Alex’s treatment in Clockwork Orange is undeniably an extreme example of Classical Conditioning. Alex associated evil things such as violence with the nausea he experienced during the experiment. The unconditioned stimulus, or the stimulus that causes a specific response, is the shot of serum. The serum causes the nausea, which is the unconditioned response, or an unlearned reaction to the unconditioned stimulus. Alex will later associate this intense nausea with the neutral stimulus, violence. In other words the serum makes Alex extremely sick while he watches the videos and he learns to associate those feelings with what he sees on the screen, i.e. violence. The process is seen below.
Does the fact that he no longer does bad things due to his nausea make him good?
The chaplain warned him that the treatment does not make a man good. Goodness is a choice and this treatment prevents the subject from making such choices on his own. Alex was changed by the treatment. He was no longer capable of being violent but it did not take away the initial urge. SO was the treatment a success? Well it may have made him incapable of being a menace to the society but in turn it robbed him of his ability to choose right from wrong on his own. Even though the treatment was effective I do not believe it was successful.
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