A Clockwork Orange

"A Clockwork Orange"

"A Clockwork Orange" is a film about a gang of "droogs" who take pleasure in crime. They enjoy raping and torturing their innocent victims for their own pleasure. The main characters' name is Alex. Alex's diagnosis is Antisocial Personality Disorder (Psychopath). When caught and arrested, classical conditioning is used in order to rid Alex of his vindictive thoughts, but is not very successful.

Antisocial Personality Disorder is a Disorder that cannot be easily diagnosed. It is often associated with criminal behavior. In recent studies it is said that 65-75% of all criminals have APD. It is so uneasily diagnosed because these people come in all shapes and sizes. The main symptom of this disorder is total disregard for the right of others and a total disregard for society (www.faculty.ncwc.edu). Certain symptoms can be associated with the disorder. Not feeling guilty about anything that they do is the most common. Some other symptoms include sense of entitlement, unremorseful, apathetic to others, unconscionable behavior, blameful of others, manipulative and conning, affectively cold, disparate understanding, socially irresponsible, disregardful of obligations, nonconforming to norms, irresponsible (www.faculty.ncwc.edu).

"Psychopath describes a pattern of antisocial personality traits (Raulin, p. 373)." Psychopaths are not like sociopaths at all. Psychopaths represent the "monsters" of society and are often associated with the criminals of society. Most psychopaths are males but there are a growing number of females out there. Fearlessness is the most common characteristic in a psychopath. Other characteristics include superficial charm, grandiose self-worth, need for stimulation, pathological lying, conning and manipulation, lack of empathy, and lack of remorse or guilt.

A gang of teenagers embarks on a killing and raping rampage and Alex gets caught by the police. The diagnoses of psychopath were chosen for Alex because he is a bright, handsome, self-confident, brave and adventurous young man, but has no empathy for other human beings. He has no morals, no conscience and he is also narcissistic. He is sexually loose, a liar and deceiver, and he also very manipulative. He and his "droogs" see their crimes as an art, as they put it. These victims are not people that they know, they are picked randomly. Basically, they chose whomever they play chicken with. Alex also sips milk (moloko) laced with drugs while he rapes a young girl.

In one part of the film, Alex rapes a woman in her own home and then beats her husband until he becomes paralyzed. When he gets home, he puts the watch that he has stolen from Frank in a nightstand drawer, along with many other watches, and then replies "It had been a wonderful evening and what I need now to give it a perfect ending is a bit of Ludwig Van Beethoven," he then proceeds to masturbate to Beethoven's music thinking about rape and violence. This is a clear sign of psychopath because he has no regard for anyone else and he thinks that this behavior is all right.

Alex also uses manipulation, which is also a symptom of a psychopath. He lies to his parents and police about the murder and tries to blame his "droops" for the crime. While he is locked up, he also pretends to study the Bible in order to gain privileges.

The truant officer and the government minister also seem to be psychopaths because they both love to see Alex suffer. The government minister has no true concern for the prisoners or society.