Symbolism In The Movie V For Vendetta

The reason behind why director James McTeigue created the movie V for Vendetta was to persuade the viewers to realize that it is everyone’s personal responsibility as to how much power we give our government. The movie shows its viewers an example of what could happen if we were to give the government way too much power. Whereas in the comic book, One of the main points of the film was how powerful our ideas are and how they will live on even after our death. Overall, I will be showing you examples of symbolism that is used throughout the whole film and comic and also how they differ.
The main character V, wears a Guy Fawkes Mask throughout the comic book and movie. In today’s society the mask is a symbol of anarchism, civil disobedience, and revolution. V, says that the mask stands for an idea, “Beneath this mask there is more than flesh, Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof” (McTeigue).

V and the government both play out in immoral acts in the comic book whereas in the movie, V is played off as someone fighting for freedom against a corrupt government. In the movie, V wears the same costume but in the book he changes his costume many times and also changes his mask at one point. He even showed his true identity in the book but never even took the mask off in the adaptation .Another example is how the Prime Minister’s house was V’s target when he was placed upon a train surrounded by explosives in the book, but in the movie V is placed on a train with many explosives also, but his target to detonate were the Houses of Parliament. Once V is dead in the book, Evey continues on as V by wearing his mask and costume, but in the movie when the Houses of Parliament are blown up everyone in the society are then left wondering what the future will go on to hold while they are all watching the explosion and wearing V’s mask and