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
