Imagination, runs wild.

這篇則是大三上修作文課的作業，草稿第一次被老師誇講好開心，結果被誇講之後在寫最終版時鬆懈了，寫得亂七八遭(亂牽拖)
那時老師對草稿的批評是沒有說明何謂「烏托邦式論述(utopian discourse)」，所以這次大四的報告花了一半(10頁)的篇幅在解釋。

所以我還是放當初的草稿好了XDDDDDDDDDDD 

Research Paper Topic:

In deleted the last chapter of the originalnovel, Clockwork Orange, did Kubrick under cut the value as a dystopian(literary) work? Which is more effective in the usage of dystopian discourse?

A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian fiction set in a nightmarish future England thatfocus on the violent adventure, suffer and initiation of a teenage gang boy,Alex, who is also the narrator of the story. During first part of the storyAlex with his buddies ('droogs' as used in Nadsat, the language in that world)went on spree of beating up vagabonds, a writer and raping his wife. The firstpart of the story comes to its end when Alex's droogs decided to betray hisleadership and got him into jail. The second part of the story is about Alex'slife in jail, where he pretend to be remorseful for his previous wickedness andpious, while at the same time hiding his antisocial inclinations. Therefore,when Alex overheard there was a medical treatment (Ludovico Technique) for himto leave prison within few days, he consent to it without second thought.

Undergoing the LudovicoTechnique, Alex was injected with medicine and forced to watch films withAlex's favorite classical as background music. The film was not a entertainingone, but about women being raped, people almost being beaten to death. Ourprotagonist no longer feels the ecstasy previous to being jailed; in fact, dueto the medicine injected into his veins he began to feel so sick that he couldnot stand these scenes of violence that he once enjoyed. He could not shut hiseyes because they were force open with his eyelids clamped. After thetreatment, Alex was let out of prison, but he was not able to think freely.Whenever violent or pornographic thoughts come to his mind, he immediatelyfeels sick. In the end of the second part, Alex was so sick even when hearinghis favorite classical music that he went suicide, jumping down from abuilding.

He was unconscious, badlyhurt, but still survived and was brought to the hospital. Later, coming to hisconsciousness, Alex realized he no longer felt sick on hearing Beethoven'sNinth symphony or those violent, immoral thought he had before. He was cured.

Alex, after being curedand let out of the hospital, saw the happily family life of one of his droogs,thus, decided that he too wanted to form a family.The book ended with thefollowing passage:

That's what it's going to be then,brothers, as I come to the like end of this tale. You have been everywhere withyour little droog Alex, suffering with him, and you have viddied some of themost grahzny bratchnies old Bog ever made, all on to your old droog Alex. Andall it was was that I was young. But now as I end this story, brothers, I amnot young, not no longer, oh no. Alex like groweth up, oh yes.

But where I itty now, O my brothers, isall on my oddy knocky, where you cannot go. Tomorrow is all like sweet flowersand the turning vonny earth and the stars and the old Luna up there and yourold droog Alex all on his oddy knocky seeking like a mate. And all that cal. Aterrible grahzny vonny world, really, O my brothers. And so farewell from yourlittle droog. And to all others in this story profound shooms of lip-musicbrrrrr. And they can kiss my sharries. But you, O my brothers, remembersometimes thy little Alex that was. Amen. And all that cal.

In the year of 1971,renowned American director Stanley Kubrick did a film adaptation on the novel AClockwork Orange. The ending of the film adaptation is very different from thatof the original novel by Anthony Burgess. While Burgess ends the original novelwith the epiphany of the protagonist, which the author believes to create amore well-rounded initiation story, Kubrick deleted the last chapter of thebook, and ends the film with absolute violent, wicked scene where theprotagonist never repent for his evil deeds.

The movie ended with theprotagonist realizing he was no longer refrained from thoughts of violence andsexual assault. No longer felt sick on hearing classical music, Alex spoke in aironic tone, “I was cured all right,”while at the same time, imagining hisamorous sex with pretty naked girl. After gliding through the two endings, wesee total opposite concepts that the author and the director want to express.

