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Book 2, Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in V for Vendetta, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Freedom and Anarchy
Bigotry
The Power of Symbols
Vendettas, Revenge, and the Personal
Fatherhood, Mentorship, and the State
Summary
Analysis
Evey sits in her prison cell. The only other life she can see is a rat, and even the rat eventually leaves. Occasionally, a guard shoves a tray of disgusting food under the cell door. Evey is hungry, but she still can’t force herself to eat the food.
We begin with Evey in a state of total imprisonment: she’s in a cell, and can only think of the misery of her situation. Even a rat has more freedom than she does.
Themes
One night, a guard wakes Evey from her sleep and drags her to an interrogation room. There, a strange, silhouetted figure asks her questions from behind a desk while the guard watches. The figure shows Evey surveillance footage of Evey being attacked by the fingermen last November. Evey realizes that the figure knows about her relationship with V. Afterwards, the guard blindfolds Evey and takes her back to her cell.
In this important expository section, we learn why Evey has been apprehended, and what the jailors want her to do: give up information about V. For the time being, Evey refuses to do so, presumably out of loyalty to V (who, after all, saved Evey’s life).
Themes
In the following days, the guard takes Evey to another room, where her hair is shaved off. After the guard takes Evey—now bald—back to her cell, Evey notices a small scrap of toilet paper sticking out of a corner of her room. Evey takes the toilet paper, and is startled to find that it contains a message, written by someone named Valerie.
This section recalls the imagery of the Holocaust: Evey is shaved, humiliated, and deprived of any identity whatsoever. The dehumanizing measures that Norsefire directed at gays, blacks, and Pakistanis are now being directed at Evey herself. She’s gone from an observer of victims to a victim herself.
Themes
