A Clockwork Orange main characters. A Clockwork Orange

« A Clockwork Orange", which begins with a shot completely filled with red, very well reflects the spirit of its time in general and 1971 in particular. The main topic Those years there was cruelty and violence, which viewers around the world witnessed firsthand in life and in cinema. By the time the film was released, America was in full swing with youth riots - increasingly angry and impersonal. At the same time, the Red Brigades began operating in Italy, kidnapping famous politicians and sabotaging factories of large corporations. In Germany, the Red Army Faction (RAF) began to set fire to department stores, rob banks and make attempts on the lives of high-ranking officials. In Britain, the conflict between the government and the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which was waging an urban guerrilla war for the independence of Northern Ireland, reached a climax just in time for the English premiere of A Clockwork Orange. The general background for all this was the American war in Vietnam - one of the most cruel and senseless of the entire 20th century. From real life, violence spread to cinema, which hinted to viewers: if violence is the only way to resolve a critical situation, then it is justified. A Clockwork Orange, unlike other films about violence that gave viewers the false impression that they were protected from Evil by an insurmountable barrier, proved that everyone is equally to blame for what happens around them. That is why his appearance on the screen caused scandal and indignation among many viewers.

1. A film that didn’t suit anyone, but hit the box office

A Clockwork Orange became Stanley Kubrick's highest-grossing film. With a budget of 2 million dollars total amount The box office gross for 10 years of the film's distribution (from 1972 to 1982) amounted to 40 million. Despite its commercial success, the content of A Clockwork Orange did not suit either the right (conservative part of the audience) or the left (liberal viewers). “The film certainly expresses radical political views, but it is difficult to attribute them to any one camp.” Kubrick simultaneously ridicules socialism and fascism, conservatives and liberals, police officers and human rights activists, two-faced politicians and narrow-minded voters, modern art and the Age of Enlightenment... The ambiguity of the film forced reviewers to rely solely on their own ideas about the beautiful and the terrible. Is this art or pornography? Topical satire or an immoral story with misogynistic and misanthropic overtones? Viewer responses to the film were sometimes diametrically opposed, which was explained by the historical situation: one of the consequences of the sexual revolutions of the 1960s was complete confusion in the definitions of pornography and obscenity.

2. Screen adaptation with a difference of one chapter

“A Clockwork Orange” is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by English writer Anthony Burgess, whose real fame came only after the release of the film. The novel was written in 1962 and expressed the author’s (rather conservative) attitude towards modern England. The novel was based on a true dramatic story that happened to the writer during the Second World War, when his wife was raped by four deserters of the American army. The main significant difference between the film and the book is the last chapter, which was thrown out by American publishers when publishing the novel in the United States. Kubrick learned about its existence after work began, but this did not affect his plans in any way. The optimistic content of this chapter, where the main character took the path of correction, according to the director, contradicted the pessimistic spirit of the film.

3. The title "A Clockwork Orange": Cockney vs. Behaviorism

According to Burgess, the title of his novel refers to the phrase “strange as a clockwork orange,” which is a London Cockney word for “a person with quirks.” However, perhaps the writer invented this expression himself. The Warner Brothers studio explained the meaning of the title differently: after psychological treatment, the main character turns into “a clockwork orange - on the outside he is healthy and intact, but on the inside he is disfigured by a reflex mechanism beyond his control.” For Kubrick himself, a film with unusual name became a form of correspondence polemic with the American psychologist Frederick Skinner* and his popular book “Beyond Freedom and Dignity,” where he preached and developed the ideas of behaviorism. This direction in psychology claims that human behavior, his desires and aspirations are entirely predetermined by the influence of the environment. Therefore, changing environment, you can model and change human behavior - just as you can teach mice to dance or make pigeons play ping-pong (the results of Skinner's experiments). “A person needs to have a choice,” Kubrick explained the main idea of ​​his film, “to be good or bad, even if he chooses the latter, to deprive a person of the opportunity to choose means to depersonalize him, to make him a clockwork orange.

1. * It is no coincidence that the creators of the animated series “The Simpsons” gave the name “Skinner” to one of their characters - the director primary school Springfield.

4. Style of the main characters: hello to English skinheads

The outfits of the members of Alex's gang* - a white shirt with decorations on the cuffs in the form of bloody eyeballs, white trousers with a boxer shell covering the groin, army boots, suspenders and a baton cane with a knife in the handle - are reminiscent of the equipment of skinheads of the late 1960s. In this way, the authors wanted to connect their present (early 1970s) with the uncertain future in which the events of the novel take place.

