A Clockwork Orange: Kubrick’s Masterpiece of Perversion

Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, the infamous film adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ novel of the same name, is laced from start to finish with an intoxicating dose of sex and sexuality. The phrase “A Clockwork Orange” juxtaposes the image of a sweet, pure, natural orange with the meticulousness of a clock and thusly sums up the basic question of the movie: can an organic being be rendered psychologically mechanical and be thus manipulated to obey? The film particularly toys with the question of whether or not sexual deviance can be corrected in the case of juvenile psychopath, Alex DeLarge. Alex undergoes a procedure called the “Ludovico technique”, in which he learns to associate his urges for sex and violence with feelings of nausea, thereby transforming his organic, natural tendencies into mechanical cause-and-effect systems (Kubrick). The movie treats sex as both ubiquitous and commodified, contradicting the traditional notion of sex as something privileged and sacred, and instead transforming it conceptually into a commercial, tangible act. While at first glance, the ever-present sexuality in the film might suggest an effort toward the audience’s increased comfort and decreased sense of stigma surrounding the expression of sexuality, the movie’s presentation of sex as a commodity and as a weapon actually serves to alienate the audience; each of the violent scenes have an embedded level of sexuality, creating the ultimate horror for the viewer’s experience: simultaneous feelings of arousal and repulsion within themselves. Additionally, Kubrick assimilates concepts of childhood innocence with abusive sexuality to further pervert the viewer’s notion of sex and in doing so, increase their own feelings of discomfort and disgust. In this paper, I will look at the relationship between the organic and the mechanical in the movie, and how these concepts are reflected through the film’s treatment of the body and sex. In doing so, I will focus on how Kubrick himself manages to conduct the Ludovico technique on his audience, repulsing them from the notion of sex through the continued association between sex and violence.

The entire film plays with the relationship between the organic and the mechanical, from the very basic level of the family structure. The central character, Alex DeLarge is portrayed as simultaneously childlike and adult. Alex lives with his parents, yet has an incredible amount of independence, as they both appear ignorant of and frankly disinterested in their child’s activities. He is able to make decisions like skipping school without being questioned by his parents. They treat him like an adult despite their providing for him. Their flippant attitude toward Alex and his choices suggests a lack of care for him — their failure to question Alex or to provide stern boundaries which might prevent or at least thwart his violent behaviour illustrates a lack of care or intimacy toward their son. Mr. and Mrs. DeLarge themselves appear to be very stiff and devoid of intimacy: never engaging physically with one another onscreen, and even calling each other “Mum” and “Dad” when Alex is not around. A reference is made to Alex’s mother working at an unspecified factory, yet both parents are never shown outside the home, giving the impression of them as stationary, one-dimensional figures with zero existence in Alex’s life aside from making him breakfast and essentially being his landlords. When Alex gets out of prison and returns home, his parents are awkward at his arrival. Though it is certainly reasonable that their relationship with their son would be jeopardized after their discovery of his criminal behaviour, their reaction betrays the emptiness of their whole relationship with Alex. They appear to be slightly frightened of him, but otherwise mostly concerned for his unexpected presence as it relates to the mundane details of his accommodations, which is to say that they care less about seeing him and ensuring his wellness than they do about the peripheral concern of the logistical issue that his room has been rented out to a tenant. In the same scene, when Alex becomes violent and subsequently nauseous, as per the intended effects of the Ludovico technique, his parents look at each other confoundedly, openly expressing their cluelessness, asking, “Do you think we ought to do something?” and even offering, “Would you like me to get you a nice cup of tea, son?” (Kubrick). Alex is unintentionally revealing to his parents both his formerly hidden violent nature, as well as the cruel and inhumane effects of the Ludovico technique and they are wholly unequipped to care for him. This interaction indicates how Alex’s sense of relationships could have become so misconstrued — his home life is devoid of intimacy and his parents are too emotionally immature and sedated to enforce discipline or even provide an example of a healthy relationship.

