Black and white, morning and evening: the world is filled with contradictory forces that must coexist to function smoothly. Forces such as diversity, fear of terrorism or competition, and the desire to live peacefully with each other must both be present for one to survive. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess also contains this idea: “Duality is key to Burgess's view of reality; he believes that the essence of reality is its dual nature” (Kennard 87). Burgess believes that there is a balance that allows each force to live side by side. The harsh, foreign language and characterization used throughout A Clockwork Orange creates a novel filled with dualities and contributes to the message that opposing but equal forces make up the makeup of Burgess's world. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Alex and his droogs, or friends, speak in the slang invented by Burgess throughout the novel. This original language keeps the reader in the dark for much of the novel, until they begin to understand it around the middle of the novel. The teenagers in the dystopia of A Clockwork Orange use Nadsat mainly to describe scenes of violence: "Burgess relies mainly on a strange language of his own making: a mixture of present-day English, archaic English and anglicized Russian (today, yesterday and future)” (Aggeler 86). However, only young people use this composite language, saying things like: "There was a bit of shuffling with nozhes, bicycle chains, etc. » (Burgess 43). This creates a stark difference in the way the teenagers and adults communicate in the novel. Some readers may be frustrated by the language and have difficulty following, but "there is something about the novel so frightening that it demanded new language, and something so immanent in the novel's message that it refused to be separated. the language” (Petix 4). Once the reader gets past the confusion, they begin to grasp it quickly; this allows the reader to see the humor that Alex possesses but also allows them to fully understand the brutal violence that Alex is capable of. When Alex sees Pete again, one of his former droogs, the difference in language between youth and maturity becomes clear. When they recognize each other, Alex uses the old slang that was once familiar to them, only to make Pete's wife laugh: "He talks funny, doesn't he?" (Burgess 208). Now that Pete is out of his reckless teenage years, he has shed the slang that considered him a nuisance to society. He now speaks in normal, everyday language, explaining to Alex shocked by his marriage: "I'm almost twenty years old. Old enough to be harnessed, and it’s been two months already” (Burgess 209). The meeting between the two old droogs leaves Alex weary of his usual, violent life: “Alex at first seems predestined to do evil, but as he grows, he transforms into a completely opposite person. (Rabinovitz 15). When analyzing the youth/maturity duality of A Clockwork Orange, the language used in this meeting is a central element. The language shows the reader that these are two separate entities, but that one age group is not more important than another. They need each other to exist. The carefully developed characters in A Clockwork Orange serve well to develop another duality in the novel: man versus government. Throughout the novel, the government gradually becomes more and more oppressive, in an attempt to eradicate alltrace of evil in the individual. They focus solely on maintaining the state: “Burgess dislikes the control the state exerts over individuals because it limits individual freedom” (Galens 10). By the time Alex was released from prison after completing Ludovico's experiment, the rozz were out in force in order to keep the people suppressed. Dim, one of Alex's old friends whom he bullied, and Billyboy, an old enemy of Alex's, happened to be the police officers who were called when Alex was in a fight at the library. However, it was a corrupt time, so the police took Alex into the woods to beat him up: "It's not fair, not always, that the city's lewd ones offload much of our summary punishment." . The streets must be kept clean in many ways” (Burgess 168). Dim and Billyboy were aggressive and unnecessarily cruel towards Alex while berating him. Despite the many crimes Alex has committed, the reader still feels sorry for him: "Without Alex's redeeming qualities, readers would view his own as morally repugnant" (Rabinovitz16). They do not, however, view Alex as morally repugnant, because they have gotten to know him throughout the novel; instead, they think the government and the Rozzes are disgusting for what they did to Alex. Without these two figures and another, the Minister of the Interior, the government's encroachment on the individual would not be so obvious. Seeking a society focused on stability, the Minister of the Interior, a figure who gained his position during Alex's incarceration, implements two policies that can achieve his goals, both of which greatly affect Alex's life. When he came to power, he decided to give the government total control of the prison sector. The Minister of the Interior or Inferiors, as Alex calls him, decides that prisons should only be used for politically non-conforming people, meaning that all criminals must be eliminated, "common criminals like this unsavory crowd can be best dealt with on a purely curative basis” (Burgess 102). He sets up a brainwashing experiment, called the Ludovico Technique, which erases all criminal tendencies by associating violent acts with physical illness. Not worrying about the subsequent side effects that this technique can cause, the Minister of the Interior or the Inferior claims to have arrested the criminals in a little over two weeks. Individuals are at the mercy of the government when this experience occurs; the government has a program and the people cannot obstruct it. Always trying to turn any situation in the government's favor, the Minister of the Interior or Inferiors always uses Alex when the experiment goes wrong. After he was driven to suicide due to a side effect of Ludovico's technique, the minister ordered his scientists to return Alex to his normal self, saying: "I and the government of which I am a member want that you consider us friends. » (Burgess 197). Then he brought in cameras and newspapers that would see Alex shaking his hand so everyone would know that the government was still Alex's friend, despite the fact that "Alex's treatment made him a victim perpetual” (Rabinovitz 15). In A Clockwork Orange, the government still manages to regain a good image, thanks in large part to the many impressionable citizens who fully trust it. The major duality in A Clockwork Orange is free will versus suppression. Ludovico Technique, Minister of the Interior, accounts for much of the repression inthe novel. It removes the choice of criminals; their only option is to be good citizens, unless that can endure the pain of being horribly