Alex Vs. Beowulf: The Antithesis Of A Lifetime
...the protagonist is the one who is to define the perspective in which the story is told to the reader. More importantly the protagonist's actions and qualities are what set aside the protagonist from all of the other characters in a poem or novel. In A Clockwork Orange the protagonist, Alex is portrayed as a violent fifteen-year-old boy who deals with the inability to express his violent nature due to a treatment that forces him to feel pain every time he thinks about a violent thought. On the other hand, Beowulf, from the epic poem Beowulf, is a revered warrior who fights to protect the people of Denmark from the feared and vicious monster, Grendel. Although both of these protagonists deal with violence throughout the pieces, their unique characteristics set them apart from one another. Alex's desire to create havoc and evilness as the antihero in A Clockwork Orange, and Beowulf's desire to protect the people and his good hearted spirit as the hero in Beowulf, illustrate to the reader that Alex and Beowulf are the antithesis of each other.
In A Clockwork Orange, Alex serves as a character who creates havoc throughout the city in which he resides. After leaving the Korova Milkbar, a bar where Alex and his fellow friends, or "droogs," drink "drug-laced" milk, Alex commits crimes, such as attacking an old man while he is leaving the library (Burgess 1; Galens 3). Alex, along with his droogs, takes the old man's books and begins to burn and destroy them: "
so Georgie let go of holding his goobers [lips] apart and just let him have one in the toothless rot [mouth] with his ringy fist, and that made the old veck [guy] start moaning a lot to then, then out comes the blood, my brothers
" (Burgess 7). This quote shows the reader how violent Alex and his gang of droogs are. They find pleasure in attacking an elderly man to the point where he his completely beaten and...
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