...Kate Bordley Writing and Inquiry Cole 6 December 2012 While watching a movie, we often don’t tend to observe some of the deeper meanings that are hidden within the use of themes and symbols. A movie that I saw for the first time, V For Vendetta, blew my mind when I started analyzing it deeper. The movie is based around the idea of social change and revolution. The main character, V, can only be considered a ‘terrorist’ despite the well meaning he has behind his actions. This movie has fans in great numbers due to our ability to relate with V. His charisma shows through making him seemingly charming and dramatic. The movie is a symbol of rebellion, the possibility of a simple idea changing the world. As I watched the movie, a theme of terrorism seemed to arise. V is made to be likable yet he is doing anti government actions and behaving in a way that we would usually be more resilient against and brutal towards. The idea that V is fighting against an all-controlling government helps us accept that V is technically a good guy, fighting for freedom like the United States. Another common theme throughout the film is lies and deception. The government shields the truth from the public, even though they know it couldn’t possibly be true. For example, when they lie about the blowing up of the statue in the beginning. The government continues to lie about the state of danger the country is in by showing inaccurate news reports of officers shooting their own peers who happened...
Words: 716 - Pages: 3
...How does James McTeigue portray freedom in V for Vendetta? V for Vendetta is a dystopian political thriller released in 2005 and is based off the 1998 graphic novel with the same name. The movie portrays many different ideas and themes which help paint a clearer picture of the movies meaning. The director James McTeigue paints a harsh future based in an alternative universe where Britain is run under a dictatorship which thrives and excels under fear.Several cruel methods included torture cells, unjust punishment, and degradation of the police force. This draws several comparisons to Hitler's regime prior to the start of WW2. The director furthermore portrays the theme of freedom, vengeance and corruption which is clear as day throughout...
Words: 299 - Pages: 2
...The story V for Vendetta is a story about a government wanting to take over the world. Vendetta calls himself “the king of the twenty century. I'm the bogeyman, the villain, the black sheep of the family.” He wears a long cape, a big hat, he has long hair, tall, with a big nose and long face. He wants to make sure everything okay in this town. If you do something and he doesn’t like it who knows what will happen to you. In this small town there are camera in the street to make sure nothing bad is going on. Also so the government and police can watch everything for the peoples protection. Vendetta says, “The fifth of November the gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason.” The government wants to control...
Words: 298 - Pages: 2
...An Exposé of Control in The Hunger Games & V for Vendetta ‘Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem’. Bill Clinton’s quote clearly articulates how Government seems to be the problem in society but fails to produce his rationale. Therefore his statement is ambiguous and is open to different thoughts and interpretation. Accordingly, a Government could be problematic due to a lack of justice and democracy within the system; which in turn creates a fascist and totalitarian-type rule whose fundamental belief surrounds the idea of ‘control’. This form of Government is evident within the novel ‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins and the comic ‘V for Vendetta’ by Alan Moore. ‘The Hunger Games’ exposes the detriment of a corrupted, twisted, totalitarian Government controlling a deteriorated society. It is set in post-America with the ominous, terrifying Capitol reigning from the center, ruling 12 districts around it. Similarly ‘V for Vendetta’ is set in London in a world altered by the damages of war, famine and disease hence birthing a fascist, tyrannical Government inspiring fear and control over its citizens by any means possible. It is arguable that both ‘The Hunger Games’ and ‘V for Vendetta’ serve as exposé’s of their respective fascist and totalitarian Governments exerting different aspects of control over their societies. Within the ‘Hunger Games’, the all-powerful Capitol rules the society. They possess a large majority of the country’s wealth...