1. * The costume designer is Italian designer Milena Canonero, who later received three Oscars and dozens of other awards for her work on other Kubrick films.

5. Milk bar Korova: the language of the “elevenths”

The name of the establishment where Alex's gang spends free time, has Russian-speaking roots, like the slang that the main characters use. To avoid an exact indication of the time of action of the novel, Burges invented the so-called language of the “-twelfths” (a hybrid of English and Russian languages ​​*), that is, those who are from thirteen to nineteen. It is in this language that the main character Alex tells his story.

6. First victim: beating a beggar

The regressive political atmosphere of 1971 is most accurately conveyed by the line shouted in the film by the old homeless man who became the first victim of Alex’s gang: “People are on the Moon, people are flying around the Earth, but on the Earth itself, no one cares about the law or order.”

7. The main character: a villain and a subtle connoisseur of beauty

The prototype for the image of the main character, as Kubrick explained, was Richard III - the villain from Shakespeare's play of the same name, a criminal-artist, an intelligent young man with almost aristocratic manners: “Alex is aware of his own evil and openly accepts it. He makes no attempt to deceive himself or the audience about the deep depravity and malice of his nature. His image is a blatant personification of evil.” According to the director, the audience should simultaneously fear and hate the character of Alex: he personifies not so much individual social shortcomings (crime, cynicism, etc.), but embodies the dark sides of the consciousness of human society as a whole. “Most of the audience,” Kubrick noted, “recognizes this, which gives them a sympathetic attitude towards Alex. Others, on the contrary, experience anger and awkwardness. They can’t find the strength to admit it, so they start getting angry at the film.”

8. Fight with Willy the Pig's Gang

The scene of the fight between Alex's gang and the Willy Pig gang is accompanied by Rossini's idyllic overture to The Thieving Magpie. This technique (defamiliarization) - combining music and image in contrast, due to which the violence on the screen is perceived by the audience as detached - Kubrick uses repeatedly throughout the film. He shows the fight itself not in its entirety, but in a montage, capturing only individual instantaneous phases: a jump towards the enemy, a fall from a window, a headbutt in the stomach, etc. This turns the scene into a kind of stylized ballet, which removes the naturalism of the shots and saves the viewer from inevitable shock. “Everything bloody and terrible,” noted the Soviet critic Yuri Khanyutin, “is seen as if through a thick, but absolutely transparent glass of time... There is a cold detachment, non-participation, a sense of distance, even when the closest plans are used”*. For the American critic Pauline Kael, this technique, on the contrary, gave reason to accuse Kubrick of speculation and instilling in the audience immunity to violence: “In numerous episodes of rape and brutal beatings there is no fury or sensuality, they are coolly and carefully calculated, and since the viewer does not see any emotional motives behind it, he may feel insulted.”

9. Durango 95

The car in which Alex's gang travels existed in reality as an English small-scale sports car and was called Adams Brothers Probe 16 *.

10. HOME

With the scene of the attack on the writer's house, Kubrick emphasizes that in the world of the future, the victims are primarily those who are ready to come to the aid of other people. It is no coincidence that the writer’s home (with the eloquent name HOUSE), where Alex’s gang penetrates almost without any obstacles, is the only interior in the film where there is no pop art, pastoral paintings hang on the walls, and the cabinets are filled with books. Its complete opposite is Alex’s apartment, where his indifferent and cruel parents live, or the house of the Cat Lady, who is afraid to open the door to a stranger.

11. “Singing in the Rain”: testing the Ludovico method on the audience

The song “Singin' in the Rain” was written in 1929 for one of MGM's first sound films, but it only achieved its canonical status when performed by American actor Gene Kelly in 1952 in the film of the same name. Using a classic Hollywood song, Kubrick in a certain sense mocks* the “kind” but hypocritical Hollywood cinema. With “Singin’ in the Rain,” the director tests the audience with his own behavioral method of processing: “Many, including myself, will never again be able to look at Gene Kelly joyfully dancing in the rain without a creeping nausea and resentment at A Clockwork Orange, so unceremoniously who appropriated this song."

1. * Kubrick's relationship with Hollywood was not going well. This was partly the reason for his emigration from the US to the UK, where American producers could not control his work.

12. “Viddy well, little brother!”: subjective camera

Despite the fact that Alex's story is told in the first person in the film, there are a number of scenes in A Clockwork Orange that are shown through the eyes of other characters (in particular, when the writer, Mr. Alexander, looks from the floor at Alex wearing a mask with a huge phallus nose ). Thanks to them, the narrative acquires an objective and impartial character: “after this it becomes difficult to perceive any of the heroes as a mouthpiece of moral truth*.”

