly youths.
After reading this book, I observed that this book is about the different forms of control and manipulation that the different groups of people exert over another group. It criticises the whole process of such a manipulation that stifles the freewill of choice of the individual.
