V for Vendetta key quotes Flashcards
Adam Susan introduction
Prime Minister-esque role
Introduces himself to the reader - self-conscious awareness of comic form
Shows Adam Susan; Army image recollects the Nazi Hitler salute
“The Romans invented fascism. A bundle of bound twigs was its symbol. One twig could be broken. A bundle would prevail. Fascism…strength in unity”
Adam Susan - “I sit…”
“I sit within my cage and I am but a servant. I am not loved….but I am respected. And that will suffice. Because I love….Fate, I love you”
Book 3 Intro - Adam Susan, transition
Now asks Fate if he is “loved” and “respected”; followed by non-sequential transition (McCloud) to V conducting bomb explosions. [causes reader to question connections]
Book 3 Intro - V’s conducting
Non-sequential transition to V (McCloud)
V plays 1812 Overture - symbolic as reinterpreted from Tsars to Communists [patriotic relativism]
Musical references replace traditional comic book sounds - chillingly silent explosions
V’s narrative runs in different sized boxes parallel to the other narrative [Adam Susan’s]
V then removes surveillance, announcing on radio “Do what thou will shall be the whole of the law” - Thelema
Thelema quote
“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law”
Thelema - fusion of multiple world religions, has also been adopted by multiple other religions
Fate as a sexualised woman
Adam Susan evokes ‘Fate’ as a sexaulised woman - recalling the Song of Songs [pastiche?]
“She touches me, and I am touched by god, by destiny, by the whole of existence”
“Purity of her disdain”
V to Madam Justice
“you have bedded another”
His “new mistress…anarchy”
Priest’s quote
Twists doctrines; “never ignore our primal impulses”
A “dark and satanic evil that cometh forth in the night to ensnare the weak and sinful”
V’s introductions
“The multiplying villanies of nature do swarm upon him…” [Macbeth quote]
To Evey - “I’m the bogeyman, the villain”
- “I do not have a name. You can call me V.”
Source of V’s name
Faust quote = “by the power of truth I have conquered the universe”
“He made a deal, too”
Jerusalem quotes
Extra-diegetic quotes alongside white roses [nationalistic], juxtaposed with Westminster Abbey [also nationalistic] and the priest scene
V also leaves white roses at crime scene
V introudcing self to the Bishop
Rolling Stone’s “Sympathy for the Devil” quote - double irony
Bishop had just spoken of a “dark and satanic evil that cometh forth in the night to ensnare the weak and sinful”
V’s intersection with the Ear [at Bishop scene]
The Ear know of ‘Children’s Hour’
V quotes Psalm: “he shall complete my soul and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake”
Irony of the Bishop’s death
V both poisons and stabs Bishop, so ‘when it reached his abdomen it was still cyanide’
Symbolic - also uses State Nose to reveal Bishop, attack from within [much as Guy Fawkes]
Public man, of V’s name
“he ought to have a proper name…not ‘effin initials”
Movement from V and the state to the public - signalled by box and gutter style change
The Body metaphors
State - “The Ear”, “The Nose” [so when V infiltrates, he affects from inside]
Lady Justice - equated with Britannica, sexualised
Fate also sexualised, anthropomorphised as woman
V reduces entirety of human history to a work metaphor: “two years…you’re fired”, main goal of “progress”
V’s work metaphor
Reduces entirety of human history to a description of a work chastisement
“two years…you’re fired”
[immediacy - from all of history to ‘two years’]
Identifies main goal as “progress”
Evey leaving the prison - graphic points
“You are free” followed by a silent strip of images; switch to whole page of V [“Welcome home” - first words]
Bright and empty prison vs dark and intricately decorated mansion
Silent strip at end of book
Emphasises continuity between text and paratext - thus between text and life
Friedman
[Critical quotes]
Use of Shakespearian quotations to highlight “employment of the conventions of Renaissance revenge tragedy”
Valerie as a “family connection”
Also that this Shakespeare association makes V associated less with “Osama bin Laden and more like Hamlet”
Keller
[Critical quotes]
“Continual deferral of meaning”
“Cultural pastiche”
David Lloyd - eschewing thought bubbles
Made it more “real and documentary”