Words: 2440 - Pages: 10
...Colin Stein ENGL 3060 Mr. Daniel Larson April 18, 2014 Anarchy, Chaos, and Revolution in V for Vendetta Close Reading Panels: (Moore, 248) Throughout V for Vendetta, author Alan Moore emphasizes the significant line that V draws between anarchy and chaos, and the role that each concept plays in his revolution. Whereas V lives his life according to the precepts, or lack thereof, inherent to anarchism, he vehemently condemns the blind purposelessness, impropriety, and disorder of total chaos. Both concepts, however, are associated with V’s act of revolution; anarchy and chaos initiate the uprising, and it is up to Evey and the liberated citizenry of Great Britain to either stay the course with anarchy and rebuild their society or allow it to devolve into a state of chaos. A close reading analysis of the panels above reflect V’s beliefs regarding anarchy, chaos, and revolution, and their critical relationship to one another. This paper will argue that anarchy and chaos are bound to the concept of revolution, in that the society following a revolution faces structured anarchy or an unstructured chaos. Moore reinforces this theme in the panels through his symbolism and specific diction. Within these two panels, David Lloyd’s animation exhibits a number of symbolic images that reinforce Moore’s theme. One such example occurs in the first panel, on the image of V. In this scene, as the slain V’s words on revolution echo in Evey’s head, his body is symmetrically split into...
Words: 916 - Pages: 4
...It is the year 2020. A virus runs wild in the world, most Americans are dead, and Britain is ruled by a fascist dictator who promises security but not freedom. One man stands against him, the man named V, who moves through London like a wraith despite the desperate efforts of the police. He wears a mask showing the face of Guy Fawkes, who in 1605 tried to blow up the houses of Parliament. On Nov. 5, the eve of Guy Fawkes Day, British schoolchildren for centuries have started bonfires to burn Fawkes in effigy. On this eve in 2020, V saves a young TV reporter named Evey from rape at the hands of the police, forces her to join him, and makes a busy night of it by blowing up the Old Bailey courtrooms. "V for Vendetta" will follow his exploits for the next 12 months, until the night when he has vowed to strike a crushing blow against the dictatorship. We see a police state that hold citizens in an iron grip and yet is humiliated by a single man who seems impervious. The state tries to suppress knowledge of his deeds -- to spin a plausible explanation for the destruction of the Old Bailey, for example. But V commandeers the national television network to claim authorship of his deed....
Words: 864 - Pages: 4
...survival, for the hope of a better future; you want to leave behind the dystopian society you came from. However, they are on your trail. Once you get caught, there is no hope. This was what life was like for the inhabitants of 1984 and V for Vendetta. It was an existence full of ironic satirical tragedies, fruitless hope and rebellion. The people that are living in George Orwell’s 1984 and Wachowski brothers’ V for Vendetta are both the victims of a dystopian society. The society of 1984 and V for Vendetta heavily influenced by the possible alternate future in which Germany and the Soviet Union wins WWII and the conquered Great Britain is forced to become a fascist or a communist state. The government is shown to be playing a manipulative puppet-master role to the people in both societies. The two governments have gained absolute power over their people due to psychological motivation by the use of propaganda. Humanity is often criticized to be nothing more than evolved Neanderthals, striving for our own survival. These two novels show that human will turn a blind eye to any wrong-doing if there is a benefit for them. It analyzes how extreme human greed can be and how humans have great amounts of weakness. Both the text 1984 and V for Vendetta is a satire that ridicules the enemy leaders of World War II, exaggerates government manipulation, and criticizes humanity. The two satires ridicule the World War II leaders and the tactics involved. The society in 1984 is a ridiculed society...
Words: 1671 - Pages: 7
...In the movie V for Vendetta, ‘V’ is a man who escaped an unfair captivity by the government as an experimental study. He vows himself to revenge and kill those responsible. He also becomes a rebel leader, fighting a violent terrorist crusade against dictatorship in Britain, set in the future and ruled by Norsefire, a fascist political party in a totalitarian government. The woman Evey, a protagonist in the film, is victim of an attempted rape by the secret police, when she knowingly breaks the law by leaving her house after curfew. The policemen used their status to create fear by threatening her in order to be respected and obeyed. In the opening scene, Lewis Prothero a TV host, announces that their successful country works through ‘Strength and Unity’, which is why immigrants, Muslims, homosexuals, diseases and terrorists all had to go, based on a ‘better’ judgment of their government’s religion, which in this movie is some sort of Christianity. ‘Strength through Unity, Unity through Faith’. The movie shows how government can manipulate its people, from fear to hope, Chancellor Adam Sutler was elected after a bioterrorist attack occurred which killed many. A cure for the virus getting discovered shortly after his election shows it was a plot engineered by Norsefire to gain power. The film makes plenty of political points and affronts the American government of today by making certain references about the war on terrorism and quoting the film “People should not fear their government...