The other main parental figure presented is Alex’s correctional officer, Mr. Deltoid. Mr. Deltoid, as well as the other government figures who appear in his life following his capture to police custody, represent a mechanical version of the parental relationship which Alex lacks with his natural parents. Following Alex’s detainment by the police, Mr. Deltoid is told, “He must be a great disappointment to you sir” (Kubrick). Disappointment suggests an investment of emotion, and in fact many children consider their parent’s disappointment to be the ultimate indication of their own failure, however in this case, the disappointment is strictly mechanical — Mr. Deltoid does not care for Alex except as a reflection of his own job performance. The mechanical and impersonal nature of the government’s relationship with Alex is made clear through their concern for Alex, not as a person, but rather on a strictly statistical basis: “A big black mark I tell you for every [juvenile delinquent] we [the government] don’t reclaim. A confession of failure for every one of you who ends up in the stripy hole” (Kubrick). The debate over concern for Alex as an object or a machine is the central focus of the plot, with characters such as Mr. Alexander protesting against the inhumane nature of the Ludovico technique. Ultimately at the end of the film, the government makes a deal with Alex: bribing him with a good life in exchange for his support and his silence. Though the government’s relationship with Alex is explicitly mechanical in terms of its means, their relationship ultimately results in a more fulfilling and profitable end in terms of Alex’s life. This relationship pushes the dystopian society’s agenda of praising the mechanical over the natural. This attention to results and nothing else is perfectly summed up in the line uttered by the government’s Minister: “We are not concerned with motives, with the higher ethics; we are concerned only with cutting down crime…The point is that it works!” (Kubrick).

The government’s parental role to Alex is a particularly destructive stand-in for genuine parental love because of the lesson which it teaches Alex: relationships, and to a further extent, people, are worthwhile only insofar as they can provide you with a reward — often a tangible benefit. Alex however seems somewhat pleased and at ease while in the presence of government officials. This indicates that Alex actually enjoys this distorted kinship. This relationship actually closely resembles those few ones which Alex has in his life, as it reflects his impulse to leech off of others for personal gain: Alex’s parents provide him with shelter and food, the girls with which Alex engages in a threesome provide Alex with pleasure, his droogs provide Alex with an ego boost, and his victims provide him with money and a form of release. All of Alex’s relationships are predominantly focussed on the rewards which he attains from them, rather than the focus of healthy relationships: a mutual investment of thought and effort and the sole end of building and strengthening a connection with another human being. The only difference between these relationships and the one shared between Alex and the government is the explicitness of the contract shared between them. Though the government’s relationship with Alex is the most explicitly mechanical one, it is in some ways, the most honest, as both parties are spared the heartbreak caused by the illusion that the relationship means something more. The government’s relationship with Alex subverts the distance between the applicability of the terms organic and mechanical: through a completely mechanical and contrived relationship, the government actually appeals to Alex’s organic psychopathy, with both parties focussing only on how to gain tangibly from one another rather than building expectations of love, trust, and respect which ultimately are fated to result in disillusionment.

Alex’s ability to relate better with institutions and material things than to people is epitomized through his love of music. Following Alex’s break-in to the Alexanders’ residence, he goes home and listens to the work of Ludwig van Beethoven. He is lost in the music and appears to be masturbating as the viewer is treated to the images inside his head as he orgasms. There is some debate over whether or not he is actually masturbating in this scene. He says, “As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures” (Kubrick). In the novel’s dictionary of the slang used by Alex and his friends, “slooshy” means “to listen or hear”, however the onomatopoeic nature of the word suggests that it could refer to the physical act of achieving orgasm, and given the expression on his face and the movement of his shoulders, the scene at least implies that Alex is pleasuring himself (Burgess). This scene provides an interesting indication of Alex’s own sexuality. It follows his rape of Mrs. Alexander, so it is immediately of interest and surprise that his sexual needs have not been satisfied for the evening by the actual act of sex. Instead, he is turned on by the work of Beethoven. As with many other scenes of the movie, classical music — especially that of Beethoven — provides a trigger to Alex’s sexuality and violence. The Alexanders’ doorbell is set to the tune of the opening notes of Beethoven’s fifth symphony and is heard just before Alex’s violent break-in, Alex’s attack of his fellow droogs is provoked by “lovely music that…[told him] at once what to do”, and most significantly, his entire relationship with his sexual urges are tied to classical music following his subjection to the Ludovico technique (Kubrick). Even in the scene in which Alex breaks in to the home of the cat-lady, he only attacks her after he is hit by a bust of Beethoven. Alex’s obsession with Beethoven and with classical music more generally is really his only attachment. To cite an illustrative example of this, upon realizing that the Ludovico technique films — intended to repulse — are set to the fourth movement of Beethoven’s ninth symphony, Alex (for the first time) shows a genuine exertion of emotion: desperation. He begs for the film to be turned off, much like a person might beg for the sparing of the life of a loved one. Alex is incapable of loving another person, but is heavily invested in the work of Beethoven. As he masturbates to the sounds of Beethoven, the camera focuses on Alex in the foreground, his face in a daze of pleasure, but captures the stoic eyes of his Beethoven window shade in the out-of-focus background. Alex touches himself to the tune of Beethoven’s creation while a representation of the composer himself watches behind him. Alex’s rape of Mrs. Alexander, an actual living, breathing person, earlier that evening fails to satisfy him, but the material reproduction of a long-dead composer is able to do so. This relationship illustrates Alex’s engaging with the mechanical over the natural because not only is he prizing an emotional and sexual connection with a dead composer over that with any living person, but he in fact does not even engage with Beethoven’s personhood: he is solely enamoured with Beethoven’s physical, tangible, material representations.