13. After-party at the Korova bar: kitsch is the most important of the arts

The figures of naked women that decorate the Korova bar are a parody of the provocative works of sculptor Allen Jones*, one of the most prominent representatives of British pop art of the 1960s. A whole series of his works consisted of furniture constructed from life-size female mannequins standing in slave positions. The result of the development of modern art, according to Kubrick, will be the erasure of the difference between art, kitsch and pornography: “Erotics [sooner or later] will become** popular art, and erotic paintings will be as accessible as posters of the African savannah.”

14. England: their socialist future

The painted mural in the entrance to Alex's house is considered one of the evidence that the England of the future has turned into a socialist country, although there are no other direct hints to this in the film.

15. Alex: evil as such

A short scene that emphasizes the image of Alex: the selfish motive in his crimes is one of last places. He commits atrocities for the sake of atrocities themselves, so he is almost indifferent to stolen money and valuables.

16. Beethoven: sadistic fantasies and erotic ecstasy

Alex's love for Beethoven's work is contrasted with the attitude towards the music of his contemporaries: for them it does not represent any sacred value. In the world of the future, music can only entertain, performing utilitarian functions (“stimulating the mood”). On the contrary, for Alex, music in general and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in particular is a source of colossal experiences, giving rise to sadistic fantasies and erotic ecstasy. Soviet newspaper " TVNZ“In 1972, in a review of the film, she noted: “Education is not an obstacle to cruelty, understanding music does not exclude sadism. This is not a new thought for humanity, which survived Hitler, who adored Wagner, and the sentimental SS men, who listened to Mozart with emotion. Not new and at the same time extremely relevant.”

17. Dancing Jesuses: the work of Herman McKinck

To depict the past, present or future, Kubrick, as a matter of principle, never specially invented anything and always used already existing things. The sculpture depicting the dancing Jesus is actually the work of Dutch artist Herman McKinck*. It became part of the interior of Alex’s room after Kubrick saw it in the artist’s studio.

18. Alex's Visions: Vampire

Beethoven's music evokes from Alex's subconscious a whole set of images: explosions, disasters, deaths, but most importantly - the idea of ​​himself as a vampire, obsessed with the thirst for blood and violence.

19. Pop art

According to the definition of the English artist Richard Hamilton, pop art is popular (intended for a mass audience), disposable (easily forgotten), cheap, mass-produced, young (addressed to youth), witty, sexy, “with a trick,” charming, very profitable movement contemporary art. A Clockwork Orange was filmed during the peak period of England's influence on world fashion and pop culture and became Kubrick's only film about modern British society. The director's diagnosis of this society is disappointing: in the world of the future, pop art has supplanted and replaced a culture that has fallen into decline. The cramped apartment of Alex and his parents is designed in pop art aesthetics: bright wallpaper, and realistic portraits of a dark-skinned woman with big eyes and an outstanding bust. True, unlike the house of the rich Cat Lady, it is rather proletarian kitsch, personifying bad taste.

20. Record Store: Say hello to Swinging London

The image in which Alex appeared in the music store (Edwardian coat with padded shoulders, tight trousers, cane) evoked in the audience of those years memories of the recent past rather than fantasies of the near future. Similar images were popular in England in the second half of the 1960s, during the era of “Swinging London”*.

1. * about Swinging London

21. Sex at 2 frames per second: let's make it quick

Group sex scene in Alex's room with two girls from music store The filmmakers demonstrate at a speed of 2 frames per second: in reality, a 40-second scene took about half an hour to film. Paired with Rossini's frivolous, feverish overture to William Tell, the sex scene becomes a comic ballet and makes a sarcastic, derogatory assessment of mechanical teenage sex.

22. I don’t feel sorry for anyone, no one: Alex beats up his friends

The cruelty of Alex, who does not spare even his friends, is deliberately excessive. Kubrick explained this by the desire to prevent the audience from making excuses for the main character after scenes in which the government performs an inhumane experiment on him: “Given the actions of the government towards Alex, it was necessary to emphasize his bestial nature even more. Otherwise it would lead to confusion in the moral aspect. If he had not been such a scoundrel, then anyone could have said: “He should not have been subjected to such psychological treatment; It’s so terrible, he’s not such a bad guy after all.”

