Watching this again, I think I disagree with your assessment. The movie demands that you do feel some kind of sympathy for Alex. And, if you notice, the early scenes of violence (the fight with Billy Boy's gang) and the rape are highly stylized and choreographed. It seems to me, there is a subtext of satire and even dark humor to those scenes (the.scene with the attack on the cat woman with a giant ceramic dildo would suggest this as well)I saw this once theatrically, and it was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. Not because of the film itself (which, to my mind, is still stunningly powerful all these years later) but because the crowd was filled with people who seemed to miss the point of the movie. They were dressed as "droogs", and laughed, cheered and hollered with every act of violence - hearing people cheer during a rape scene as if they were going to see "Rocky Horror Picture Show" was just so disgusting to me, and I'm sure Kubrick would have been sickened if he had been made aware of that.