The film continues to prize the imitation over the original through its emphasis of an objectified perception of the body. Each set features many objects, mainly works of art, which depict sex organs and naked people. Alex himself even sports similar such objects on his person, wearing emphatically false eyelashes, a mask with a phallic nose, cufflinks resembling gouged, bloody eyeballs on each wrist, and a thick codpiece over his pants. In the milk bar frequented by Alex and his fellow droogs, female mannequins — naked except for their wigs and matching pubic hair pieces — are used as furniture for comfort and function: as footstools and tables, and as milk dispensers. In the milk dispensers, the user manipulates a switch between the mannequin’s legs in order to dispense milk from its nipple. The image is one of both wholesome nurturing, given the explicit association with breast milk, and of unwholesome sex, since on any given day, multiple strangers (customers) presumably reach between the mannequin’s legs to manipulate a phallic switch while this pseudo-woman remains perfectly poised and still, tacitly allowing this. The user drops a coin into a slot on the machine and pushes a button, presumably allowing them to choose which drug they would like to lace their milk. This process suggests that in the dystopian world of the film, something as natural as breast milk is able to be both commodified and manipulated. To further contradict the innocent and pure quality typically associated with breastfeeding, the milk is described as “knify” because it “would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence” (Kubrick). The association between wholesome mother’s milk and the milk as a catalyst for hard-core violence represents the perversion of the organic into the evil and mechanical, which represents the theme of innocence mixed with depravity. Ironically, the milk dispenser is one of the few women (or in this case, female-like representations) in the film which is attended to with any respect. While other female characters are manipulated, beaten, and raped, the milk dispenser is referred to as “Lucy” by Dim, one of Alex’s droogs, as he asks about her evening (Kubrick). Dim speaks more respectfully to this machine than arguably any character — certainly any female character — is voluntarily spoken to throughout the film. Dim values the imitation woman over the real thing, suggesting a distortion of values in the society presented by the film and a prizing of the mechanical body over the organic.

The perversion of the family and of the child — often involving the use of milk — is also a recurring theme throughout the film. Immediately following Alex’s final crime, Dim smashes a bottle of milk over his head. The bottle resembles the white phallus used to bludgeon Alex’s victim in the preceding scene — which will be discussed further, later in this essay — in both shape and colour, as well as in how it is used, for violence directed against the head. Both acts result in a destructive effect, opposite to that of their natural counterparts: the thrusting of a phallus is symbolic of breeding new life, but instead results here in death; milk is symbolic of safety and home, but in this case is the catalyst for Alex’s imprisonment — the very thing which induces his lack of security and causes him to be taken from his home and experimented on by the government. In the film, milk acts as bait for Alex. It appears to be safe and perhaps even reminiscent of the parental love so lacking in his upbringing. The Korova Milk Bar itself is a sort of home for Alex — a safe place in which he is nurtured and doted upon by his droogs. The milk however proves to be the activating ingredient in all of the events which lead Alex away from home and safety. The milk appears harmless, however the drugs with which it is laced provoke Alex’s dormant capacity for violence. The film’s treatment of milk suggests that even the most safe and organic of symbols can be corrupted into something mechanical and dangerous and is indicative of Alex’s permanent state of development interrupted.

