![]() ![]() It will focus on how these two works took Orwellian vision of a totalitarian state, the different methods of control it employs to keep citizens under complete control and submission, and how they introduce them into their stories. Dick’s “Faith of Our Fathers” (1967) and Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta (1982-1985), in order to closely analyze the influence that Orwell’s dystopia played in their construction. This paper will take two examples of contemporary dystopian literature, Philip K. George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) is considered a landmark of the dystopian genre: it portrays a futuristic where a totalitarian, fascist party rules London aiming to keep its citizens under their complete control. With these ideas in mind, this article explores how V for Vendetta, both the graphic novel – written by Alan Moore and David Lloyd and serialized between 19, – and the movie – directed by James McTeigue and released in 2006 – which seem, at first sight, to have no connection to anything remotely Victorian, appropriate and transpose Victorian tropes to a future dystopian time in order to create two analogous expressions of Neo-Victorianism.ĭystopian literature is considered a branch of science fiction which writers use to portray a futuristic dark vision of the world, generally dominated by technology and a totalitarian ruling government that makes use of whatever means it finds necessary to exert a complete control over its citizens. Nevertheless, most agree to determine it in relation to adaptations and/or appropriations of Victorian motifs, themes or structures. Because Neo-Victorianism is a recent field of studies, scholars still battle with a solid definition. At the end of the twentieth century, the emergence of Neo-Victorian Studies, whose endeavour is to understand how these structures and ideals are appropriated and re-defined in art and literature today, bears witness to this cultural influence. Indeed, the Victorian aesthetic, along with its distinctive tropes and motifs, have remained influential in contemporary literature and art. Modern society is much indebted to the Victorian Age, an era of immeasurable progress and development, namely in the fields of science and technology. ![]() Therefore, what this BA thesis aims to do is to shed light on such toxic constructs by gradually delineating their mechanisms of control, primarily through sourcing their origins and illustrating how they were established and used in the titular novels, while also contextualising these fictional accounts by juxtaposing them to their historical counterparts. To achieve this monopoly over political power and radically influence, change, and constantly oversee every aspect of public life, such regimes use a plethora of devices moulded especially for the subdual of masses, namely all forms of political repression, mass surveillance of speech and thought, regulation of rations, control over the state's economy, personality cultism used to enliven the image of the aforementioned single leader as the harbinger of better tomorrow, and all the institutions used to mechanize and fully utilize physical terror. ![]() This speech is meant precisely to turn our attention to nothing other than the words – at the very outset, Alan Moore is asking us to listen and it is for that reason that the purpose of this article is to link his writing to our present social and political condition.Īs dystopian novels, both V for Vendetta and 1984 remain situated within the frame of a post-apocalyptic world in which people are usually exploited by a self-proclaimed supremacist political party governing and controlling the masses in the form of a totalitarian police state helmed and shaped by a single leader. ![]() His response to Evey’s simple question, “who are you” immediately demands our attention as V delivers a speech made up of 151 words, 38% of which begin with the letter ‘v’. Not since sound was first introduced with the startling words of Al Jolson in ‘The Jazz Singer’ who halfway through a silent movie proclaims to the audience, “you ain’t heard nothing yet”, have we ever had such a loquacious introduction as that of V. Our main characters are Evey, a working class girl who we first see running away from potential rapists and V who immediately comes to her rescue. The story depicts a near-future London where totalitarianism rules and the people are hunted and afraid. V for Vendetta is based on the 1982 graphic novel by Alan Moore. ![]()
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