Thursday, May 8, 2014
Odd contrast
Hi guys, I was just wondering what you thought of how weird Alex is - not only in terms of his attracting with violence, but how he goes about it. For example when they are in the country the gang does a number of unspeakably horrible acts to the family, but somehow Alex still gets mad at Dim for suggesting some other horrible thing he could do. It's as if Alex has standards for the acts he commits, and in conjunction with his taste for classical music (which has a very tame and prim connotation) I think the line between culture and savageness could be a theme in the book. Thoughts?
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Good success Josh, I definitely agree with you. Sometimes he's just like not in the mood to rape someone or doesn't want to go too hard. I think that this is supposed to show how everything isn't totally black or white, or good or bad. Even in Alex, who's supposed to be the 'bad guy' in this society, isn't entirely evil. This also connects to how the government tries to make him 'good' but humans can not just be good, they have to have some sort of balance between the two.
ReplyDeleteBoth excellent points! I also think this is a meditation on the nature of adolescence, which can, at times, be erratic and unpredictable. In my opinion, the novel is a commentary on growing up, exercising free will and learning to moderate between the society's expectations and one's own values. As a result, during adolescence, we're sometimes torn between these two poles, whether we acknowledge it or not. Alex seems to be in that state throughout a lot of the book.
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