A Clockwork Orange

Alex (no surname provided or needed) embodies a set of contradictions: He is both protagonist and antihero, both perpetrator and victim, both gleefully amoral in his violent rampages and meticulously inflexible about his personal code of conduct. As much as Alex narrates his story truthfully—he certainly does not withhold describing the scenes of horrific violence and sexual assault—he is also unreliable in the sense that his moral compass is so askew. Rather than experiencing any remorse for his criminality, even for his role in the death of the elderly woman at the Manse, he feels only self-pity and a desire for vengeance toward those who have wronged him. This desire for revenge continues throughout the novel unabated: “‘All who do me wrong,’ I said, ‘are my enemies’” (203). He repeats the phrase for effect, ensuring that the Government Minister and his minions know where Alex stands. While the reader may view him as a perpetrator (as well as a victim of state violence), Alex sees himself only as the victim: of disloyalty from his droogs, neglect by his parents, and overreach by the State.

Yet the author also humanizes Alex, for all his brutal tendencies. First, the reader is given