A Clockwork Orange (Characters)

Characters

Alex

Alex is the fifteen-year-old narrator and protagonist of the novel. Like his "droogs," Dim, Georgie, and Pete, he speaks in Nadsat. He is witty, charming, intelligent, violent, sadistic, and totally without remorse for his actions. He leads his gang on crime sprees, raping, beating, and pillaging, and becomes upset when his gang does not engage in their crimes with style. Alex's love of music, particularly Beethoven, marks him as an aesthete, and this attitude carries over to the way he "performs" his violent acts, often dancing. His attitude towards others is primarily ironic; he calls his victims "brother" and speaks as if with a perpetual smirk. The extent of Alex's evil nature is evident in his fantasies. For example, he dreams about nailing Jesus to the cross. Authorities are perplexed as to how Alex became the way he is. His guidance counselor, P. R. Deltoid, asks him, "You've got a good home here, good loving parents, you've got not too bad of a brain. Is it some devil that crawls inside you?" Alex remains his evil self, even after two years in prison and Ludovico's Technique, though he behaves differently. In the last chapter, however, Alex matures and begins to weary of his violent ways, fantasizing about having a wife and children. Burgess notes that among other things, Alex's name suggests nobleness, Alexander meaning "leader of men."

F. Alexander

F. Alexander — whom Alex describes as "youngish" and with horn-rimmed glasses the first time he sees him, and "a shortish veck in middle age, thirty, forty, fifty" the second time he sees him — is a liberal and a writer, outraged at the government's repression of individual liberties. Ironically, he is writing a book called A Clockwork Or-ange, which addresses "[t]he attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation." In the novel's first section, Alex breaks into Alexander's house, where he and his gang beat him and viciously rape his wife. Beaten almost to death by Billyboy and Georgie in the third section, Alex winds up back at Alexander's house. At first, Alexander wants to use Alex as an example of the government's repressive policies, and he befriends Alex, who considers him "kind protecting and like motherly." However, when Alexander realizes that Alex is the person responsible for beating him and raping his wife a few years past, he plots revenge. Along with his liberal friends, Alexander locks Alex up in an apartment, and plays classical music loudly on the stereo. Alex, who has been conditioned by Ludovico's Technique to become violently ill when hearing the music, attempts suicide by jumping out a window. He wakes up in the hospital badly injured. The suicide attempt leads government scientists to remove Ludovico's clockwork from Alex's brain. In an ironic reversal, F. Alexander is himself imprisoned for his actions and Alex is made a hero.

Alex's Parents

Alex's parents, whom Alex sometimes refers to as "pee and em," are passive though decent people. They behave in loving, if stereotypical, ways. His mother, for example, prepares meals for him to have when he returns from his adventures. They are afraid of Alex, though, and show no interest in knowing what he really does when he goes out with his friends. Although they do not take him back when he is released from prison, their interest in Alex returns after his suicide attempt and after the newspapers run stories about how he is a victim of government repression.

Billyboy

Billyboy leads a rival gang with whom Alex and his droogs battle. In the first section, when Alex, Dim, Georgie, and Pete come across Billy-boy and his thugs attempting to rape a young girl in a warehouse, Alex's gang routs them. Billyboy's ugliness upsets Alex's aesthetic sensibility. Alex says of him: "Billyboy was something that made me want to sick just to viddy [see] his fat grinning litso [face]." In their new capacity as police, Billy-boy and Georgie beat up Alex after he is released from prison and leave him for dead.

Dr. Branom

Dr. Branom works with Dr. Brodsky to rid Alex of his free will and humanity through Ludovico's Technique. He is friendly but insincere.

Dr. Brodsky

Dr. Brodsky is the psychologist in charge of administering Ludovico's Technique on Alex. He is a hypocrite and in many ways morally worse than Alex. He is a philistine of sorts, knowing nothing about music, which is, for Burgess, a "figure of celestial bliss." Materialist and scientist that he is, Brodsky considers music merely an "emotional heightener." He plainly takes pleasure in Alex's misery, laughing at the pain he experiences during the treatment. Before Alex is released from prison, Brodsky demonstrates to state and prison officials how Ludovico's Technique has turned Alex into a "true Christian."