A related recurring theme is Alex’s simultaneous portrayal as child and adult. In the aforementioned scene, Alex pulls down his mask (which sports a long phallic nose) just before being greeted with the milk bottle attack and subsequently arrested and imprisoned. The phallic mask suggests that he just plays adult for fun — rather than take on the full responsibility which comes with the territory of adulthood, Alex merely dons a mask when he wishes to engage in the world of adulthood, including partaking in sex and violence. When he leaves the house, he hears the police coming and retreats back into his childlike self — the self which need not take responsibility for the consequences of his actions. He takes off his costume — represented by the mask — which he wears when he is being a man, and is immediately emasculated further by the milk bottle: he is smacked in the face with milk and is both literally and figuratively brought down to the ground, back to infancy. In the scene which follows at the police station’s interrogation room, Alex is in his childlike form again, but forced to confront his adult misdeeds. Like a child, he denies the accusations, avoiding responsibility. In this scene he is also physically presented as a child, spending most of the scene sitting on the floor — in the corner, no less, much like a disobedient tot — with his red smiling lips, his full cheeks, his dishevelled dark blonde hair, and bright, excited blue eyes looking up at the police. The officers crouch down to speak to Alex while he defensively blames “the treachery of others” and proclaims his innocence (Kubrick). Ultimately it is when Mr. Deltoid crouches down smiling at Alex, that he is forced to confront both his childlike self and his adult responsibilities. Mr. Deltoid laughs as he says “You are now a murderer, little Alex — a murderer!” This phrase sums up the perversion of Alex’s binary child and adult states: Mr. Deltoid acknowledges Alex in a childlike way, while accusing him of the most adult and heinous of crimes. Alex’s adult self is more frequently associated with the mechanical, given the costuming and spectacle invoked in each instance of Alex experimenting with adulthood. Despite this however, the movie suggests that Alex’s child self is actually his most contrived performance. He only performs as a child to defend himself and obtain the freedom necessary to do as he pleases, but he performs as an adult to actually execute what he wants.

The overarching theme of the mechanical opposing the organic is not only illustrated through Alex’s person and his relationships, but also through the behaviour of other characters. This theme of the manmade or mechanical representation over the original thing is emphasized in the scene directly preceding Alex’s capture by the police which features his break-in to the home of a wealthy woman with several cats. Upon confronting the cat-lady, Alex does not immediately attempt to assault her, but rather begins toying with the previously mentioned statue of a phallus, which the woman angrily and fearfully tells him to leave alone. Grabbing a bust of Alex’s beloved idol, Beethoven, she repeatedly swings at Alex but is kept at a distance by Alex’s placement of the phallus between he and she. In this scene it is quite clear that either Alex or the cat-lady could have swiftly injured the other, but they both resist — his resistance seemingly comes out of the enjoyment of taunting her, but hers is out of respect for this artful phallus and a desire to preserve it. Were the cat-lady to smash the phallus, she could easily get at Alex, yet she actually appears more fearful of him harming the sculpture than of his presence in her home in the first place, which is especially ironic given that the sculpture ultimately serves as the weapon with which Alex succeeds in murdering her. Her refusal to destroy the statue is reflective of the values of the dystopian society which the film depicts; her valuing of the sculpture’s safety over her own is consistent with this morally decrepit society which reduces the organic and emotionally vibrant to the mechanical, and values the material over all intangible things. Previously in the film, Alex commits a rape during a similar break-in, so the viewer is conditioned to believe this to be his intent again. Though he ultimately does not rape the cat-lady, this suggestion makes her attention to the statue’s well-being instead of her own all the more blatantly absurd: she is valuing the phallus statue over her own sexual organs: praising the commodity, the imitation, over the organic and original.