23. Beethoven vs. phallus: 0:1

The fight to the death between Alex and Cat Lady, which takes place using works of art, literally turns into a fight of Freudian metaphors-symbols: a woman attacks using a Beethoven figurine, a bully swings away with a huge porcelain phallus*. Thus, the death of the lady, taken from the giant phallus, symbolizes the assertion of power in this world masculinity.

1. * The porcelain phallus is the work of the same artist who created the Dancing Jesuses, Herman McKinck.

24. New costume: symbol of submission

The classic blue suit in A Clockwork Orange is a symbol of Alex's submission to the authorities and rules that operate in this world.

25. Homosexual connotations

A Clockwork Orange is filled with suggestive imagery, which made it an inspiration for gay men in its time. In particular, allusions to A Clockwork Orange were often found in the images of David Bowie, the main androgynous superstar of English glam rock of the 1970s.

26. Alex Reads the Bible: The Essential Book of Violence

Despite the fact that Alex is the devil incarnate, he cannot be called an atheist (unlike other prisoners). In particular, this follows from Alex's dreams while reading the Bible, when he vividly imagines himself as a Roman soldier beating Christ during the procession to Calvary. According to James Naremore, all this fits perfectly with Burgess's idea that man has both the carnal and the spiritual: “I believe in original sin,” Burgess explained the background of his novel, “from which it follows that man must fall in order to be reborn. At the beginning, Alex's immaturity is emphasized. He is still helpless - still feeding on milk. Then he is forced to respond - not to his own, but to external signals. He then tries to commit suicide by jumping out of the window - this represents the fall of a man. Now its revival must take place, but not through the state. It will happen through the person himself and his ability to recognize the value of choice.”

1. * Original sin is the name given in the Christian tradition to the guilt that humanity bears for the transgression of Adam and Eve, who sinned in the Garden of Eden.

27. Prison chaplain: hidden gay, clown and spokesman for the truth

According to Kubrick, after the release of A Clockwork Orange, the newspaper Catholic News rated and supported the film most highly. The director kept the review from this publication as a keepsake and, on occasion, quoted it to other journalists: “Stanley Kubrick shows that man is more than a product of heredity and (or) environment. And, as the clergyman, who is friendly to Alex, says (who rants and clowns at the beginning, and “at the end” expresses the main thesis of the film): “When a person is deprived of the opportunity to choose, he ceases to be a person... The film, apparently, wants to say that deprivation freedom of choice not only does not save, but completely deprives a person of the possibility of action... In the name of supporting certain moral values change in a person should be born from internal motivation, and not imposed from the outside. Saving a person is an extremely difficult matter. But Kubrick is an artist, not a moralist, so he invites us to decide what is wrong and why, what needs to be done and how it should be done.”

28. Ludovico's method: turning Alex into a moral robot

The film show during Alex's treatment using the Ludovico method became an opportunity for Kubrick to clearly prove that screen violence is not responsible for the appearance of violence in life: “There is no clear evidence that the violence that we see in films and on television gives rise to social violence... - said Kubrick. - An attempt to assign any responsibility to art as a source of life seems to me to be a completely wrong way of asking the question. Art can change the form of life, but not create or cause it. Moreover, it is impossible to attribute to art a possible power of influence, because this is completely at odds with the accepted scientific view of art, which is that even in the state that comes after hypnosis, a person is not able to commit an act that is contrary to his nature.”

29. Returning home: we didn’t expect it

Describing the man of the technological age, the philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm says that he “suffers not so much from a passion for destruction as from total alienation; perhaps it is more appropriate to describe him as an unfortunate creature who feels nothing - neither love, nor hatred, nor pity for what was destroyed, nor the thirst to destroy; This is no longer a person, but just an automaton.” Alex's parents are undoubtedly the kind of automata that Fromm writes about. Their alienation is so great that they can only recognize their son based on newspaper articles.

30. Death of a boa constrictor: an allusion to a biblical story

After returning home, Alex learns of the death of his pet, a boa constrictor. The death of the snake, which in Christian mythology is the personification of the tempting devil, sarcastically hints at the triumph of science, which has triumphed over man and his faith.

31. Beating Alex: Beggars' Revenge

From prison, Alex returns to a world where other people have all the qualities and properties that he is forcibly deprived of. And now all those whom Alex once bullied are beginning to take revenge on him. So it turns out that a person deprived of aggressive instincts and the ability to commit violence cannot survive in this world. And if it is quite difficult to eradicate these instincts, then it is quite easy to arouse them by the very spectacle of defenselessness. All his victims easily accept the role of torturers. According to Kubrick, a person in the modern world has only one alternative - to be a victim or an executioner.

