The triumph of free will in A Clockwork Orange In the midst of a population made up of perfectly conditioned automatons, there is the image of a society that is slowly rotting away from internal. Alex, the Faustian protagonist of A Clockwork Orange and leader of a sadistic and depraved gang, prey on the weak and innocent. While perhaps misguided, his conscientiousness towards his evil nature indicates his ability to understand morality and deny its practice. When society tries to impose goodness on Alex, he becomes its victim. Through his innovative style, manifested in both the use of original language and satirical structure, British author Anthony Burgess presents in his short story A Clockwork Orange, the moral triumph of free will in the controlling hands of a totalitarian society. Intending to establish order and justice to protect human rights, society, on the contrary, threatens human life with its own adverse impositions. This social satire portrays the author's opposition to the important behaviorist movement, led by B.F. Skinner. Ironically, Clockwork seems to ridicule the utopian society depicted in Skinner's Walden Two (Aggeler 70). Proponents of behaviorism supported the human conditioning described in Skinner's work. Burgess's imaginatively crafted language found in Clockwork, known as Nadsat, conveys this theme to the reader. At first reading, this invented jargon seems absurd and difficult to understand, but ultimately the onomatopoeic formulation flows naturally and thus "Nadsat's effect on the reader functions as an ironic commentary on the novel itself" (Foote, 87). Burgess conditions readers themselves to understand Nadsat, but they are entirely unaware of this imposition. The language itself fascinates... middle of paper.... A Clockwork Orange. 1986. Norton and Company, Inc. New YorkEvans, Robert O. "The 'Nouveau Roman,' Russian Dystopias and AnthonyBurgess." British novelists since 1900. AMS Press, 1987. pp253-66. Reprinted in CLC. vol 62. pp130-132.Foote, Timothy. "God's Wolf." Time, weekly magazine. March 17, 1975, pp.84-86. reprinted in CLC. vol 10. pp87-90.Mazour, Anatole G., ed. World history. 1993. Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc. pp423Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. "Conditioning." Encyclopedia of utopian literature. 1995. ABC-CLIO Inc. Santa Barbara, California. pp143Tilton, John W. "'A Clockwork Orange': Awareness is Everything." Cosmic satire in the contemporary novel. 1997. Associated University Presses, Inc. p.21-42. reprinted in CLC. vol 15. p.104-107Wade, Carol, ed. Psychology. 5th addition. 1998. Addison-Wesley Education Publishers Inc. pp257.