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Popular Culture Review
The reaction to V’s actions is due, in part, to the images presented to the
reader along with the text. V for Vendetta is a graphic novel so, like a play
watched or a movie seen, there is a visual element accompanying the verbal, but
unlike plays or movies the visual and verbal are both permanently present,
allowing the reader to peruse both at whatever pace preferred4. The combination
of the visual and the verbal presents a very different world for V for Vendetta
than can be clearly seen in Macbeth.
This is accomplished by showing the reader images of a dark, dismal
London where security cameras with signs “FOR YOUR PROTECTION” (1)
hang, new broadcasts including disturbing words like “Quarantine Zones” and
“meat rationing” (1) sprawl across the page and a young girl of 16 prostitutes
herself for money she can’t make at a munitions factory she shouldn’t be
working at in the first place. V is Guy Fawkes and Macbeth, but he is the Guy
Fawkes and Macbeth we wish Guy Fawkes and Macbeth were—the rebel, the
revolutionary, the freedom-fighter. V fo r Vendetta provides the reader with a
society that is obviously tyrannical and a hero that is obviously just.
Macbeth does not appear, at first glance, obviously just. Malcolm assumes
the throne at the end of the play with the understanding that Banquo’s progeny,
James, will eventually rule by divine right—it is accepted by the majority, both
then and now, that this was a good thing. Shakespeare broke from Holinshed, his
probable source, by removing Banquo from the conspiracy here—Banquo was
said to be an ancestor of James I and as such could not be outwardly seen as a
conspirator (Muir, xxxvi). However, while Macbeth kills Duncan, an arguably
bad king and even kills Lady Macduff and Macduff's children, innocents
damned to treason by their husband and father, Macbeth is killed by Macduff
allowing Malcolm to resume the throne. Malcolm will fail as king, like his
father before him did, allowing Banquo’s line to inherit the throne. This
inheritance leads to the ascendancy of King James VI & I, the Gunpowder Plot
and a country divided. It is not Macbeth’s regicide that is unjust, but Malcolm
and MacdufTs.
This reading of Macbeth is only supported if Macbeth fulfills the
requirements of double-effect. While Duncan as an unacceptable king and
Macbeth’s guilt meets the second and third requirement, the first requirement—
a subjective req