Existentialist Analysis of Burgess's A Clockwork Orange Freedom and liberalism are buzzwords that appear frequently in both philosophical and political rhetoric. A free man is able to choose his actions and his system of values, to express his opinions and to develop his most authentic character. What this type of idealistic liberalism seems to forget, however, is that freedom does not mean a better society, a better life, or humanistic values ​​such as equality and justice. In his novel A Clockwork Orange (1962), Anthony Burgess portrays an ultimately free individual and shows how a society cannot cope with the freedom it so eagerly seeks to promote in rhetoric. Existentialism as a philosophical trend of the mid-20th century introduced the idea of ​​an absolutely free individual into the scheme of modern and postmodern individualism. A Clockwork Orange is a novel that raises a wide range of ethical questions, from the definition of free choice and goodness to methods of punishment. Existentialism in the form presented by Jean-Paul Sartre and the German phenomenologists provides neither an ethical nor a psychological perspective to the novel. Applying "existentialist thinking" to the work of Anthony Burgess, however, will allow us to understand the narrator Alex as a case of a free individual attempting to construct his world and relate to it authentically. So the main issue to examine is Alex's need for self-definition and the extent of his discouragement in his social environment. Alex is a 15 year old boy projected into a problematic future society. He is the only dominant child of a normal working class family. During the day he attends the correctional facility and at night he seeks violent pleasures with his dogs. As… middle of paper… postmodernist rhetoric, he conceives of a “new chapter beginning” for his living history. In the eyes of abstract existentialism, Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange is an interesting exploration. The novel illustrates that the nature of society is the restriction of freedom. In the social contract a certain human freedom is exchanged for a social belonging, a construction. Society's problem, it seems, is the balance between rights and obligations within the contract. If the balance is not directed towards the individual, but towards the State, society becomes an annihilator of authenticity. Such a society cannot cope with its people's natural sense of freedom, self-expression and authenticity. Bibliography Burgess Anthony 1962. A Clockwork Orange. Penguin Books 1996. Sartre Jean-Paul 1956. Being and Nothingness. Washington Square Press 1992.