V for Vendetta

On January 5, 1998, in the Shadow Gallery, Evey asks V why he has never tried to sleep with her. V says maybe he’s Evey’s father. He says he has a surprise for her and tells her to put on a blindfold. As he leads her out of the Shadow Gallery, snippets of their previous conversations play, perturbing Evey. He tells Evey that he is not her father—her father is dead—and he vanishes, leaving Evey alone.

Rosemary attends Almond’s funeral and notices that neither she nor any of Almond’s acquaintances liked him. She feels alone and vulnerable regardless. She decides to accept Dascombe’s advances even though he disgusts her. As Rosemary talks about how she will navigate life after her husband’s death, the illustrations depict V breaking into a media studio on February 23. He kills the film crew there, who are screening a movie about a group of Black men who rape white women and are overcome by a white hero named “Storm Saxon.”

V makes his way through Jordan Tower, where the Mouth broadcasts, as misogynistic propaganda plays in the background. He uses explosives strapped to his chest to threaten the control room workers into broadcasting his video to every television in London.

Broadcasting to Britain, V lists the things humanity has achieved—the Moon landing, the invention of the wheel, the cultivation of fire and agriculture. He says that despite these things, people remain unwilling to stand up for themselves. As pictures of infamous fascist leaders such as Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini appear, V says that the state of the country cannot be blamed on its bad management. The citizens who appoint these figures and ignore, and therefore enable, their injustices are also responsible. He gives them two years to improve. As V’s message plays, armed soldiers storm Jordan Tower and corner a figure that appears to be V. They kill him, unaware that V has dressed Dascombe in his clothes.

Finch meets Peter Creedy, Almond’s replacement. They find out that the figure in V’s clothes is Dascombe. Creedy makes a snide remark about Finch having an affair with Delia, and Finch punches him. The Leader sends Finch to the beach on vacation.

Elsewhere, Evey is lodging with Gordon Deitrich, a smuggler and gangster. Though he treats Evey kindly, he makes sexual comments toward her.

On March 8, Evey and Gordon are in a bar called the Kitty-Kat Keller. Evey sees Rosemary get escorted out for overdrawing her account. Gordon’s friend Robert talks to Creedy, who says the government is going to take his mother away. Robert fears he is next. His behavior becomes erratic. He shouts that everything would be better if London had been bombed in the war, and he is quickly subdued. Outside, Evey tells Gordon that Robert was right. V watches from afar.

On April 15, Gordon and Evey start a sexual relationship. On June 11, Gordon is followed home. He tells Evey to lock herself in the bathroom and stay silent. A gangster, Alastair Harper, stabs and kills Gordon. Later, as she stares at Gordon’s body, illustrations depict Evey’s flashbacks to her mother’s death, her father’s capture, and V’s desertion. She contemplates the pistol in Gordon’s drawer.

Evey runs into Rosemary outside the Kitty-Kat Keller, where Rosemary now works as a burlesque dancer. Evey spies on Alastair and some other men. She prepares to shoot them with Gordon’s pistol but is tackled by men in uniform. The illustrations darken to black as Evey passes out.

Evey experiences a hallucinatory flashback to a childhood birthday. Her styling and outfit are identical to when she infiltrated the Bishop’s house. Her dad fetches her for the party. He transforms into Gordon and shows her into a bedroom that is identical to the Bishop’s bedroom. The figure becomes the Bishop as he lowers her onto the bed and kisses her. Evey leaves the bedroom and sees V. She runs from him. He chases after her and attacks her before she can reach safety.

Evey wakes in a prison cell. Through the bars, she sees the state sign: “Strength Through Purity, Purity Through Faith” (148). Officers come in, blindfold her, and take her to an interrogation room. They play a video of Evey from last November when she was saved by V. She is charged with the attempted murder of Creedy. They shave her head. Later, she sees a note in a rat’s hole, written by someone named Valerie.

Evey goes through a cycle of reading Valerie’s letter, sleeping, and being tortured. As the illustrations depict Evey being tortured, she reflects on what she’s learned of Valerie’s life. Valerie was born in the late 50s and came out as a lesbian at 19. Her family disowned her, but her integrity was more important to her. She began to work as an actress in London, finding some success in the critically acclaimed movie The Salt Flats, where she met Ruth.

She was living with Ruth when Norsefire started interning gay people. They took Ruth and forced her to give them Valerie’s name. Ruth died by suicide. Valerie says they captured her, shaved her head, and held her underwater—the same thing the guards are doing to Evey. Valerie wrote the letter to the cell’s future inhabitant to preserve her last inch of integrity.

Evey is asked to testify that V brainwashed her, abused her, and forced her to commit murder. She refuses, choosing to die rather than lie. The guard tells her she is free and leaves. Evey walks through the deserted halls. She sees that the guard is a mannequin, and his words were prerecorded. She follows the halls to the Shadow Gallery, where V welcomes her home.

Evey realizes that V orchestrated her torture and imprisonment. He tells her she has spent her entire life in prison and that the happiness she thought she felt is “the most insidious prison of all” (169). He says that Gordon, her mother, and her father were all convicts and did not realize it, and he has shown Evey the bars of that prison. Evey is upset, but V continues to pressure her to embrace the terror of freedom. He leads Evey to the roof, where cold rain washes over her emaciated form, and she opens her arms to the night.

On September 3, in the Shadow Gallery, Evey thanks V. He takes her to a room with Valerie’s movie posters and says that what Evey read was the same thing that transformed him five years earlier when Valerie was held next to him in Room IV.

At the Kitty-Kat Keller, Rosemary cries as she prepares for the show. Her manager excuses her from the performance but ominously says he will stay with her. The illustrations show him laying a hand on her shoulder.

Back in the Shadow Gallery, V shows Evey the roses he cultivates, partially because Valerie’s letter said she hopes roses will grow again in the future. V reminds Evey of when she said she would not help V kill again, and then of her attempted murder of Alastair. He says that if Evey plucks a rose for Alistair and hands it to V, he will kill him. Evey says to let the flower grow. V says the finale is approaching and Evey will be needed at the very end.