V for Vendetta rhetorical analysis

The people of London are going about their daily lives – watching government-approved programs, abiding by a strict curfew, and silently submitting to an existence where a personal opinion can cost one’s life. Among the thousands of brainwashed citizens, there is one who believes in the power of words and the truth that lies therein. On the fifth of November, he decided to embed this knowledge into the minds of the mindless and strike fear into the government officials. In the middle of the peoples’ regularly scheduled program, V interrupts the twisted normalcy and repetition of London with a harsh blow of reality. His is a proclamation of the injustice via emergency channel, and an invitation to mark November fifth, a day regrettably forgotten. He seeks to commemorate this day by having a “little chat.”

Throughout the speech, V very candidly and openly exposes the disturbing restrictions on the lives of Londoners. “There are, of course, those who do not want us to speak,” he states. He stresses the power that words contain, and why the government stifles words with threatening consequences. Words hold truth. V states very bluntly that “the truth is there is something terribly wrong with this country”, very clearly setting the tone for the rest of his speech. Instead of words and discourse, there was government and guns. In all actuality, words could not exist under a tyrannical government such as this.

V goes on to the root of the problem. The people had freedoms before they submitted to a tyrannical government, freedoms to object, think and speak. Now they are surveyed and steered in a direction in which they have no control. V tries to make the people see though, that the blame does lie partially with them. He tries to make them feel remorse for what they had allowed to happen.

He does understand why the citizens of London allowed themselves to be confined to a cage, so to speak. They were many problems plaguing the city and they allowed fear to overcome reason. Adam Sutler became their high chancellor. Ironically, while promising them peace and order, his methods were guns and men in uniform barking orders. He points out the injustices and brings factual evidence of how the country had fallen. The people had allowed it in their desperate attempt to seek security. What they got was oppression.

The Old Bailey, in a way, was a monument of oppression. A courthouse that was conveniently located to hold trials involving the accused from all over the metropolis area. It was named after the old bailey that used to surround London, a wall. “Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey,” V states in his proclamation to all of London, “to remind this country of what it has forgotten.” By destroying the Old Bailey, a symbol of the constricting and suffocating walls on the lives of London, V hoped to crumble other walls along with it. The walls of communism, conformity, oppression and injustice. He reminds his audience in his speech of a great citizen who had attempted to forever embed the memory of November fifth into the peoples’ minds. “His hope,” he explains, “was to remind the world that fairness, justice and freedom are more than words – they are perspectives.” V seeks as that man sought to once and for all break the chains the government has bound their country with. In an attempt to rile up a sense of unity and patriotism, he implores his audience to stand with him outside Parliament on the fifth of November that “shall never, ever, be forgot.”