Alex (A Clockwork Orange)

Alex DeLarge
Alex in a shot from the 1971 film A Clockwork Orange, directed by Stanley Kubrick.
First appearance	A Clockwork Orange
Created by	Anthony Burgess
Portrayed by	Malcolm McDowell
Information
Religion	Church of England
Nationality	British

Alex is a fictional character in Anthony Burgess' novel A Clockwork Orange and Stanley Kubrick's film A Clockwork Orange, in which he is played by Malcolm McDowell. In the film, his surname is DeLarge, a reference to Alex calling himself Alexander the Large in the novel. In the film, however, two newspaper articles print his name as "Alex Burgess". In addition to the book and film, Alex was portrayed by Vanessa Claire Smith in the ARK Theatre Company's multi-media adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, directed by Brad Mays.

Alex is the narrator, protagonist and antihero in the novel A Clockwork Orange. He is portrayed as a sociopath who robs, rapes, and assaults innocent people for his own amusement. Intellectually, he knows that this sort of behaviour is wrong, saying that "you can't have a society with everybody behaving in my manner of the night". He nevertheless professes to be puzzled by the motivations of those who wish to reform him and others like him, saying that he would never interfere with their desire to be good; he simply "goes to the other shop".

He speaks Nadsat, a teenage slang created by author Anthony Burgess. The language is based on largely English and Russian words, but also borrows from other sources such as Cockney rhyming slang, Romani speech, and schoolboy colloquialisms. His beverage of choice is milk spiked with various drugs, which he and his fellow gang members ("droogs") drink to fortify themselves for "ultraviolence". Alex is very fond of classical music, particularly Ludwig van Beethoven, whom he habitually refers to as "Ludwig Van". While listening to this music, he fantasizes about endless rampages of rape, torture and slaughter. Alex's favorite melee weapon is a "cut-throat britva", or straight razor.