32. Kubrick's bathroom: hello, subconscious!

The bathroom in all Kubrick's films is always a place of manifestation of the unconscious. In A Clockwork Orange, Alex, without thinking about the possible consequences, lies in the bathtub and carefreely hums the song "Singin' in the Rain", by which the owner of the house identifies him.

33. Dinner with Mr. Alexander: “a crime against the art of acting”

In the dinner scene, the actor playing the writer overacts monstrously*, but this is no accident: Kubrick wanted exactly this effect. Examples of such inappropriate behavior can be found in all of Kubrick's later films. It confuses the viewer with its inappropriateness, so critics often find this technique annoying and unfunny. Nevertheless, Kubrick always strived for illogicality in acting, a sharp transition from naturalism to absurdity: “In this respect he takes a conscious risk; Let’s remember the impossibly drawn out and, generally speaking, insane scene of Alex’s return to his father’s house or how Alex, smacking his lips, eats dinner in the hospital.”

34. The Writer's Revenge: a film without positive characters

The writer not only takes revenge on the helpless Alex, whom he tries to drive to suicide, but also uses him for political purposes to fight the current government. They all don't care about Alex himself. Thus, there are no positive characters in A Clockwork Orange.

35. The Minister spoon feeds Alex

A satirical shot of the Minister of Internal Affairs himself feeding Alex crowns the story of the criminal’s relationship with the state. The scene is symbolic: society literally spoon-feeds the criminal, and he mocks the situation. "Good" Alex is persecuted, killed by society, and, having returned to his natural state of evil, becomes needed by the country. Ultimately, Alex is the only likable character, ending up in the same position at the end of the film as he did at the beginning: "The crippled villain returns to rich life male."

36. Sex with applause: final shot

The final shots depict Alex's fantasies inspired by Beethoven. This scene (the only one in the entire film where all participants clearly enjoy sex) is just a figment of Alex’s unhealthy imagination, who sees himself as a participant in some kind of theatrical performance. Alex's aggression is accepted and approved by high society, and now he will now sow violence, relying on politicians and the elite.

37. Captions: Hello, Alex!

By using the song "Singin' in the Rain" once again during the end credits, Kubrick hints at Alex's recovery and his return to society as a full member.

Komsomolskaya Pravda, 1972 Bruskova

Anthony Burgess's dystopia "A Clockwork Orange"

(Practical lesson)

The novel A Clockwork Orange (1962) brought world fame to its creator, the English prose writer Anthony Burgess (1917–1993). But the Russian-speaking reader had the opportunity to get acquainted with the novel almost three decades later, after its publication in 1991. The name of Burgess, widely known in the West, was not mentioned in Russian literary criticism, and the first publications about him and his “infamous”, as they put it, the author himself, the book appeared only after the novel was filmed in 1971 by American director Stanley Kubrick. Both the work itself and the film based on it were considered as a vivid illustration of the phenomenon of “decay” of the capitalist West.

“A Clockwork Orange” is a dystopian novel (dystopia) - a genre whose classic examples are represented in the literature of the twentieth century by the works of E. Zamyatin (“We”), Vl. Nabokov (“Invitation to an Execution”), A. Koestler (“Blinding Darkness”), O. Huxley (“Brave New World”), J. Orwell (“1984”). Burgess created his original dystopia, drawing on the experience of his predecessors (primarily George Orwell) and largely polemicizing with them. The writer sees the source of evil not so much in the state system, but in the person himself, his personality, overly liberated, prone to vice and evil that are irrational in nature. Thus, the novel puts forward the problem of the crisis of modern civilization, infected with cruelty.

Is there a real way out of this crisis? What to rely on: religious postulates, moral preaching or the latest socio-pedagogical methods that help “program” a person exclusively for good deeds, thereby abolishing his right to free choice between good and evil, showing distrust of the very consciousness of man, denying his moral ability and conscience. One of this kind experimental techniques is described in detail by Burgess in the novel, and it is unlikely that it can be entirely attributed to the realm of the utopian, since it has a very real basis. Attempts to grow “clockwork oranges” were made several times in the 20th century. totalitarian states. It is no coincidence that the author introduces into the novel a borrowing from “Finnegans Wake” by J. Joyce, resorting to the semantic attraction of two similar-sounding homonym words: orange is an orange, and in Malay it is a person. Burgess satirically sharpens the picture of the life of a society driven by good intentions, which ultimately make the individual morally defective.

