A Clockwork Orange Society and Class Quotes

How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from A Clockwork Orange.

Quote #1

ALEX: One thing I could never stand is to see a filthy, dirty old drunkie, howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and going blerp, blerp in between as it might be a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. I could never stand to see anyone like that, whatever his age might be, but more especially when he was real old like this one was.

Alex makes his violent act into a statement on society of sorts. People shouldn't be loud and obnoxious or else they get beat up! We wonder if Alex would change his tune (pun intended) if this guy were humming Beethoven.

Quote #2

TRAMP: I don't want to live anyway, not in a stinking world like this. […] It's a stinking world because there's no law and order any more. It's a stinking world because it lets the young get onto the old like you done. It's no world for an old man any longer. What sort of a world is it at all? Men on the moon and men spinning around the earth and there's not no attention paid to earthly law and order no more.

Society has gone to heck in a handbasket according to the tramp, before he gets beat up. He seems to think that young thugs have taken over, and that it's no country for old men. Is this attitude common in every generation?

Quote #3

ALEX: It's wrong because it's like against like society. It's wrong because everybody has the right to live and be happy without being tolchocked and knifed.

The Ludovico procedure is intended to make Alex non-violent. It's difficult to determine whether it really changes him. Here, he seems to realize that he has to be a part of society, not outside it. But is he just saying that so they'll think he is cured, or does he believe it?