Though the cat-lady is not actually raped, her ultimately fatal attack is highly enmeshed in sexual violence, particularly in the way that the scene is shot and edited together. As Gioachino Rossini’s “The Thieving Magpie” swells to a climax, she hits Alex, at which point he swiftly overpowers her and stands over her, raising the phallus over his head and bringing it down upon her head. She is established to be on the ground as the camera cuts to a shot looking down from above her lying on the floor, arms outspread, eyes forced open in terror, as her mouth widens, gaping open in a scream. Alex is then shown from the cat-lady’s perspective on the ground looking up, and the three points of visual interest in his all-white ensemble which dominates the screen are his codpiece, the phallic nose on his face mask, and the giant phallus raised above his head. The angle through which the cat-lady is shown screaming on the floor emphasizes her face, laden with makeup and fear as she realizes what is about to happen. The shot of Alex however emphasizes his body, and particularly every phallic symbol on his person, while also drawing attention to his stance of power as he towers over the camera. This emphasis of the cat-lady’s made up face contorted in an expression of fear and Alex’s body’s powerful stance already suggests a level of sexuality to the violence taking place. She is ultimately killed by a giant phallus plunging down onto her face, which is quite obviously reminiscent of oral rape. Interestingly, the phallus statue remains physically unscathed by this, as does Alex. As he quickly escapes from the house, he places the phallic statue back on the same table where he first found it — again this is a mechanical representation of the way in which rape can often be committed without any telltale signs: Alex leaves the room much like he found it, with one glaring exception. Just like its organic counterpart, the phallus is structurally unharmed by this act which figuratively and in this case, literally, destroys its female victim.

The power difference between Alex and the cat-lady in the scenes that follow are also reminiscent of the act of rape itself, an act which is entirely tied up in power. The cat-lady is (therefore fittingly) forgotten and never shown again. Her fate is later referenced through the casual mention of her death, but only in passing and the conversation immediately progresses to Alex’s new identity as an actual murderer. In fact, she is barely even in her own attack scene: the image of her screaming is her last appearance in the film. When she is ultimately bludgeoned to death, close-up shots of various paintings depicting female sexuality are shown in her place. This sequence features a zoom shot of an abstract painting of a woman with second mouth nesting inside her first, cutting to a painting of a breast hanging from a clothesline next to a clenched hand, a painting of a woman’s bare chest, and a painting of a woman fingering herself. The shots quickly vary between the four images, ending on a still shot of the mouths. The cat-lady is immediately replaced by art featured in her place. The neglect of the victim’s true horror and replacement with highly sexualized art illustrates the interchangeable nature of women as sexual objects in the world depicted by the film. The outcome of her attack is never shown because it is unimportant. The desecration of her organic form is merely the means which lead to Alex’s arrest. Her death is only important as it determines his label as a murderer, but it does not bear its own significance, nor does the life that was lost, except as it relates to Alex’s incarceration. In watching it, the film’s decision to swiftly move on from this tragedy did not even strike me as wrong or inappropriate. The cat-lady’s death only serves as a final straw for Alex as a character before he can move on to the second half of his story: the half which introduces the Ludovico technique and his attempted reformation. This neglect of attention on the cat-lady, and in fact, on all of the female victims is depicted as normal, and in this way, Kubrick provokes his audience to ignore the personhood of every character besides Alex. This failure to empathize with others and focus on the self is the hallmark of psychopathy. Kubrick thereby lures his viewers into this psychopathic mindset and creates a perversion of norms within his viewers themselves: the (albeit inadvertent) elevation in importance of the mechanical over the organic.

In terms of the film’s direction and production, the characters vary between states of apparently stoic idleness and intensely active depravity. Notably, the characters are never portrayed doing anything of physical significance except when partaking in some form of either sex or ultra-violence, two concepts which are frequently linked inextricably through scenes depicting rape and attempted rape. Furthermore, the only scenes in which any characters move freely and organically is when they are taking part in rape and violence. Even the scene in which Alex has an apparently consensual threesome with two young women is mechanical; it is the only representation of an arguably healthy sexual relationship in the film yet it is treated more mechanically than any other scene in terms of its production, with the scene featuring the characters moving in erratic sped-up motion set to the aggressively rushed and mechanical-sounding finale to Rossini’s “William Tell Overture”. While consensual sex is presented as rushed, mechanical, and passive, rape and violence are presented as being joyous, drawn-out opportunities for expression.