Words: 3158 - Pages: 13
...RLG101H Introduction to the Study of Religion Prof. Ken Derry Grading TA: Brian Carwana “Remember the idea, not the man” By: Karanveer Singh 998435304 Date: 12/2/2011 Word Count:1,488 James McTeigue’s V for Vendetta is an action packed film. It not only serves the purpose of entertaining the viewer but also has religious elements in it. The central belief of the movie is that an idea and symbol cannot be destroyed; it is impregnable. This belief in the movie is reinforced by Rituals that occur frequently in the film. I will draw on the concepts of ritual from Malory Nye’s Religion the basics and will argue that the use of the mask and the letter “V” in this film function as a method of ritualism and symbolism. Also, I will analyze ritualization and transformation through the stages of Rites of Passage and dispute that it transforms the character Evey’s life. The film V for Vendetta portrays the beliefs of idealism. The first few minutes of the film give a glimpse of the key message that is going to be depicted in the film. The prologue in the film shows that a man named Guy Forkes got caught and executed for trying to blow up the house of parliament in London England but his ideas and beliefs did not die, they fueled revolutions for generations to come. In the prologue of the film a narrator says “that remember the idea not the man, man can be killed and forgotten but the idea cannot be killed”. Towards the end of the film, when the thousands of common citizens...
Words: 1530 - Pages: 7
...Competition is an element found all throughout everyday life. First in line, first in the class, and in the texts V for Vendetta directed by Jame McTeigue and Animal Farm written by Geoge Orwell this is no different. In V for Vendetta, several parties are competing for power in the British government and will stop at nothing to grasp tightly around victory. This victory is so important to these people that they would do anything. In V for Vendetta, it was the conservative party that took "anything" to a new extreme. After developing a chemical weapon rather than using this weapon against enemies of the state they impose it's deadly nature upon their own country. Why? Whilst developing this weapon a cure was also developed, the quote "Some...
Words: 340 - Pages: 2
...Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry (14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) was a well-known modernist writer of short fiction who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. When she was 19 Katherine left New Zealand and settled in the United Kingdom, where she became friends with modernist writers such as D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. Her first published stories appeared in the High School Reporter and the Wellington Girls' High School magazine (the family returned to Wellington proper in 1898), in 1898 and 1899. In 1902 she became in love of a cellist, Arnold Trowell, although the feelings were largely unanswered. Mansfield herself was an accomplished cellist, having received lessons from Trowell's father. Mansfield wrote in her journals of feeling disturbed in New Zealand, and of how she had become disillusioned because of the repression of the Māori people. Maori characters are often portrayed in a sympathetic or positive light in her later stories, such as "How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped”. In 1903 she moved to London, where she attended Queen's College along with her sisters. Mansfield recommenced playing the cello, an occupation that she believed she would take up professionally, but she also began contributing to the college newspaper with such dedication that she eventually became its editor. She met fellow writer Ida Baker (also known as Lesley Moore), a South African, at the college, and they became lifelong friends...
