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The freedom that London needed in "V for Vendetta"

By Anonymous
Source: DC Comics. V for Vendetta. 2005. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta

The Message

After finishing reading V for Vendetta, I believe I understood the message that the graphic novel was conveying to its readers. I believe the message is to stand up for your freedom, even if it is against society. In the entire graphic novel, V was fighting for the freedom of England by doing acts that the authoritarian government considered as “acts of terrorism” and was also considered a “terrorist” like on page 161 (Moore, 2005). Blowing up buildings, killing those parts of the government, and much more, V was able to get his point across as towards the middle of the graphic novel as the government was fearing about what he could do next. Even after V's death, Evey took over and continued V’s work as she gave a speech towards protesters to choose “Lives of our own, or a return to chains” on page 259 (Moore, 2005). The message over having independence and standing up for freedom is one of the most seen messages.  Another message of the graphic novel is the freedom from fear, and this is what Evey experienced during the time she was with V. When Evey is first caught by V, she fears that she is going to be tortured or made to do something worse as he blindfolded her and took her to the “shadow gallery” like on page 18 (Moore, 2005). Another mention of fear that involves Evey starts on page 123 as the readers watch her go through a storyline with love interests and violence. Even when she was arrested and went through the fake jail, she had so much fear in her at the beginning. Towards the end and the reveal, V did all of those things to give Evey a new take on life and to see through new eyes.

Themes

While the graphic novels had many themes, two themes that I noticed a lot were State conformity vs Individuality and also Revenge. The theme of State conformity vs Individuality is one that is noticeable very much as the authoritarian government is making sure that the citizens of London are following their laws and rules. The first page of the graphic novel has the readers introduced to “the voice of fate” which is a governmental run radio show that tells the citizens about what they can do, where they can visit, how they should follow, and what they can’t do (Moore, 2005). The voice of fate is there for the majority of the book until V was able to take control over what the citizens could hear on their radios. The readers are also introduced to the group who is running the authoritarian police force and how the group is split up into different sections such as “nose, lips, etc” on page 15 (Moore, 2005). Another theme that I noticed very well was Revenge which is what both V and Evey want as the storyline progresses. The readers could easily tell that V wanted revenge from when he save Evey to when he took the commander in his makeshift “resettlement camp”. While the rest of the graphic novel had V taking revenge against the authoritarian government, Evey's revenge points came in two separate spots. The first one was with revenge over the death of Gordon as she wanted to shoot those who killed Gordon (Moore, 2005). The other revenge point was when V died and she took over V spot to help the citizens of Londons to choose either to stay in the government control or to have their freedom and get rid of the authoritarian state (Moore, 2005). The readers could watch her transformation on page 251 as she finally realizes what she wanted to do like the new V (Moore, 2005).

The Medium

According to McCloud on page 65, “there lies a medium of communication and expression which uses closure” as the “medium where the audience is a willing and conscious collaborator and closure is the agent of change, time, and motion” (1993). While McCloud goes further more into what they meant by the medium and closure and how it also involves the blank space between panels, connecting it to V for Vendetta is somewhat interesting. In V for Vendetta, most of the panels contain the actions that readers would think would be the blank between the panels. Although there are some scenes where the readers have to see the medium and come up with what happened such as when V switched spots with Dascombe and Dascombe was the one who was killed rather than V (Moore, 2005). This is only one of the sum about spots to where the readers really have to think about what happens in the small blank between the panels.


Works Cited

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Harper Collings Publishers, 1993.
Moore, Alan. V for Vendetta. Art by David Lloyd. DC Comics, 2005.

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