The main problems of the novel are considered in philosophical and social aspects. The task of the practical lesson is to identify the features of the artistic embodiment of the stated problems, as well as to determine what the genre uniqueness of Burgess’s work consists of.

Let us recall that the emergence of the dystopian genre was preceded by a fairly long development of world utopian literature, the roots of which lie in ancient legends about the golden age, the “isles of the blessed.” The very term “utopia” to denote literary works came into use thanks to the work of the outstanding English thinker Thomas More, “A very useful, as well as entertaining, truly golden little book about the best structure of the state and about the new island of Utopia” (1516). Thomas More called “utopia” a fictional, fantastic island where an ideally organized society exists. Accordingly, the term “utopia” is assigned to works that present an ideal image of the future structure of society.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the genre of literary utopia was transformed. There are such varieties of it as “dystopia” and “dystopia”. These terms go back to the concept of topos: “dystopia” - from the Greek dis(bad) and topos(place), i.e. a bad place, something directly opposite to utopia as a perfect, better world [Shestakov 1986: 6]. A similar definition is contained in the article by E. Gevorkyan: “dystopia is an “ideally” bad society” [Gevorgyan 1989: 11]. The same “negative” utopia is represented by the literary genre of dystopia, therefore the boundaries of the terms “dystopia” and “dystopia” are quite arbitrary.

As in J. Orwell's novel, the action in Burgess's work takes place in England in the “near future” - in the 1990s. But if Orwell’s critical pathos is directed primarily against state totalitarianism, against the System, then with Burgess the emphasis is placed differently: he equally places responsibility for the fate of a person, his freedom on both the individual himself and the System.

For the modern reader, many of the writer’s predictions have long become a familiar reality (satellite television, lunar exploration, etc.). The descriptions of cities surrounded by working-class neighborhoods (“dormitory” areas?), twin houses with identical cage apartments, the unmotivated terrible cruelty of teenagers and the rise in crime among young people will not strike the reader’s imagination with their implausibility. All this has become characteristic features modern society.

In his Nobel speech, A. Solzhenitsyn noted: “Language is the memory of a nation.” This idea is also implied in Burgess's novel. The lack of internal culture in modern man is the root cause of cruelty. The novel is dominated by the elements of international (English-Russian) youth slang - another fantasy of the writer that has come to life today. The novel is narrated from the perspective of the main character, fifteen-year-old teenager Alex. As is known, to create a model of an international social dialect, Burgess used the vocabulary of Russian dudes of the late fifties, which he recorded during a trip to Leningrad. Later, recalling his time in Russia, Burgess admitted: “It dawned on me that the scumbag hooligans of the British future must speak a mixture of proletarian English and Russian. These teenage friends, professing a cult of vandalism and violence, speak the language of a totalitarian regime. This book is about brainwashing, and the reader was also brainwashed, whom I forced, unbeknownst to him, to learn a seemingly meaningless Anglo-Russian argot” (quoted from: [Zinik 2004: 4]). In the novel, interjargon from the future reveals the universal nature of the process of human depersonalization. Jargon replaces its essence and therefore ceases to be a common language problem. Burgess's heroes are deprived historical memory. The pride of English literature, Percy Bysshe Shelley, is for them just a certain Pae Be Shelley, and the Bible is “Jewish fiction.” However, Burgess is not at all inclined to see in speech sophistication an external indicator of high morality. In A Clockwork Orange, culture-conscious scientists conduct an experiment that has nothing to do with spirituality or humanity. Due to a coincidence of circumstances, the first victim of this experiment will be the criminal Alex, turned into a “Clockwork Orange”.

The theme of “a clockwork orange” takes on a special tone in each of the three parts of the novel.

The first part is a kind of kaleidoscope of events from the hero’s life over two days, presented in the prism of his emotional perception and assessment. Alex, in the company of his teenage friends, wanders around the city at night. The Korova milk bar, where you can take a dose of drugs, deserted streets with rare passers-by, a beer bar, the outskirts of the city - the usual route of a small, close-knit gang of hooligans who regularly arrange “relaxation evenings” for themselves. An old man they met by chance was beaten, his books and clothes were torn; a store is robbed, and its owners suffer the same fate as the old bookworm; a “triumphant” victory over Billy’s gang was achieved. Finally, the teenagers raid the Vacation home writer. Here, having sadistically dealt with the couple, they discover the manuscript of the novel “A Clockwork Orange.”

