’’Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don’t want it.’’ - Anthony Burgess
Burgess’s thinking is most evident in his disturbing 1962 novel, dramatised by the late Stanley Kubrick. Burgess crafted his extraordinary tale of teenage delinquency in the year that he anticipated his death from a brain tumour. (He actually died in 1993.) Inspired by his own experiences - his pregnant wife was attacked by four United States army deserters - and events of the time, such as the Teds and Rockers clashes that he witnessed in Sussex, Burgess created a desolate underworld for the depraved exploits of ’’your humble narrator’’ Alex and his three droogs - a gang which converses in nadsat (an Anglo-Russian patois).
A string of assaults, muggings, and rapes culminates in the murder of an elderly woman. Betrayed by his friends, Alex is imprisoned for the murder, where he naively volunteers for Pavlovian ’’reclamation therapy’’ to ’’cure’’ him of his sadism, allowing early release. The therapy is a political gem, potentially eliminating crime and emptying prisons.
With his eyes clipped open Alex is forced to watch violent film scenes while experiencing clinically induced, excruciating pain. This leaves him incapable of evil, compelled to act kindly to avoid the physical manifestations of his conditioning.
Kubrick’s adaptation caused immense controversy when released in 1971. Copycat beatings and rapes were reported, and Kubrick swiftly withdrew the film, without explanation, from the United Kingdom. Only after his death in 1999 was the film rereleased.
Much has changed in 29 years: scenes that once sickened are now routine in the cinema. (Is this an indication of Burgess’s nightmare coming true?) Yet both book and film raise ever pertinent issues. Firstly, there is the misappropriation of medical knowledge for political purposes - how does this occur so readily, and how can we prevent it?
Secondly, there is the issue of doctors ’’playing God’’ in the truest sense, contradicting the created right to freely chosen actions. The assumption by doctors and government that this is wise - even acceptable - is a demonstration of the arrogance and misguidedness in which humanity exists, with power but without moral reference beyond itself.
Finally, there is the question of free will: is it better to have people incapable of choice who cause no nuisance, or people who are free but capable of criminality? Burgess’s proxy - the prison chaplain - concludes, ’’a man who cannot choose ceases to be human.’’
There is much in these works to make the discerning audience ponder where we are heading.