Isaac Godwin

Robert Arnold
INTEL 3111
15 April 2015
Free Will
The movie I have chosen for my dystopian film and my critical essay correspond with the
idea of free will. The movie I have chosen is A Clockwork Orange, and my critical essay is
Another Evening at the Club. In A Clockwork Orange there is a group of young men who partake
in going to clubs and drinking milk laced with drugs and then go around causing crime. They do
this on their own free will. In Another Evening at the Club we have a young woman who is not
in tune with the idea of free will, because she is in an arranged marriage. What triggers the idea
of doing something because one simply can; also what is important enough to give up your free
will? The answer is constraints that are placed upon particular people. A social constraint such as
the possibility of punishment makes one act with free will or none at all.
A Clockwork Orange starts out displaying free will. Alex (the leader of the group, or
droogs) and his friends Pete, Georgie, and Dim all walk into Korova Milkbar dressed sharply
and pockets full of money. They all proceed to drink the milk laced with stimulants while Alex
notices a man across the bar who has already drank his milk and is rambling on about nonsense.
Alex sees this as cowardly, and once the milk goes into effect for him and his droogs they take
off to the town. This opens up with the idea of free will by showing them doing exactly what
they wanted. Then Alex proceeded to observe the people around him and do something with
himself. What Alex and his friends do is not productive though, they torment an old man in the

street and dont let him go until he is without clothing. They showed no remorse or care for the
consequences that may follow their actions.
Another Evening at the Club starts out with showing the opposite of free will. A
reoccurring theme within this short essay was gender roles. The young woman in the story is
introduced by the imagery of her anxiously waiting for her husband to return. She refers to her
husband as the man who might choose her as his wife. This signifies that she has little to no
influence on her own future; it is all up to the man she is interested in. She cannot talk it out for it
is not up to her; she has no free will to try and talk for herself or find a man she formed an actual
relationship with. Instead the fate of her life is within a mans hands that she had met hours ago.
Her father and her husband discussed how once they marry she will stop attending school and
stay at home to prepare for their life together. The young woman may not continue her education
even if she wanted to, instead now she must stay as a wife at home all day and not pursue a
career of her own.
Not only did the young woman not have any free will with her life, but she is not able to
take problems into her own hands as well as a result of having little to no free will. When her
ring went missing she waited for her husband to come home before taking any real action. She
searched for the ring around her room and remembered a maid that came into her room and left
food and opened the curtains earlier. She assumed the maid who did this took her ring but does
not confront her since she has no real voice of her own. Instead she waits for her husband to
return to investigate. Her husband even tells her that ,Theres no point in your saying anything
but I think it would be as well if you were present when I talk to her, signifying she has no real
authority compared to him. The wife had no free will to help the servant who was being beaten
for the crime she did not commit. After finding the misplaced ring, the wife remembered the

maid who was being beaten for taking the ring. She felt no remorse or need to come clean and
help her after her husband instructed her it would be better to not come clean and then he offered
dinner. The woman within this story was scared of punishment from her husband, or possibly not
being married at all for speaking out of terms. Her free will was taken long ago before meeting
her husband.
One night Alex and his group of friends broke into an older womans house. She was
inside. The woman refused to let Alex inside as he used his technique of trying to sweet-talk his
way into the home. After denial, Alex finds a way inside of her home. He walks around the home
to only stumble into the room the old lady was in. She began attacking him and calling her cats
to come help her. Alex knocks her unconscious though and begins to run because he hears police
sirens. Alex runs to the door to find Dim, but Alex was not aware of his friends betrayal at this
moment in time. Dim whips Alex with the chain in his face, and Dim runs away as Alex walks
blindly down the hall. Abandoned and in the home blinded, Alex is caught by the police. Alexs
deviant free will landed him in trouble with the law and his friends.
Once captured and beaten by police, Alex is placed into a small white room. Here he is
continued to be beaten as he demands a lawyer but the police only laugh at his request. He feels
his free will at this moment as well, and retaliates by kicking an officer in the shin. The officers
beat him more and even kick him in the stomach. Alex throws up and is embarrassed and
ashamed of his position and unable to do anything. This shows the beginning of his revocation of
free will. Alex is thrown into a holding cell and is immediately harassed by two men who plan to
molest him. The tables have turned on Alex completely and the crimes he committed were now
being pursued onto him.

In jail Alex experiences a lot of beatings from prisoners and the cell guards. Once in
prison after a while, Alex gets accustomed to it. Alex shows a sign of free will once a new
prisoner comes into their cell. Alex wakes up one night to find him stroking his body, and Alex
reacts with lashing out and punching him. The fight wakes up all the other cell mates, and they
get on Alexs side and help him fight off the new prisoner. Once everything calms back down,
the prisoners decided to teach the new prisoner a lesson by beating him, and Alex joins in by
kicking him in the head. Alex was presented with an opportunity to show free will, but his free
will went too far. The next morning the prisoner was dead, and the prison went into lockdown.
Alex was informed of a research/ experiment that was taking place and he wanted to take
part. The reason he wanted to take part was he would be released from prison back into the
world. Alex was chosen for the procedure and was escorted to the governors office. The
governor does not support the procedure Alex is about to proceed with, but Alex ignores and
pays no attention for the option of being free was too exciting. He eagerly signs the form the
governor presented and Alex is escorted to a new building. At first Alex is excited for his new
treatment, but it quickly escalates. He is shown films and given a needle after every meal. Soon
he is shown films with crimes he used to commit (rape, theft, and assault) and it makes him sick
to his stomach. He vomits at the sight of the films and the crimes happening.
The State removed Alexs ability to think with free will once he was captured for all the
crimes he had been committing besides some outbreaks during prison. Once Alex has been
stripped of his power to choose his own course of action he becomes nothing more than someone
that just exists. The option of evil has been eliminated from him; and without evil as an
opportunity to act out he only acts with good, thus becoming good as an empty gesture. A
similarity can now be linked between Alex and the young girl from Another Evening at the Club.

The young woman is a person who just exists, and cannot speak on her own behalf but waits to
be instructed. Alex now is in a position where he has no evil motivation so he exists as a person
who has no real personality but acts like a normal person. He was conditioned to be repulsed
by the crimes he used to find joy in.
Alex is tested on his free will once the experiment was over. A man was confronting Alex
and as bad as he wanted to take out his razor and slice him, he presents his razor as a gift instead.
The man smacks the gift and begins insulting Alex, but Alex only wants approval so he begins
licking the mans boots. He does everything to help the man as if he is a servant but Alex does
not even know this man therefore why is he catering to his every need? Alex showed no more
signs of deviant behavior and is released. He runs into one of his old friends who once
abandoned him but shows no anger but compassion and understanding.
The early depictions of the main characters in A Clockwork Orange and the young
woman in Another Evening at the Club show the contrast of free will. Alex and his gang have
their sense of free will to torment locals and keep drinking laced milk. The young woman has no
will at all to out in fear of consequences or even punishment. The social constraint of fear and
punishment restricts people from acting with free will. The young woman in Another Evening at
the Club was conditioned to think with no free will and to listen to her patriarchal authority. Alex
was conditioned to hate the crimes he committed and his free will was taken away from him. He
then displays the same characteristics as the young woman in the essay. They both only want to
please who is in front of them. They do not dream of acting out in front of those they are aiming
to please; and even if they dreamed of it they would never pursue their evil thoughts.