Comparing Themes of Identity, Essay Example

Comparing Themes Of Identity In Popular Media’s

In this essay I will argue that the novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the film Watchmen, the film V For Vendetta, the novel Wicked by Gregory          Maguire, the film The Matrix and  the popular television show Revenge although radically different in their subject matter all contain a running theme of the characters perception of their own identity being forged through hardship and can be connected to each other by this theme.

In V for Vendetta the Germans have succeeded in winning World War II and are ruling the UK in 2020 with and iron fist. Anyone who protests or is considered undesirable by the Government is thrown into concentration camps and exterminated.  The groups labelled as undesirable are homosexuals, protestors, political opponents and immigrants. These people are hunted down by the “ Fingermen “ who are the governments secret police.

Out of this horrific environment rises a masked freedom fighter known only as V. V has taken it upon himself to rally the people against the government and has been driven to using acts of terrorism to make his point. He is planning a Guy Falkes style attack on The Houses Of Parliament after destroying the Old Bailey Courthouse. V wears a mask of Guy Fawlkes constantly throughout the film to protect his identity. It is also suggested that he wears the mask partly to conceal physical scars.

I believe that V as a character fits into the theme of Identity being forged through hardship. This is because in order to stop the fascist government which is oppressing his people V has completely given up the identity of the man who is behind the mask and developed a completely new identity as V. Nothing of V’s past is revealed in the course of the film and we never learn his true name. Even after falling in love with the character Evey Hammond V is so embedded in his persona he does not reveal himself to her. In creating this new identity V has become a physical representation of his cause which is made evident  at the end of the film when V is killed and Evey is asked who he was to which she replies “ He was all of us “ ( V per Vendetta. Dir. James McTeigue. 2006  ).

Whilst the context of Revenge is different to V For Vendetta in setting, plot and time period the main character Amanda Clarke is similarly pushed into taking on a completely new identity in order to take extreme action against the terrible events around her. Though unlike V her true identity is known to the audience from the start.

Unlike V For Vendetta which is set in an alternate UK during 2020, Revenge is set in modern day America and follows the story of a young woman named Amanda Clarke. Amanda’s father was framed for treason by the powerful Grayson family and later imprisoned and murdered. Amanda was then taken into care and passed into at least one abusive foster home. In one defining scene we see her and her adoptive brother hiding under a set of basement stairs from their angry foster mother. Amanda is later driven to burn the house to the ground.

She goes of the rails and is imprisoned for her behaviour during which time she meets and befriends another young girl of similar appearance. A friendship which will change her life forever because upon finding out the truth about what happened to her father she hatches a plan with her friend and takes on a new identity as Emily Thorne whilst her friend impersonates her becoming Amanda. Amanda as Emily then tracks the Grayson’s down becoming their neighbour and seduces their son Daniel to incorporate herself into the family. Once inside she begins to exact revenge on each of the people involved in her fathers death one by one.

I believe that Amanda’s identity is forged by hardship because the events of her tragic past shape the woman she eventually becomes. Everything Amanda does is driven by the need  for revenge for her father  and like V she is not worried about resorting to crime to achieve her own ends. Amanda and her friend are so embedded in their new identities that they talk to each other using the assumed names even if no’ one else is in the room and when her friend is killed in an explosion at the end of the series Emily refers to her as Amanda while she dies in her arms.

Amanda is also similar to V in that she has risen from obscurity to become a fighter for her cause but unlike V who is fighting for the countries freedom, Amanda is fighting to clear her fathers name. Amanda unlike V wants to hold on to the person behind the persona and questions her own identity in several episodes and becomes frightened that her obsession with her cause and new identity are causing her to lose sight of who she really is.

The novel the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is similar to both Revenge and V for Vendetta. In The Hunger Games 16 year old Kantniss Everdeen is living in a post apocalyptic world similar to the one shown in V For Vendetta, but instead of the UK Katniss lives in an apocalyptic version of South America in the nation of Paneam. The Capitol which is a  huge highly advanced Metropolis controls the rest of the nation. The Hunger Games is a televised yearly event in which one young person aged 12-18 from each district are chosen and forced to fight to the death. Katniss is from district 12. Katniss volunteers for the 74^th year of The Hunger Games replacing her younger sister Primrose.

Her male counterpart Peeta Mellark attended her school and has been kind to her in the past offering her a piece of bread from his families store when her family was starving. The group record televised tributes in order to gain sponsors who will send them food and medicine to aid their survival. Katniss plans to rely on her strong archery and hunting skills gained through hunting to provide food for her family, in order to survive. During the tributes Peeta announces that he is in love with Katniss. Katniss however thinks that this is just a ploy to gain votes. However he later saves her life causing her to question this decision and his heroism makes them star crossed lovers in the eyes of the audience and cause a change of rules stating that two young people from one region can win as a couple. This causes Katniss to become callous in her desperation and she uses Peeta to form an alliance and gain sympathy from viewers by pretending to love him. At the end the rules change again and dictate that one must kill the other and Katniss decides to force the Capitol to allow them both to win by orchestrating a Romeo and Juliet style attempted suicide which would result in no winner.