ill, "Alex's 'good behavior' after his treatment will only be an illusory good for society" (" A Clockwork Orange” 2). Alex and the prison chaplain form a strong bond while Alex is in state prison because the chaplain allowed Alex to listen to his beloved classical music and read the Old Testament, an activity which he loved because of all the violence it contains. When Alex informs the chaplain that he is going to undergo conditioning, “Charlie” as Alex calls him becomes very emotional. Charlie disagrees with the technique: “I know I'm going to have many sleepless nights about this. What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is he a man who chooses evil perhaps in some cases much better than a man on whom good is imposed? Deep and difficult questions, little 6655321” (Burgess 106). Charlie's tearful speech with Alex questions the government's deprivation of free will from criminals: "Burgess asserts that the freely chosen life, even the freely chosen evil life, is superior. to the passive existence of the automaton” (“A Clockwork Orange” 2). He prefers a world in which people choose how to act, and a government in which they don't take the easy way out by brainwashing their citizens into doing only good. In the end, the government allows Alex to regain his free will. However, they are just saving their image, they would much rather have citizens conditioned to get sick at the thought of violence than violent citizens filling their prison space. Alex initially returns to his old ways of bullying with a new gang, but ultimately he chooses to change his life. He makes this choice with his own clear and thoughtful mind: “I felt this great hollowness inside my plot, also feeling very surprised at myself. I knew what was happening. I was growing up” (Burgess 211). It is much more fulfilling for the reader that Alex desires to be good than when Alex was forced by the government to be good. “Finally grown up and fully prepared to accept the difficult challenges of independence, Alex no longer chose the easy path. to ultra-violence, choosing instead to embark on a life of family commitment and human renewal” (Davis 9). Although seemingly necessary to the novel, the final chapter in which Alex makes the choice to turn away from violence was not present in the American version of the novel at the beginning. Later it was added because “Burgess said he wrote the twenty-first chapter in part to symbolize the age of reason toward which Alex is heading; he is only eighteen at the end, so his insight is clearly only a first step toward maturity” (Cullinan 2). Twenty-one is the age when children must become adults, when they must assume all the responsibilities that mark them as capable in the world. Without the twenty-first chapter in which Alex chooses maturity of his own free will, the novel could not have been complete. A fourth duality, the battle between good and evil, rages in Burgess's novel. A Clockwork Orange “explores ideas of good and evil by asking what it means to be human” (Galen 6). The character he creates named F. Alexander shows how thin the line is between the two sides. When Alex first shows up beaten and tired at F. Alexander's door, he greets him warmly, saying: "God help you, poor victim, come in and let's take a look at you." (Burgess 171). We learn that F. Alexander has been fighting thegovernment and strongly opposes the Ludovico technique that they applied on Alex. F. Alexander provides a room for Alex, he cooks for him and speaks to him openly. You would think he was a very good and caring man, until F. Alexander suspected Alex of brutally raping his wife a few years ago: "For, by God, if he was, I would tear it up. I would divide it, by God, yes yes, then I would” (Burgess 184). Thanks to Alex and his droogs, F. Alexander now lives alone. F. Alexander's suspicions are enough to transform him from a man concerned about Alex's well-being into a man capable of killing him without regret. F. Alexander and his friends take Alex and lock him in an apartment where classical music blares through the walls. Alex cannot stand this music, as a side effect of his conditioning included classical music which also made him sick and violent. There's nothing Alex can do to stop the music except kill himself: "Then I got on the ledge, the music was flying to my left, I closed my glasses and I felt the cold wind on my litso, then I jumped. » (Burgess 188). F. Alexander no longer cared about Alex, his love for his wife outweighed his good character. He decided to hurt Alex in order to prove something about the government's conditioning technique instead of proving his point in a less shocking way than Alex's death. The duality between Alex and F. Alexander is easy to discover, since they both have the same name. Even if the similarities between the two characters end there. Alex is both impulsive and always desires to be the dominant force with his droogs, although "Alex becomes a character that readers sympathize with, because of his artistic awareness" (Semansky 12). F. Alexander is much more introverted. He isolates himself in his house on the outskirts of town and finds joy in quiet activities, like writing. Burgess created these characters to balance each other: “Many of the characteristics of Alex and Alexander can be resolved into examples of extremes that follow the pattern of polar antithesis, predator and victim; uncontrolled libido (rape) and controlled libido (husband); young people and adults; man of action and man of ideas; destroyer and creator; conservative and liberal; alienated man and integrated man” (Semansky 14). The two characters, despite their polar opposite behaviors, are however deeply linked. One of Alex's many victims of his brutal rapes includes F. Alexander's late wife. Alex and his cohorts broke into his home one night and forced him to watch the boys rape his wife while savagely beating the couple. F. Alexander's wife committed suicide after this incident. When Alex is later lured to the same house after being beaten by the Rozzes, they quickly realize that they have met before under very bad circumstances. Alex and F. Alexander have a yin and yang relationship. Burgess puts forward the idea that “there is a cycle of recurring phases in which each young man passes through a period of existence as a violent and mechanical man; then he matures, gains greater freedom of choice, and his violence subsides” (Rabinovitz 18), so maybe F. Alexander was once a violent teenager like Alex, but now he has matured. Alex and F. Alexander are on completely opposite sides of the spectrum, but they still need to interact with each other because they have a deep connection that brings them together. Through Alex's violent but funny story, Burgess makes the reader understand that the world is made up of polarities. These polarities help to balance each other, creating room for choice and room for individualism. The novel has so many parts and 2007., 2002. 11-13.