Alex, who always admired people who write books, had only to read short excerpt, to evaluate what was written as unheard of stupidity: the author of the manuscript declared that he was raising a “pen-sword” against those who are trying to “bring upon man a being who is natural and prone to kindness, with his whole being reaching out to the mouth of the Lord<…>, laws and regulations inherent only in the world of mechanisms.”

Returning home, Alex ends the “pleasant” evening with no less pleasant impressions: he listens to the “wonderful Mozart” and then Bach’s “Brandenburg Concerto”, and suddenly the meaningless words pop up in his memory: “a clockwork orange.” The music of the old German maestro makes the juvenile delinquent yearn to return to the country cottage to kick its owners, “tear them to pieces and trample them into dust on the floor of their own house.” Schiller’s ode “To Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which is repeatedly mentioned in the novel, does not inspire the main character to act righteously. It is noteworthy that Alex reinterprets the text of the ode in his own way, filling it with calls not to spare the “stinking world.” “Kill everyone who is weak and sire!” - he hears in the jubilant sounds of music.

It is no coincidence that the text of the novel contains in abundance the names of great composers, titles and detailed descriptions musical works. A sadist and criminal, Alex is an expert and fine connoisseur of Bach, Mozart, and Handel. Passion classical music gets along quite well with the desire to rob, kill, rape. Alex is an esthete of violence. One of those who “already with the ideal of Sodom does not deny the ideal of Madonna” (F. M. Dostoevsky), who imagines himself as a superman, obedient only to his will and instincts.

Reflecting on the problem of evil, the English writer comes to tragic, hopeless conclusions: evil is ineradicable, it lurks too deeply in man. Therefore, in particular, Burgess critically rethinks the theory of the educational impact of art on a person. Art cannot ennoble one whose personality is subject to moral decay.

Alex's story does not fit into the framework of the story of an ordinary villain; it embodies the real features of society and man of the late twentieth century - a man who ceased to be “ashamed of his instincts” (F. Nietzsche) and not only rejected moral norms and cultural prohibitions, opposed himself to God, but he also allowed himself to openly mock previous values. This process of “death of man” (for, according to Jung, man inevitably perishes as a spiritual entity, deprived of support for the transcendental) was, in particular, reflected in numerous, openly cynical statements of the protagonist: “Listening<музыку>, I kept my eyes tightly closed so as not to spugnut the pleasure, which was much sweeter than God, heaven and everything else - such visions visited me. I saw how veki and kisy, young and old, were lying on the ground, begging for mercy, and in response I just laughed with all the rotom and kurotshu with the boot of their litsa”; music “made me feel equal to God, ready to throw thunder and lightning, tormenting kis and vetav, sobbing in my – ha ha ha – undivided power”; “Well, I read about scourging, about putting on a crown of thorns, then about the cross and all other things, and then it dawned on me that there was something in this. The record player played the wonderful music of Bach, and I, closing the glass, imagined myself taking part and even commanding the flagellation myself, doing all the toltshoking and driving in nails, dressed in a toga in the latest Roman fashion.”

The beauty hidden in music and designed to give “metaphysical consolation” releases the devilish principle in Alex’s soul (remember Dostoevsky: “Here the devil fights with God, and the battlefield is the hearts of people”). His fantasies and way of life in general allow us to say that before us is a world of enraged matter abandoned by the spirit, “another Kingdom of death” [Eliot 1994: 141]. This is the apocalyptic model of modern civilization presented by Burgess, and its essence is concentrated in the image of the main character of the novel.

The problem of good and evil, posed in the first part of A Clockwork Orange and conceptualized in a philosophical aspect, is gradually narrowed and is further considered as social. Once in prison, Alex is forced to agree to a course of experimental therapy (“Louis’s course”), aimed at developing in the patient a physical aversion to violence, which previously gave him pleasure. The supposed results of the experiment inspire optimism in scientists, but terrify the priest. A Christian preacher and prison chaplain is convinced (following the existentialists) that only his inner choice makes a person free. And it is better to choose evil than imposed passivity. The chaplain tries to explain “strange things” to the prisoner: “Maybe it’s not so nice to be good, little 6655321. Maybe it’s just terrible to be good. And as I say this to you, I realize how contradictory this sounds.<…>What does the Lord need? Does He need good or the choice of good? Perhaps a person who has chosen evil has something better than man kind, but kind not by choice? These are deep and difficult questions, baby 6655321.<…>I realize with sadness that there is no point in praying for you. You go into spaces where prayer has no power.”

