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Student A
Prof. Pamela Murphy
ENGL 1101
22 April 2014
V
A Man Broken Into Pieces
V for Vendetta, a film based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore, was directed by James
McTeigue, with Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving taking the lead roles. V for Vendetta takes a
dark look at the dangers of propaganda, blind reliance on government, and allowing the end to
justify the means. The title character, V, is a black clad enigma who is labeled a terrorist but selfidentifies as a revolutionary. He takes inspiration from Guy Fawkes, a 16th century rebel, and
wears a mask of Fawkes’ face. He crafts his revolution in Guy Fawkes’ image, taking the
location, date, and method of destruction from him. The high chancellor of the tyrannical
government promised freedom from terrorism and disease, meanwhile manufacturing these
things himself to take control of the populous. The chancellor imprisons “undesirables” and tests
diseases on them. V and Valerie, another central character, are victims of the government. The
other main character is Evey, an average citizen. Evey gets roped into V’s schemes and grows to
know the mysterious man somewhat. Near the end of the film, Evey laments that she doesn’t
know what V looks like, to which V replies, “There is a face beneath this mask, but it isn't me.
I'm no more that face than I am the muscles beneath it, or the bones beneath that.” This calls into
question how V sees himself and how he constructs his identity. V is suggesting that his mind is
who he is, by stating that physical aspects of himself have no bearing on who he is. But how
much of V’s mind is his own? To free Evey of her fear, V imprisons her, pretending to be the
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government. V shoves a roll of paper into Evey’s cell through a crack in the wall. Evey believes
this to be from the prisoner in the cell next door. The paper is a letter from Valerie, who tells her
life story and her eventual death at the hands of the government. Evey is strengthened by
Valerie’s letter and claims to V, still posing as the menacing government, that she does not care
if they kill her, she is unafraid. This prompts V to release her from her fake prison and reveal that
when he was imprisoned, he received the very same letter from Valerie and that it is her
vengeance that he is enacting. Valerie’s letter is the driving force behind V’s purpose and is the
catalyst for Evey’s transformation. V is motivated by anger at his own imprisonment and
Valerie’s. V’s vendetta is fashioned together by combining parts of Valerie’s and Guy Fawkes’
identities. V is a broken man that, while attempting to form an identity, rejects the notion of
having a self as a way to save himself from his own emotional torment.
A major component missing from V’s life is memories. He appropriates the life and
memories of Valerie to fill this need. He uses Valerie’s life story to construct purpose and it
spurs him on to enact Valerie’s vendetta. Delia Surrage, formerly Doctor Diana Stanton, writes
in her diary of Larkhill, the compound V was imprisoned in. She writes about V, calling him
number five. She states that in an interview with V, he said that he has no memory of his past
life. V took his name from the number on his prison cell, but he also took it from Valerie; after
all, he doesn’t call himself “five.” The use of Valerie’s flower at every scene of revenge shows
that V is appropriating Valerie’s life as his own and pursuing a Vendetta based on her life. V
would not have been filled with such rage if he had not read Valerie’s letter. Valerie’s letter
exposed V to a normal life, full of joy and sorrow, replacing the life he had forgotten. Valerie’s
life served as the base of experience for V to support his rage. Without the letter, V would not
have understood what he had lost. His existence, before Valerie’s letter, was being a guinea pig
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for cruel doctors and living in a small, dark cell, alone. V wanted revenge, fueled by a burning
rage, akin to the fire that freed him, but that rage would not have had direction without Valerie,
and later, Guy Fawkes.
V’s face was burned beyond recognition, so he took the face of Guy Fawkes. The
unrealistic look of the mask points to how V has warped Guy Fawkes’s ideology to better fit his
own needs. V’s use of black clothing also suggests a changing, shadowed psyche. V has already
stated that he is not the face beneath the mask, and he never stated that the mask was his face.
When Evey leaves V for the second time, after her imprisonment, she tells V that he is a
monster. In his room, V removes his mask and breaks his mirror with the mask. His face is not
revealed, hidden in shadow. The decision to hide V’s face suggests that V has no face
psychologically, no true understanding of himself. The mask is a physical representation of how
V has incorporated Guy Fawkes’ identity into his own, while still maintaining a level of
separateness. What many people base their identity on, their face and body, is destroyed for V.
His face and body are burnt, which distances him from other people. The use of the mask is to
cement that V upholds Guy Fawkes’s ideals. V has ownership and agency of those ideals and can
manipulate them, and he does. By aligning himself with Guy Fawkes, V gains legitimacy as a
revolutionary.
V doesn’t see his body as a part of his identity, which shows in his clothing choices. V
chooses to wear black to cloak himself in mystery. His costume allows him to stand out and to
fade into the shadows. The style is dated, along with the wig V wears. Apart from the figure
head of Guy Fawkes, the house of his ideology, V’s body is not given identity, or purpose,
beyond enabling Guy Fawkes’ ideology. V is psychologically unable to modernize because his
psyche is entrenched in Guy Fawkes’ era. His belief system is based on Guy Fawkes. V has no
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ideal to act out his vendetta for Valerie so he takes it from Guy Fawkes, and also takes his image,
the mask. All this is to accomplish his vendetta and to support his fragile identity.
V takes what he needs from Valerie and Guy Fawkes. He owns their identities, but is also
enslaved by them. The other main character, Evey, interacts with V the most. V fell in love with
Evey, a love that was his own, not taken from someone else. Given V’s modus operandi, one
would assume he takes something from Evey. In fact, he gives Evey the only thing that can be
called his own, his imprisonment and subsequent freedom. He imprisons her and puts her
through the pain and loneliness he suffered through. He slips in Valerie’s letter for Evey to read,
just as V did in that cold, dark cell. The film supports this view of Evey’s imprisonment. The
scene showing V’s release and Evey’s release are visually similar. V stands in fire with both
arms stretched out as he screams in fury. Evey stands in the rain with her arms stretched,
laughing and crying hysterically. It is interesting that Evey is transformed into a solid,
emotionally liberated character, whereas V was transformed into a broken character consumed
by hate whose view of the world is constructed by appropriating Valerie’s and Guy Fawkes’
identities.
V possesses a composite Identity. He does not have a sense of self the way most people
do. V was stripped of all identity-creating attributes such as past life experiences, ideology, and
physical appearance. V constructs self by stealing bits and pieces of Guy Fawkes’ and Valerie’s
identities. The loss of V’s identity is a comment on how totalitarian regimes rob the populous of
identity and agency. Is an identity based on pieces of other identities a true identity? If the
answer is no, then that lowers V to the most basic sense of self: self-awareness. He experiences
existence, thus he has a self. V is a raw individual trying to foster a self-identity by clinging to
pillars of Guy Fawkes’ and Valerie’s identity. If the answer is yes, then it gives insight into V’s
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suicide at the end of the film. Basing his sense of self on Valerie’s vendetta and Guy Fawkes’s
goal, having fulfilled both those needs, he is left without identity and self, dead psychologically.
It’s important to add that he died in Evey’s arms, Evey being a person that granted V a small
sense of self, his love for her.
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Work Cited
V for Vendetta. Dir. James McTeigue. Perf. Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman. Warner Bros.
Pictures, 2005. Film.