V for Vendetta Post

Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s graphic novel, V for Vendetta, depicts a time when Britain is ruled by a corrupt and totalitarian government. The “villain” in this graphic novel is a radical known simply as V. He promotes the idea of anarchy and encourages ordinary citizens to rise up against the fascist government. He is also out for revenge and carries out his vendetta by murdering people who wronged him in the past. The act of murder is unethical and wrong. It is an extreme way of presenting resistance and revolution to change society. There are other less harmful methods that can bring about change. However, V ignores other options and opts instead to slaughter those he deems immoral. These violent acts illustrate just how far V is willing to go in order to fight for what he sees as “right.”

Although I disagree with his brutal methods, I also understand why he does them. He is living in a period where those who are in control abuse their powers and corrupt society. In the beginning of the novel, Evey is caught prostituting herself by the “fingermen,” or police. They do not send her to jail or give her a trial, but they decide to kill her instead. In a world where even the police, who are supposed to protect society, are corrupt and cruel, sometimes drastic action must be taken in order to bring attention to the faults of those in power. Sometimes radical actions must take place in order to stir a revolution.

A passage where the graphic novel format seems effective is when Evey tells V about her childhood (26-29). The images really capture the difficulties and pain she felt growing up. We are able to see through her eyes the hurt in her childhood and the cruel nature of the malicious government. It makes the reader not only empathize with Evey for the many hardships she faced as a child, but with V as well. V resides in the blurred line between hero and villain, and at this point readers are still unsure where he stands. It is in this scene where we are able to see that he genuinely cares for Evey. The images illustrate his fatherly affection and protectiveness towards her. It also reveals that although he commits acts of murder, he is capable of kindness and compassion.

Moretti's Approach to Literature

Franco Moretti’s “Graphs, Maps, Trees” determines to find cycles in literary history regarding novel genres throughout different time periods in different countries. He does so by building on work from other researchers and analyzing graphs that show the fluctuations of novels in different times. This kind of approach to literature has its benefits because the quantitative work is cooperative. It is ideally independent from any individual researcher because it is a collective system. This quantitative approach is useful because thousands of novels have been published, making it nearly impossible to do close readings on it due to time constraints. We cannot simply connect separate bits of knowledge about distinct cases because they must be understood as being collective. It must be seen as a whole, and graphs are an effective way to study this.

This quantitative research provides data that is ideally independent of interpretations. This is beneficial because it offers an objective viewpoint regarding novels. However, this method is also a drawback. It provides data, but not interpretations. Although we can deduce the number of novels produced and when they were produced, we cannot determine why they were produced during that time from these graphs. We can find the values from graphs, but they give no insight to the reasons behind the values. Also, this approach to literature is based solely from an objective viewpoint, giving no subjective perspective towards the literature.

Other interdisciplinary projects that combine literature with social sciences would be observing the historical events occurring simultaneously with the time periods of the novels’ fluctuations. One could examine the relationship between a country’s political issues and the number of novels produced in that country. Or one could study the social movements within a country and how it affects the production and fluctuation patterns of books and its genres. This can be done by grouping novels into different genres and examining the contents within the books.

A method of approaching SSTLS would be to observe the prevalence of social issues during its time of publication. This novel satirizes the issues of today’s culture. By taking into account the topics covered in the book, such as the political, social, and technological issues, we can better understand the meanings behind the novel and the different references it makes throughout the book. We can then compare the novel’s genre to other genres of the same time period and see if it reveals a bigger picture that pertains to the social movement of our time.

SSTLS Character Development

In my opinion, Eunice does not show any development at all. She continually uses men as resources and only stays with them when she needs something. Ben (the man she was with in Rome) bought her things and provided for her, but she left due to her insecurities. She then got with Lenny because he offered her a place to stay and gave her his love. Afterwards she dumps him for Joshie because he is a powerful man with money and resources. In the end, she once again continues her circular pattern by leaving Joshie and staying with a man in London.