“Criminal”, according to the chaplain’s definition, the experiment nevertheless took place. Alex, having gone through torment, humiliation, temptations, turned into a saint. The paradox of the situation is that the transformed Alex is destined for a pitiful fate: society rejects him. The newly minted prodigal son who knocks on the door of his home will be cast out by his own parents. Then he will be beaten by the scribes and cynically used by the Pharisees for their own purposes. The world from which the hero was isolated and where he was returned again is vile and pitiful. However, this circumstance does not relieve responsibility from the individual, since ultimately the person himself makes the final choice in favor of Good or Evil. Alex once made such a conscious choice, which allowed him there, in a “past” life, to make fun of a newspaper article by the “scientist papika”: “...he wrote, supposedly having thought everything through, and even as a man of God: THE DEVIL COMES FROM OUTSIDE, from without it takes root in our innocent youths, and the adult world is responsible for this - wars, bombs and all other kal. Apparently he knows what he is talking about, this man of God. Therefore, we, young innocent maltshipaltshikov, cannot be blamed. This is good, this is right."

Burgess does not give clear answers to the questions posed. In an interview with Playboy magazine, the writer noted that his task was “to show a world where people are apathetic or direct their energy to barbaric actions” (quoted from: [Nikolaevskaya 1979: 216]). The ending of the novel is open: Alex recovers, that is, he returns to his previous state, which he will probably be able to overcome if he finds in himself something that “raises a person above himself (as part of the sensorily comprehended world)” [Kant 1966: 413].

PRACTICAL LESSON PLAN

2. Main character novel Alex in the character system.

3. Christian motifs in A Clockwork Orange and their reinterpretation. The image of a prison chaplain.

4. Artistic time and the space of the novel.

5. Poetics of the novel:

Parodying utopian traditions;

Symbolism;

The role of irony;

Allusive context of the novel;

“Stream of consciousness” technique;

The language of the novel.

6. Burgess as a successor to the traditions of J. Joyce.

Issues for discussion. Tasks

1. Describe the system of spatial images (toponymy and topography) of the novel “A Clockwork Orange”.

3. How is the theme of music implemented in each part of Burgess’s work? What is the author's ethical and aesthetic position in addressing this topic?

4. The image of “another Alex” - the writer F. Alexander in the system of image-characters of the novel.

5. Expand the meaning of the basic metaphor “clockwork orange” in the novel. How does it relate to the ideological setting of Burgess's work?

6. Researchers of the work of E. Burgess note that his novel “A Clockwork Orange” evokes associations with literary works J. Joyce that Burgess continues the traditions of his famous predecessor. What is the typological similarity between the aesthetic positions of the two artists?

Lyrics

Burgess E. A Clockwork Orange. (Any edition)

Critical works

Belov S. B. If a person collapses. William Golding and Anthony Burgess // Massacre number “X”: Literature from England and the USA about war and military ideology. M., 1991.

Doroshevich A. Anthony Burgess: the price of freedom // Foreign literature. 1991. No. 12. P. 229–233.

Subaeva R. Universal problems of humanity // Literary Review. 1994. No. 1. P. 71–72.

Timofeev V. Afterword // E. Burgess. A Clockwork Orange. St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 2000. pp. 221–231.

additional literature

Galtseva R., Rodnyanskaya I. The hindrance is man: the experience of the century in the mirror of dystopias // New World. 1988. No. 12.

Melnikov N. Groovy Anthony Burgess // New World. 2003. No. 2.

Nikolaevskaya A. Requirements of the genre and adjustment of time (Notes on dystopia in English literature of the 60-70s) // Foreign literature. 1979. No. 6.

Novikova T. Extraordinary adventures of utopia and dystopia (G. Wells, O. Huxley, A. Platonov) // Questions of literature. 1998. No. 7–8.

TOPICS FOR ABSTRACTS AND REPORTS

1. The question of the genre definition of dystopia.

2. E. Burgess’s novel “A Clockwork Orange” and the classic dystopia of the twentieth century.

3. Philosophical and religious aspects of the novel “A Clockwork Orange”.

4. Functions of foreign language inclusions in the novel by E. Burgess.

5. Mythological archetypes in A Clockwork Orange by E. Burgess.

Transformation into a “Clockwork Orange” (E. Burgess) Famous English writer Anthony Burgess (real name John Anthony Burgess Wilson) (1917-1993), author of several major works (“The Time of the Tiger” (1956); “The Thirsting Seed” (1962) etc.), willingly performed in other roles: composed