As far as I am concerned,the film adaptation undercuts the value of the original initiation story withthe last chapter deleted, but is more elevated in the dystopian standard. Todiscuss why Kubrick thought the last chapter to be unconvincing and why Burgess(after seeing the film outrageously) insisted on preserving the last chapter,three perspectives is required. First, the personal backgrounds are related tohow they created the works. Second, the historical and cultural context duringthe time which the fiction and film were made had great impact on the endings.Third, the different usages of music elements in the fiction and the film alsoreveal Burgess's and Kubrick's attitudes toward the different endings of A ClockworkOrange.

During the time whichKubrick started filming A Clockwork Orange, what he had in hand was theAmerican edition of Burgess novel that is without the last chapter. But evenwhen Kubrick realized there was another extra chapter later, he did not take itinto consideration for the ending of the film. The ending with the protagonistsuddenly realizing how childish to love violence is not convincing to Kubrickand would not go along with the Kubrick's style.

Kubrick has consistentlyprovoked controversies with his films with themes like violence, obsessivelove, madness, absurdity of war and question to evolution. “He doesn't likepeople much; they interest him mainly when they do unspeakably hideous thingsor when their idiocy is so malignant as to be horrifyingly amusing,” Kubrickbiographer John Baxter quoted Kubrick's onetime collaborator Calder Willinghamas saying. It is left to doubt whether Kubrick's unhappy childhood has anyeffect on his misanthropic character. But we can infer that his distrustfuleyes toward humanity had extended to one of his characteristic as a director.He rarely grants interviews, but when he does, he demands total control overthe circumstances and the result. Kubrick himself had said, “I would not thinkof quarreling with your interpretation nor offering any other, as I have foundit always the best policy to allow the film to speak for itself.” Kubrick'sbold and brilliant adaptation of stories, brought in his own style, cansometimes offend the author of the original story, such as in the case ofStephen King's The Shining.

The novel's ending seemsto support the traditional Christian notion, which is strongly suggested inJohn Milton's Paradise Lost that humanity should be granted with free will tochoose good over evil. In Alex's case, it is the ability to realize that hisdesire of committing violent criminal acts were sheer naive impulse that boyswould have. The author confessed that the worldview of his dystopian fictionsis a “Hebreo-Helleno-Christian-humanist” one. Burgess's own life experiencecould be reflected to this moralistic, positive ending.

Burgess was born into amiddle class catholic family; therefore, it would not be surprising that heacquired some Christian element into the end of the story. Also, we should payheed to his mental condition when writing this book. A Clockwork Orange is abook written when Burgess was incorrectly diagnosed terminally ill. Believinghe had little days to live, he gave up his dreams of being a composer and wrote2000 words of fair copy per day, creating eleven novels in five years, hopingto support his wife if he were to die. During the following years, Burgesscontinued to prove the doctor has wrongly diagnosed him with inoperable braintumor. His continual of living till the age of 76 was like a redemption andmiracle from his early unfortunate life.

Besides the author's orthe director's personal background, the historical context also had greatinfluence on the ending of both works. The film was brought to the theater in1971, whereas the novel is written in 1962. Made in America, strong relations betweenthe Vietnam War (1959-1975) and the film are made. It was a time when hippiemovement reached its highest and started to have a downturn. Earlier limits onsexual and violent materials have been steadily penetrated. Sexual scenes inmovies are not directed linked to obscenity. Famous quotes such as “Make lovenot war” prevailed during those days.