This perversion of healthy and destructive forms of expression are ultimately epitomized in the scene in which Alex and his droogs break into the home of Mr. And Mrs. Alexander — perhaps the most organic, though horrific scene. It begins with the Alexanders sitting in their quiet, orderly home which is swiftly destroyed upon the arrival of Alex and his gang of fellow intruders. This is the only time in the movie in which Alex and his droogs actually seem carefree and even gleeful as they demolish the furniture, dancing around and singing as they violate the Alexanders and rape Mrs. Alexander. Even the direction of this scene stands apart as an unusually organic one for the famously perfectionistic director, Stanley Kubrick. After spending five days on the scene, a dissatisfied Kubrick had felt that the scene was too “stiff” and therefore decided to allow actor Malcolm McDowell to breathe some life into it (Konow). Kubrick reportedly asked McDowell, “Can you dance?”, thereby asking him to improvise a dance number into the scene (Phillips). The juxtaposition of McDowell’s chosen tune, “Singin’ in the Rain” from the eponymous Gene Kelly film with the violence of the scene bathes the viewer in a mixture of joy and horror.

This scene envelops the mechanical nature of rape — an act of power, domination, and control — with the organically joyful nature of McDowell’s performance as Alex. For the viewer, this scene is perhaps the most memorable as it mixes together the appealing qualities of Alex’s charm and charisma as he sings his “happy refrain” with the terror in the faces of the Alexanders (Kubrick). Most distressing however is how the scene provokes simultaneous feelings of arousal and disgust in the viewer. I liken the experience of watching this scene to that of reading Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, featuring the charismatic, paedophilic narrator, Humbert Humbert, in which the prose entices the reader to begin to feel their own lust for the narrator, while his actions constantly force the reader to snap back to the recognition that he is in fact a criminal and a monster. Similarly, the “Singin’ in the Rain” scene lures feelings of arousal in the viewer through the interspersing of highly sexual images throughout the scene, such as the artwork in the Alexanders’ home and Mrs. Alexander’s erect nipples and naked body. Viewers are dared, provoked even, to share Alex’s joy and arousal while being constantly slapped with a reminder of the Alexanders’ fear and the objectively horrific nature of the act being committed. This scene is the ultimate testament to both the film’s representation of the perversion of the organic and the mechanical, as well as to its success as a horror movie: turning the viewer against his or herself by invoking feelings of shame and disgust against the body’s natural, organic feelings of arousal.

A Clockwork Orange is a masterpiece of transformation: distorting the normal and the horrific, perverting the healthy and the grotesque, and simultaneously encouraging and turning the viewer against his or her own natural urges. The movie succeeds in alienating its viewer from the norms and conventions of society, especially as it relates to sexuality. Though the mechanical means of the Ludovico technique ultimately fail to truly “cure” Alex, he finally achieves a superficial sense of unity between himself and his society with the government’s implied promise to keep his true violent, sexual nature under wraps (Kubrick). Though this promise is entirely mechanical and self-serving, it ultimately benefits Alex as he and his sexual deviance are at last brought into the folds of society, protected under the government’s wing. The Ludovico-like nature of Kubrick’s direction and production serve to pervert the viewer’s own relationship between the mechanical and the organic, which creates a horrifying experience of self-doubt and the questioning of how much distance actually lies between each viewer’s psyche and that of a monstrous character like Alex. Regardless of how frightening and potentially destructive this might be to the viewer, the film is intended as a horrific thriller, and it certainly succeeds in breeding horror. If the movie has taught us anything, the joyous ends — however impure — always justify the means.

Works Cited

Burgess, Anthony. “Nadsat Dictionary Reprinted from the novel ‘A Clockwork Orange’.” n.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.

Konow, David. “The magic of spontaneity in movies.” TG Daily. Velum Media, 29 Oct. 2011. Web. 10 Feb. 2015.

Kubrick, Stanley. “A Clockwork Orange Script.” Indelibleinc.com. n.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2015.

Kubrick, Stanley, dir. A Clockwork Orange. Perf. Malcolm McDowell. Warner Bros., 1971. Film.

Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. New York: Random House Inc., 1955. Print.

Phillips, David. “Malcolm McDowell: The story behind ‘Singin’ in the Rain.’” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 19 Aug. 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2015.