Not only does Eunice give up on her relationships, but she also continues to give up on her education. Throughout the story, her mother repeatedly urges her to get better scores on her LSATs, but she never goes around to taking them again. In the end of the book, after having spent only one semester in college at London, she again gives up on her education and drops out.

In the beginning of the book, Eunice is seen in Rome, far away from her family. She goes back home to take care of her family, but this is only temporary because she is a person who easily gives up. Although she “promises” to be there for her family, she of course leaves them and instead lives in London with a Scotsman. For someone who supposedly loves and cares about her family, she is rarely ever with them. She wasn’t there for them while in Rome. Even when she came back home to America, she spent the majority of her time with Lenny in New York. And now she is once again gone, this time in London. These reasons show that she does not change as a person.

In my opinion, I thought that the only character in SSTLS who really developed was Lenny. His attitudes towards life changed. In the end of the novel, he realized that he would one day die. By facing his mortality and accepting his death, he was no longer living in an illusion. Also, when he found out about Eunice and Joshie’s relationship, he didn’t resort to his usual begging and pleading. In this scene, he shows a great deal of strength and growth.

Throughout the book we do not see much interaction between Lenny and his parents, but he really does love and care for them. It is near the end of the book when we see Lenny’s love and vulnerable side towards his parents. He feels a pang of guilt and hurt when he realizes that his parents are starving, so he buys them food to show his love. His parents show their appreciation for him, but Lenny is careful not to get too close to them because “where my parents come from, openness can also mean weakness, an invitation to pounce” (292).

“Before I was even born, I had dragged my parents away from Moscow, a city where engineer Papa didn’t have to overturn wastebaskets for a living…and one day God would punish me for what I had done to them” (324). This passage gives us a glimpse of Lenny’s guilt for tearing his parents from their homeland. He loved them “so much it could have been qualified as child abuse” (324), so he strays from them in order to prevent himself from getting hurt. He also blames himself for their misfortunes in America and theorizes that God will punish him by one day killing his parents. Although this deep fear of their death pushes him away from his parents, he still loves them in his own way.

The Issues in M Butterfly

M Butterfly left me feeling a little surprised, somewhat disturbed, and fairly unsure of how to process the movie. Even though I was uncomfortable with some of the materials presented, the movie did bring up some interesting topics. The issue of gender was mysterious and unsuspected due to the different gender roles in the movie. The plot is somewhat similar to the opera, Madame Butterfly, in which an American man leaves his Japanese wife to marry an American woman. However, the gender and ethnic roles are switched in the movie. The main character, Rene, ends up resembling Madame Butterfly, and the woman, Song (who ends up being a man in disguise), resembles the American man who betrayed his wife. This is so because Song lied and deceived Rene concerning his real gender and identity. In the end, Rene takes his own life, just as Madame Butterfly had done when she discovered her husband’s betrayal.

Song brought up the idea that men played women in plays because only a man knows what men want. He used this to deceive Rene for political reasons because he needed information about Rene to help the Chinese government. This deceit used to gain political power removes the humanity from Song’s character because he uses trickery to get what he wants. Song had an advantage because being a man himself, he knew how men think and act. He also used ethnicity to help deceive Rene. He knew that Rene did not know much about Chinese culture or history, so he was able to make up excuses that would protect his true identity. For example, Rene never saw Song naked because he claimed that Chinese women were extremely modest.

Song also brought up an interesting issue concerning the ethnicity roles in Madame Butterfly. Because it was a Japanese woman who killed herself over an American man, Westerners perceive the opera as being tragic and beautiful. However, if the roles were reversed and it was an American woman who committed suicide over an Asian man, Westerners would see her as being stupid and absurd. These different views reflect the varying perceptions between ethnicities. This opera signifies the history and importance of the arts because it reveals how different ethnicities perceive art based on past history and culture. Art, such as operas and plays, can relate to the real world and offer answers in times of uncertainty and difficulty.