Why it was that sexuality was deemed byauthority figures as offensive enough to be prohibited from view, whereasviolence was not. Wasn't violence and its representations equally or probablymore obscene? If sexual content might have harmful effects by appealing tosusceptible minds, so might violent images. (Janet Staiger, the CulturalProduction of A Clockwork Orange)

Kubrick's version ofending the film with Alex's sexual imagination signify how sex could be arebellious power against the effect of the Ludovico Technique, symbolizingdominant control of a nation. Similar notions can be found in famous dystopiannovels such as George Orwell's 1984 and Yevgeny Zamyatin's We,where the sex becomes a crucial element to arouse the conscious of “self”against the state as a whole. Sex provokes revolution that is able to overthrowthe authority.

Throughout the wholebook, even till the end, the use of Nadsat language which seems like acombination of English and Russian reveals the great anxiety, deep pessimism ofBritish people during the Cold War. The book's self-realizational endingcontains a potential message that “there is no point to turn England into atotalitarian state from within in order to resist the threat of totalitarianismfrom without. Indeed, this Russian invasion of the language of the teenagers ofEnglandwould potential influence of Communist infiltration on the hearts and minds ofcapitalist youths, though it is a sort of unstable parody that leaves open thepossibility of an entirely straightforward interpretation.” (M. Keith Booker,Dystopian Literature – A Theory and Research Guide)

Last but not the least,the different attitudes of Kubrick and Burgess toward music led to oppositeendings. Before discussing the meaning of the music elements in both works,three different levels of standard when interpreting music should first be set.On hearing any music, our first impression is to judge it by its beats,rhythms, chords like judging a “raw material.” (Peter J. Rabinowitz, A Bird ofLike Rarest Spun Heavenmetal-Music in Clockwork Orange) Then, as we realized the social orcultural context of the song, we come to the second level. Third, is a way tointerpret the music not from cultural context but from the context deliberatelyimposed by the author or director.

Kubrick has brought theaudience to the third level where our previous perceptions of 'Singing in theRain' as light-hearted song suddenly comes in tune with the violent scene ofAlex and his droogs beating up a writer and raping his wife while singing thesong at the same time; an overturn of our preconception is also found in thepart where Beethoven's Ninth symphony was played with the state's violence offorcing Ludovico treatment onto Alex. The element of music and violence mingledtogether imposed the audience with ambivalent attitude toward music.

Susan Rice said in her “Stanley Klockwork's'Cubrick Orange” that,

This is Stanley Kubrick. He produced,wrote the screenplay for and directed A Clockwork Orange. I'm not sure thatKubrick sees himself as a practitioner of the Ludovico Technique, but I thinkhe comes very close. Has it occurred to anyone that, after having our eyesmetaphorically clamped open to witness the horrors that Kubrick parades acrossthe screen, like Alex and his adored 9th, none of us will ever again be able tohear "Singin' in the Rain" without a vague feeling of nausea?

Burgess, on the otherhand, thought novels gets an implied set of values derived from religion butthat other arts, such as music and architecture, are, unlike fiction,“neutral.” During the interview with The Paris Review, Burgess said, I enjoywriting music precisely because one is divorced from “human” considerationslike belief, conduct. Pure form, nothing more. But then I tend to despise musicjust because it is so 'mindless' I've been writing a string quartet bases on amusical theme that Shakespeare throws at us, in sol-fa notation, in Love'sLabour's Lost, and it's been pure, bliss.” However, music has often been usedas political propaganda rather than symbolizing perfection or moral.

Burgess positive attitudetoward music is coherent to the abrupt good ending of Alex initiation in theoriginal novel. Kubrick, in contrast to Burgess, provided a ambivalent (or evena negative) attitude toward music leads to a ending which the protagonist didnot remorse but still triumph in the battle against authority.

We can consider Burgess's work a Britishsocial satire with social context of Cold War and Kubrick's film an Americanscience fiction after Vietnam War. Both brought about our conscience of freewill that may be deprived of under the authority’s control. However, as Kubrickhad a finer control over the music element and historical context, I considerthe film adaptation had taken the story into a higher level in dystopiandiscourse.

@題外話：
圖為發條橘子的再版封面，哈，我還是喜歡舊版的！