The contamination of music for Alex represents a particularly tragic
loss, since music has been the only thing that engages him in a higher
sense of being. Music is, in Burgess’s words, “a figure of celestial
bliss,” a sentiment that Alex would obviously agree with, as he labels
the doctors’ incorporation of Beethoven into his aversion therapy
“a filthy unforgivable sin.” Significantly, Alex has never used
the specifically theological word sin to describe
an offense perpetrated against him—not when his friends betrayed
him, not when the police beat him, not even when a cellmate tried
to molest him. While Ludovico’s Technique, by taking away Alex’s
free will, has already removed his identity as a human being created
by God—or, as the chaplain put it earlier, taken Alex “beyond the
reach of the power of prayer”—this loss of divinity finds its most
acute expression in the loss of Alex’s beloved music. Hearing Beethoven’s
Fifth, Alex vomits for the first time, suggesting that this represents
a crucial moment in Alex’s conditioning. Alex rejects the treatment
verbally, decrying its humanity, as well as physically. This moment
finds an echo in Part Three, when Alex attempts suicide: impelled
by music, Alex will throw himself from a window.
