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Fabian Castellon
Professor Altman
English 115
7 December 2014
V for Violation of Rights
The world of V for Vendetta is set in a dystopic London in a hypothetical universe,
where the government keeps watch on the lives of every citizen at every moment of their lives.
The world seems like something ripped straight out of George Orwells 1984 due to the
overbearing government, the withholding of information, and the constant surveillance on the
citizens. The only light at the end of this tunnel is the anti-hero, V, who although is only one
person, can and does make a difference when it comes to changing the injustices that are going
on in his country. The world of London in V for Vendetta shows what happens when people give
up civil liberties too easily, when the government controls the flow of information in the country,
and how, although it seems impossible, a very small group of people could actually have a huge
impact on the world.
The fact that people in London are living the way they are in V for Vendetta is because
they gave up their civil liberties in exchange for safety. This is prevalent right from the first page
of the graphic novel in which there is a camera posted with a sign on it. This sign does not say
anything threatening or scary, all it says is for your protection(Moore 9). This implies that the

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people would rather give up a bit of their privacy just to feel a bit safer, which creates the
snowball effect leaving them with the totalitarian world they are living in at the moment. This
connects back to our real world in many ways. One recent example is with the NSA internet
spying fiasco. We as Americans agreed to give up our privacy just to feel a bit safer about
terrorists and in the end all we did was show the government that it is fine to strip us of our
civil liberties. One way Derek Witte puts it in The Journal of Internet Law is that the NSA is
unapologetically spying on each of us right now.(Witte 1) Due to how easily we have made
our data available to them. Not just us but companies such as Facebook and other third party
companies only make this easier for them by providing that information in their corporate
interest(Witte 2-3). It is prevalent by the fact that we share our information so freely that privacy
is becoming less and less important to people. In order to just feel a bit safer in our own heads
we are willing to be under constant surveillance, not by just the government but by corporations
as well. The fact that we value privacy so little is one of the things that could ultimately lead to
the 1984 like government in V for Vendetta.
Another not so recent example is with the Patriot Act that passed after 9/11. In the
hysteria and hatred for terrorists at the time of 9/11, the government utilized this to make itself
stronger while at the same time stripping us again of our liberties. The Patriot act allowed the
government more power in terms of searching for terrorists but at the same time took the
privacy of American citizens. The Patriot act also has potential to be abused as it was with the
NSA spying fiasco in which they stated The government responded to Snowden's allegations by
contending that Section 215 of the Patriot Act allows for this indiscriminate collection of data
because it could be relevant to a terrorism investigation at some point in time(Witte 11).With

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the Snowden situation, that is exactly what happened, the government used the power we gave
them to invade the privacy of Snowden. We basically dug our own grave by passing the act in
the first place just for that small sense of freedom it gave us. In our fear filled hysteria of 9/11,
we effectively passed a bill that gave the government free reign to investigate anyone they
deemed a terrorist. Snowden is but one example of what can be done to Americans citizens
under the patriot act, and also shows how far we have given up freedoms just to feel a bit safer
from dangers that may not even be as extreme as we imagine. If we continue to just accept these
outrageous bills and laws put in by the government just for a little peace of mind, we will soon
be in a worse position even than the citizens of London in V for Vendetta, or even those of
Orwells 1984, for that matter..
Another reason the people live in such a totalitarian world in V for Vendetta is due to the
way the government withholds information from its people. For example, when the house of
parliament was blown up by V (Moore14) and later the government covers it up as scheduled
demolition (Moore 16) in order to make the people believe that they were still in control of the
situation. This occurs more than once and it shows not only how far the government will go to
stay in control, but also how easy it is to manipulate information and therefore manipulate
people. We can see how far the government will go to control information with Edward
Snowden, who was a whistle-blower about top secret NSA documents(The Guardian 6), and is
now forever on the run from the American government(Witte 10-12). It is clear that what he
leaked was information we were never supposed to see and it goes to show that already our
government is already taking a step towards the 1984 like world. Much like the government in
London within the graphic novel, the US Government immediately tried to cover up their tracks

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when something went down. Is it a fair trade off that the government is allowed to know more
about us, yet at the same time we are none the wiser that they are keeping information from us?
When the government begins withholding information like that to stay in power should be the
point that we realize that we may have given them a bit too much.
Yet in all of this negativity about the government taking away our civil liberties and
withholding information, we forget that it is possible for one individual, or a few, to make a
difference in society. This can be seen throughout the entire novel with our anti-hero, v, who
although can possibly be labeled as a terrorist or criminal does indeed fight for the people
and although his methods can be a bit abnormal at times, he does indeed get results. The idea
that one small faction can definitely fight against their government is not unheard of in our world
too. Anonymous, a group of individuals who call themselves activists and mostly fight against
online limitations of freedom of speech and in general any target is fair game, from a completely
unknown person, to an individual website, or even the Chinese government itself. They, much
like V, have a purpose in their head and will go to great lengths to achieve said purpose. One
recent example of this small group taking some initiative is in their support of Hong Kong
protesters, they basically attacked the Chinese government. Anonymous released hundreds of
phone numbers and e-mail addresses of the Ningbo Free Trade Zone in Zhejiang province and a
job-search site run by the Changing county administration also in the coastal province, Hong
Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Monday.(Money Life 3). This one small
group of individuals was single handedly able to expose the names and numbers of their
opposition, therefore showing that they were in fact a threat. The similarities to V dont end at
the lone activism though, as they also use the Guy Fawkes mask just like V to symbolize that

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they acknowledge the similarities between themselves and V and even praise them. Overall these
two groups of people are just one example of how even when times seem the toughest, it is
always possible to fight back, you just have to know the right way to do it.
The world of mystery from V for Vendetta can be seen as a warning, much like Orwells
1984. Although some of the thing going on may seem far-fetched or crazy, they could be things
that are going in our world now. The graphic novel could be seen as not only a warning, but also
a call to action. In the novel it is shown what the actions of one person can do, and similar
occurrences have happened in our lives today, and Moore was trying to warn the world while
also trying to spread this message. Yes, we are partially to blame if we allow the government to
get as out of control as it does in the dystopian novels of 1984 and V for Vendetta, but we are
also capable of inciting a change in that same world, even as just one person, because all it takes
is one person to fight back to create a chain reaction.

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Works Cited
"Hong Kong Protests: Anonymous hackers release data from Chinese govt sites; Anonymous
took the action shortly after the Chinese government denounced the group's threat of
cyber-attacks, which were apparently in support of the Hong Kong protesters." Money
Life 13 Oct. 2014. General OneFile. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.
Moore, Alan, and David Lloyd. V for Vendetta. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2005. Print.
"NSA Performed Warrantless Searches on Americans' Calls and Emails." The Guardian. 1 Apr.
2012. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.Web
Witte, Derek S. "Privacy deleted: is it too late to protect our privacy online?" Journal of Internet
Law Jan. 2014: 1+. General OneFile. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.