In the novel, Anthony Burgess has tried to show the importance of individual freedom over doing the right thing. He has taken an extreme example of violence and perverse acts to accent his strong belief. It is my opinion that Burgess has somehow been blinded to the facts of nature in his quest to ensure personal freedom.
Personal freedom can be described as acting upon your own accord and not becoming restricted by the social paradigm in which you live. This is definitely a noble cause, all men should have the right to choose the path of their own lives. You may have the right to choose your own actions, but you are not allowed to impose your freedom on others. This is the point at which Burgess’ supposed view becomes hypocritical. Alex has forced himself into the personal freedom of others and in doing so is no better than the state which rehabilitated him. If one imposes himself on the personal freedom of another violently, a reaction will occur.
If a rabid dog wanders around your neighborhood, do you let it continue to do so? The dog as you once knew it was an affectionate creature always playing with the children and never once threatened the mailman, but today it threatens the lives of everyone in your community. The dog’s life is ended and it is freed from it’s disease. Alex is sick much like a rabid dog, he is perverse and though it may not be his fault, much like it was not the dog’s fault of becoming rabid, his threat on others has to be neutralized.
I question the actual freedom Alex believes he has. He seems to be oppressed by his emotional sickness and perverseness. Alex is a slave to his supposed freedom, which is dictated by the feelings of the other people whose freedom he threatened. By choosing the path he did; Alex also must accept the consequences along with it; whether he wants them or not. A parallel to this is written in part three of chapter 2:
“This is not a reward. This is far from being a reward. Now, there is a form here to be signed. It says that you are willing to have the residue of your sentence commuted to submission to what is called here, ridiculous expression, Reclamation Treatment. Will you sign?” “Oh, yes sir...” p.93
Alex is so quick to agree, because he sees the chance for his freedom. The warden warns him that this is not a gift being handed to him, but instead perhaps a curse. Alex accepts this consequence much like he must accept the consequences set upon him by society for the lifestyle he chooses to live.
It is popular to argue on what is right or wrong as judged by society, and I myself believe that a lot of popular views are not true, but a moral sense that has been inherent in human nature since the dawn of time is a very difficult view to challenge. Keeping these morals in mind, I would mark Alex as a very disturbed man. As I stated earlier Burgess took an extreme example of imposing personal freedom, and in its extremity it deserves to be neutralized. Imposing someone else’s ideas on the individual, like was done in the book, is not the right thing to do. Changing the man to fit your wishes is a crime as great as the one’s Alex committed. In this case capital punishment should be exercised. There is no question of freedom in this action just an end.
I don't want this paper to be a negative attack on Burgess, because I did enjoy the novel very much, so I will add my thoughts on why this novel is so special.
For me the primary theme and function of this book for me was an example of propaganda at its finest. No matter what Alex did, I always found myself empathizing with him. I felt anger towards ones who sought to do him wrong, and I rejoiced at the end when he felt he had been cured. I had all of these feelings despite the fact that the man I was identifying as the protagonist was immoral and sadistic. I later asked my friends about it and they too admitted that throughout the movie they felt themselves cursing the government who “fixed” Alex, and the old man who tortured him with Beethoven’s Ninth. The propaganda was accomplished through the ingenious use of nadsat, the teenage dialect used by Alex in the book, to downplay the actual crimes Alex was committing. The argot itself, according to Burgess, was widely based on Slavic words. Russia being the center of much anxiety at that time, would be a prime example of suspicion for propaganda techniques, much like the Germany of the 1940’s. The fact that the book was taken from a juvenile point of view, which whether we like it or not is associated with naiveté and innocence, also downplayed the violent acts which were occurring. In the movie it is not as easy to identify with Alex, due to the fact that he is portrayed as an adult. I then took notice of the parallel to this “power of propaganda” theme, which was illustrated through out section two. Alex is given the Reclamation Treatment, the use of propaganda films and drugs for reflex conditioning, which addresses fears of brain washing evident in that era. For me this is a much stronger theme than the freedom of choice one, which I addressed earlier in the essay. I am not certain exactly what Burgess was trying to show with this book, all I know is that it revealed to me what propaganda can accomplish if it is done correctly.

Laurence Malafry. The Clockwork Conundrum.