D. B. Dasilva

DaSilva is one of F. Alexander's liberal friends who helps him with Alex in the book's third section. Alex describes him as having effeminate behavior and a strong scent (aftershave or body odor).

P. R. Deltoid

Deltoid is Alex's state-appointed "Post-Corrective Advisor." He visits Alex after his night of ultraviolence in the novel's first section. Alex describes him as overworked and wearing a "filthy raincoat." Deltoid cannot understand why Alex, with a good home and parents, has turned out to be a juvenile delinquent. He visits Alex in jail and contemptuously spits in his face.

Dim

Dim is one of Alex's droogs. He is loud, brutish, stupid, and irritates Alex with his crassness and vulgarity. When Dim insults a woman singing opera at the Korova Milkbar, Alex punches him in the mouth, triggering the gang's resentment against Alex's tyrannical leadership. Alex also fights Dim the next day, cutting his wrist with a knife to show the gang that he is still the leader. By the novel's third section, Dim has joined the police force, along with Billyboy. The two of them rescue Alex, who is being attacked by a gang of old men, and take Alex to the country, where they beat him up and leave him for dead. As Burgess's characters are composites of Anglo and Russian youth culture, Dim could be read as an abbreviation for the Russian name, Dimitri.

Z. Dolin

Z. Dolin is one of F. Alexander's liberal friends who helps him with Alex in the novel's third section. Alex describes him as "a very wheezy smoky kind of veck" who is fat and sloppy, wears thick glasses, and chain smokes.

Georgie

Georgie is one of Alex's droogs, and second-in-charge. He attempts to take over the gang after Dim rebels against Alex at the Korova Milkbar, and leads the mutiny resulting in Alex's arrest at the end of the book's first section. More interested in money than violence per se, Georgie dies after being hit on the head by a man he and his droogs terrorize while Alex is in prison.

Joe

Joe is the boarder Alex's parents take in when Alex is sent to jail. Alex describes him as "a working-man type veck, very ugly, about thirty or forty." Joe has become a kind of surrogate son to Alex's parents, and he almost comes to blows with Alex when Alex comes home to see him eating eggs and toast with his parents.

Marty

Marty is one of the two ten-year-old girls that Alex picks up at the music store, plies with liquor, and rapes. He calls them "sophistos," meaning they are pretentious and try to act like adults. When the girls come to their senses and discover what Alex has done to them, they call him a "[b]east and hateful animal."

Minister of the Interior

The Minister of the Interior is a manipulative politician who symbolizes governmental repression and mindless bureaucracy. He chooses Alex — who refers to him as the "Minister of the Interior Inferior" — as a guinea pig for Ludovico's Technique, believing the treatment has the possibility to rid the country of undesirable elements. He turns Alex's attempted suicide to his favor by imprisoning F. Alexander, whom he describes as a "writer of subversive literature," and tricking Alex into a photo opportunity with him while Alex is still in the hospital. He wins Alex's favor by offering him a government job, a new stereo, and by playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony for him.

Pete

Pete is the quietest of Alex's droogs, and the least questioning of his authority. In the last chapter, Alex runs into Pete and his wife. Pete now works for an insurance company and goes to harmless wine and scrabble parties at night, having given up his criminal ways. He represents maturity, and after seeing him, Alex begins thinking of marrying and settling down.

Prison Chaplain

The chaplain, a careerist and an alcoholic, befriends Alex in prison, permitting him to pick the music for services and listen to the stereo in chapel while reading the Bible. The chaplain finally speaks out against Ludovico's Technique when Alex is about to be released, arguing that human beings should be able to choose their actions. He is the character perhaps closest to Burgess's own philosophical position in the novel, and demonstrates this when he asks Alex, "What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?" Alex, however, is clueless, and wants nothing more than to be released from prison. When the chaplain speaks out against the treatment in front of prison and state officials, he jeopardizes his own career.

Rex

Rex is a policeman and the driver who waits in the car, smoking and reading, while Billyboy and Dim beat Alex in the novel's third section.

Rubinstein

Rubinstein is one of F. Alexander's liberal friends who helps him with Alex in the third section of the novel. Alex describes him as "very tall and polite," and with an "eggy beard" (blonde).

Sonietta

Sonietta is one of the two ten-year-old girls that Alex rapes.