Just Singing in the Rain

Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" delves into the very essence of what it means to be human. The story follows the young and vibrant leader of a London mod gang. His name is Alex. He lives with his mom and dad and enjoys Beethoven, milk, violent robbery, and the occasional in out, in out. But his world is turns upside down when his gang turns on him and leaves him to the coppers at the scene of a murder. He is tried, found guilty and sentenced to 14 years in a "correctional" prison. Funny they call it that, because it doesnt correct anything. All it does is slap a BS smile on his face, with ass kissing lips to go with. In occordance with these ways, he gets hand picked to be a test subject in a treatment that will get him out of jail in 20 days. What he doesnt know is that he is now subject to the Ludovico treatment. This consists of being given a nauseating serum paired with images of extreme violence and sexual nature. The worst of which for him was images of Hitler's concentration camps being shown while Beethoven's 9th symphony played. After days of this conditioning he is set free and proclaimed "cured." If only that were true... But really he still has the urges to do violence and have sex, but whenever these feelings turn to actions, they are stopped by the nausiating effect of the conditioning. Even without the drug in him, his body and mind associate these acts with the pain. So at first glance it looks like the treatment has worked, but at what cost? The cost was his choice. He has no choice in the matter anymore. Even though he doesn't commit acts of violence anymore, he is no longer human. The priest said it best, "When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man." It is the ability to choose your own path no matter the cost. We as members of human society have often sacrificed our choice for relative peace and security but as we see in the end of the movie, it is that choice that defines who we are, good or bad.