What is the significance of V never openly showing his face in V For Vendetta?

The most simple answer to this question surrounds the 'everyman' principle that we have discussed in class. Simply put, there is no one sinlge person that V represents, but at the same time, we could all put ourselves into his shoes. By itself, this literary technique allows an author to draw a reader in and have them develope a sense of agreement with the protagonist. My response to this is:

What is the significance of the connection between this 'everyman' idea and the showing of Fascism throughout the novel?

In a Fascist state, the ideal state of the populous is homogeneous. If V fit into this monotonous world, we wouldn't see him as the agreeable character that we do. In fact, he is just about as different as one could be from what is presented as the world in this story. He wants to do something about the world's plight, while it seems that everyone else is content to suffer. I think that the showing of how different V is from the world around him is what makes him stand out as a well drawn character.

What would have happened if we would have been able to see V's face?

I personally feel that the 'everyman' principal would definitely still be there. V is just too self and baseless in his acts to truly think that something as simple as having his face shown would destroy his character. In fact, based on the story line, V more than likely has burns on his face. If the reader was to be able to see these burns, V could have been more humanized and less idolized. This could have, depending upon presentation, actually increased the 'everyman' principal and therefore brought us closer to him as a character.

Kin-Dza-Dza

I finally got around to watching Kin-Dza-Dza again and I would definitely reccomend anyone who has minute to watch it. It's pretty freaking amazing as both a typical cyber-punk film and as a good philisophical tool. Throughout it, one can't help but see the analogues between our society and that of what one would consider the barbarous culture portrayed in the film. It is in Russian, but there are English subtitles out for it. Some key philisophical points that I was able to gather from it without any indepth analysis were social classes, socialism, capitalism, technology(ism)?, etc. A big thing I wonder about though, is if the time of the film's creation and that of it being in Russia had any impact on the philisophical viewpoints. I base this questioning off of the massive amounts of social change around the fall of the USSR and considering that the film came out in 1986, I gather that they probably coincide. If anyone else does happen to read this AND has watched the movie, I wouldn't mind hearing your opinions on it.

Spiegelman's Maus Through White's Eyes

A few things about White's view upon the narrative stand out to me. The most prominent of these is the final question he poses at the end of his essay. He asks, "Could we ever narrativize without moralizing?" Immediately prior to this point, he talks about objectivity in story telling and how he questions whether it is even possible to have someone tell a story without an underlying moral being there. I feel this arises out of the fact that we have opinions on everything. For instance, if you walk into a room with, as you think, no prejudices, you will instantly judge those around you. This may not be malicious, or even conscious, but it happens. Our previous life experiences are the building blocks of our judgments as well as the essence of who we are.

I gather from the reading of Maus that Spiegelman is aware of this and is attempting to do his best to be objective in his story telling. While there definitely is an underlying moral to the story, Spiegelman does a great job of humanizing both sides of the fight. First, he plays into the typical stereotype of an old Jewish man, with the money groveling and the general stubbornness. He also subvertly shows that the Nazi's are human by rarely showing any instances where a particular Nazi is committing any terrible acts. This is debatable of course, but it is my opinion and I feel that Spiegelman did a wonderful job of staying on the objective side of story telling.

One other point that doesn't really fit into this post is that of the scene on pg. 46-48 where the father's father starts out by starving his sons to keep them out of the military. Then there is the scene where the father does not want to kill anyone, despite the fact that there are people who are considered to be 'pigs' who are laying down there lives to protect the mice. Spiegelman portrays the Poles as 'pigs' for, what I gather to be, one reason. The Poles are not being directly persecuted by the Nazis and are giving up the Jews to them. The scene the Jewish father refuses to allow his sons to join the military is very disgraceful in my opinion. On one hand, you have Spiegelman showing that the Poles are pigs because they don't fight for the Jews, and on the other hand, you have the Jews not even fighting for themselves. I know this may have only been this one circumstance, but I feel it is extremely skewed to portray the Poles as pigs.