67. Alex DeLarge
A Clockwork Orange
Violence can be a funny thing sometimes, same with rape. Okay, well maybe not for us, but for a sociopathic nadsat living in dystopic England like Alex DeLarge? Yeah, definitely.
Our humble narrator and hero (well, anti-hero) for the entirety of Stanley Kubrick's adaptation, Alex travels foggy London town with his shaika of like-minded droogs, oobivatting and violating for teenage kicks and downing a few firegolds of Korova milk laced with synthmesc.
A fan of torture, as well, he takes part in a process that tests the Ludovico Technique, an experimental aversion therapy technique for rehabilitating criminals, during his time in prison. As he's forced to watch scenes of extreme cases of ultra violence and the old in out, in out, he is also fed drugs to induce revulsion, so that he will feel sick when presented with urges of violence or arousal. While this sickening act of torture is supposed to be satisfying for the audience (seeing the ultra violent rapist have the tables turned on him), it's clearly presented as disturbing.
Of course, that's the whole point of Alex as a character, to leave us razdrazled. To make us wonder who is worse in all this, the sociopath or the people who try to "cure" him of his societal ills? Of course, it could be neither of them. Maybe it's the audience who sits and watches these acts of depravity, you mouthy sods.
Defining moment: His home invasion and assault of a writer and the rape of the man's wife. All while warbling "Singing In The Rain." I'll never viddy Gene Kelly the same again.
Do I find it weird that I had to write my own name repeatedly throughout this post when talking about someone like Alex DeLarge? Yes, it's very weird.
Note: if you had a hard time ponying this article, feel free to consult this this Nadsat-English dictionary. I know it seemed hard and horny for me to write like this, but I had too much of a dobby raz doing it. You pony, right?.
No comments:
Post a Comment