Words: 304 - Pages: 2
...Sussman 1 Adam Sussman HZT4U Ms. Efimov May 25, 2014 V for Vendetta Reflection Throughout the film V for Vendetta, V shows the audience his cleaver and insightful ways on how he plans to heal the damaged society. As V takes on the totalitarianism society run by the British Government, he displays to Kant’s theories that he is the opposite. Although his morals might be in the right place, he continuously uses others to meet the ends of his own means, which directly goes against Kant’s categorical imperative. Along with this, V’s revenge seeking mission goes against another maxim Kant put on his categorical imperative. This is the ‘universality’ maxim. If everyone were doing what V was doing the entire time, many more people would have been killed as well as they are would be no conflict in the first place. What the ‘party’ or the government of Great Britain has been doing the entire time would have never have occurred if they were all fighting the party like V was. V goes against every bit of Kant’s categorical imperative and justifies his own ends through other peoples will. V doesn’t force anyone to do anything in V for Vendetta but rather offers him or her a question of joining or opposing his ways. Sussman 2 As the film progresses, V just shows us how much he actually opposes the guidelines of Kant’s first maxim in his theory of the categorical imperative. The first maxim being universality, V shows the audience that he is the only one who can be doing this and no one else would...
Words: 1112 - Pages: 5
...3434 11/23/15 V for Vendetta Analysis WR 111 C Analysis In the film, V for Vendetta, the director James McTeigue implies that ideas are bulletproof because the idea lives on through the people you've touched. The movie starts off with V saving a fearful women named Evey. She is scared of everything because her parents were killed and she watched her mother get beaten by government officials. V then goes on to explain his beliefs and ideas, and he even shows her his first act of rebellion by destroying the Old Bailey. They then run into each other a couple more times before the main events of V imprisoning Evey to help her lose her fears. She ends up wanting to die rather than give up any information for V's arrest. V does this to help her lose her fears and see what he had to go through partially. His main thing was for her to lose her fears so she would help him execute his main act of rebellion to free the society of their fear and for his ideas to live on. Once he gets all of London to follow his idea, he knows his idea will be bulletproof and it will live on through everyone he touched. V was a victim of a government ran epidemic. The government was experimenting on London natives trying to find a substance to make a super soldier who held a cure and use a illness to be a devastating chemical warfare weapon. V actually held the cure and he was the super soldier the government was trying to make. The whole laboratory went up in flames and burned down unfortunately...
Words: 1076 - Pages: 5
...Michael Bennett Page 1 Dr. Alla Boldina ENG 110-60 REVOLUTION AND ROMANCE Creedy: “Why won’t you die!?” V: “Beneath this mask is more than flesh…there are ideas. And ideas are bulletproof.” With these words, the film, “V for Vendetta” dramatically demonstrates the power of ideas to challenge and overcome the evil of oppression. In film critic Robert Ebert’s review of “V for Vendetta,” he notes the power of ideas, especially the belief that people should not be afraid of their governments, but rather that governments should be afraid of their people. Although Ebert questions the necessity of fear, and believes that governments and people should be able to happily co-exist, I think he trivializes the significance of the film’s message. Although it is an in-depth, well written look at the story, it is one-sided. He gives credit to a novel written by Allen Moore in 1983, on which the film is based, and compares “V for Vendetta” to other movies and stories. The main character, V, is described in detail, and Ebert explains his purpose in the story. The other characters, however, are not mentioned very much, leaving the reader a bit blank. I appreciate that he mentions the main idea of the film, and is generous with quotations. I do fin d his criticism a bit excessive, as he puts down the mask that V wears because the lips don’t move and his vision would be obstructed. Ebert seems biased on behalf of London’s architecture, as he expresses his disappointment...
Words: 1575 - Pages: 7
...little part of me will always hold hope that one day we will all be able to be a lot more like superman in the future. Although many films and novels portray a future where hova crafts and time travel exist a few take a more investigated and thought out take on the future. One of these films are V for Vendetta directed by James Mcteigue. He has created a society in times not to far from now. Some would even say the society he has created isn’t much different from today's. We see a fear of being different in V for Vendetta. Those that are gay or don’t carry the same beliefs as others are so afraid of standing out that they hide who they truly are. Now I know superman hid who he was but he never pretended to have different morals whether he was saving...
Words: 643 - Pages: 3
