A Clockwork Orange and The Chrysalids are very opposite stories with totally different characters. David and Alex are similar in the single way that they are rebels in their present society. David chooses to be a rebel for a different reason than Alex, a better reason, he chose to rebel and escape from his society to save his sister Petra and friend Rosalind from being captured by the authorities. They had offences which made them deviations to society which means they must be removed. David is acting like a father to the two girls and he is keeping them safe. Alex is the total opposite “creature” He is rebellious against his society in the sense that he commits acts that are deemed offensive to humanity. He raids and destroys buildings and rapes women when he breaks into their house. Alex does not receive any punishment for his actions so he keeps on this lifestyle for as long as he can.
David as the father figure seems almost like the person that Alex needs to educate him on his actions. David does receive punishment for his action when he is arrested and forced to watch desensitization videos which are meant to cause distress about certain criminal offences.
Alex, after completing his course, returns to his family, where he is rejected because of his actions before he changed into this new proper being. This new Alex resembles David as he is rejected by his family after being caught concealing Sophie’s deviation.
David escapes his society safely and never receives any punishment for his actions where as Alex is arrested and punished for his actions. I feel sympathy for David as his life progresses and Sophie dies. On the other hand, I feel no sympathy for Alex because he was the one who chose to lie to his parents and disobey the law. He was aware of the consequences and therefore he should have known better than to participate in those outrageous acts of violence. Does anyone feel similarly about Alex’s actions and resultant life?
Well actually, I feel the opposite way. At the beginning of the movie, I thought to myself “Wow I’m never going to feel any sort of sympathy for this lunatic…” But as it turned out, I think that from the moment on where Alex got arrested and was betrayed by his friends, he came to a major self-realization about his wrong-doings in life. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is no way he could ever make up for the people he killed, raped, etc…but dealing with sympathy I gained more and more sympathy for Alex, in little doses, which made me actually start to like him.
By: croll on June 14, 2009
at 6:14 pm