One identity defining moment for Katniss comes when she befriends a young girl named Rue also fighting in The Hunger Games who reminds her of her sister. Rue is killed and Katniss sings to her until she dies and covers her corpse in flowers therefore defying the government outright by showing respect for her opponent. This along with the attempted suicide at the end of the book take her from being a simple champion of the games to a political target and a dangerous rebel feared by the Capitol. This echoes both of the previous sources as Katniss has gone from an ordinary person to a political rebel much like V and also embarked on a dangerous friendship which defines some of the choices she makes, much like Revenge‘s Amanda.

Rue’s death gives Katniss a choice between celebrating the death of an opponent which would bring her one step closer to safety or honouring the friendship they have shared. She chooses the latter even though she knows that she may be endangering herself by losing favour with the Capitol.

Kantnisse’s perception of her own identity changes several times during the novel. At first she is proud of her impoverished community and  her ability to hunt and kill. However she becomes tempted by the luxuries which the Capitol has to offer and begins to consider that maybe she belongs there instead. She also becomes disgusted by the violence of the games and begins to question whether hunting and killing really are the right thing to do.

Unlike V and Amanda the change in Katnissses identity is overall a positive one as she learns to recognise through the violence of the games that hunting and killing is not always right. However her decision to seduce Peetra for votes, which echoes the relationship between Amanda and Daniel in Revenge, shows a ruthless streak inside her. Katniss and The Hunger Games fit with the theme I have chosen to explore because Katnisses sense of identity is moulded and changed by the horrors of the games.

The novel Wicked by Gregory Maquire also fits this theme through the character of Elphaba who can be compared in many ways to all of the characters mentioned above in the way her sense of identity is formed. Wicked is an alternitive version of the Wizard Of Oz published in 1995 and is based on the life of Elphaba who later becomes the iconic Wicked Witch Of The West.

Elphaba suffers being ousted from society for her green skin and is bullied as a child because of her defect. Her father a religious minister believes that her affliction is his punishment for a homosexual relationship and whilst he showers her sister Nessarose with gifts he ignores Elphaba almost completely exempt when attempting to use her condition to cause religious conversion in others. In her teens Elphaba is sent to the prestigious Shiz University where she meets Lady Glinda a rich girl from one of the wealthiest families in OZ and whilst they hate each other at first a beautiful and lifelong friendship is achieved.

It is also whilst at University that Elphaba meets Fiero a young Prince from the West whom she forms a strong friendship with. In adulthood this friendship turns to love but by this point Fiero has married and had 3 children. Their affair ends in tragedy and Elphaba travels West to explain to his family during which time she bears his son Liir. Elphaba’s identity is defined by a combination of her relationships with her friends and Fiero and also her fight to prevent the abuse of the talking animals who are being viciously oppressed by the Wizard. She rises above her circumstances to become a warrior for those being abused by the Wizard and makes it her life mission to become his eventual assassin but this identity choice leads to the loss of several of her friends, her lover and her sister.

Each loss and failure including the eventual murder of Fiero’s wife, sisters and children by the Government cause her to become more desperate and like V she resorts to becoming a terrorist working in secret to gain freedom for the oppressed animals. She begins by the end of the novel to question whether her choices are right or if she is really as she is branded  a wicked witch. However she sticks to her guns and uses the name and the notoriety it brings to advance her cause and upon her death at the hands of Dorothy Gale like V she becomes a physical representation of the dream she tried to achieve. In my view Elphaba fit’s the theme I have chosen because her identity is formed by her need to fight for a sector of society with whom she identifies after suffering similar discrimination herself. Like Katteriss from The Hunger Games, Amanda from Revenge and V from V For Vendetta, Elphaba has risen from poverty and abuse to become a warrior for her cause.

My next scource the film Watchmen. is set in an alternate version of New York City in which all masked vigilantes, who were once revered for their crime fighting powers, have been outlawed and many have been killed. The city is being pulled apart by the cold war between America and Russia. Out of this politically taught environment the Watchmen the last group of vigilantes each with their own powers come out of retirement and begin to work again.

I believe that Watchmen fits my theme because it explores the concept that we create our own identity and like V, Amanda and Elphaba the characters of Watchmen have risen from being previously normal people to take on another persona in order to fight against acts which they believe are wrong becoming warriors for their cause. Katerniss also does this in a way when she changes aspects of her personality to make herself more attractive to the sponsors of The Hunger Games.

The final source I will  cover here is the film The Matrix. The Matrix which was released in 1999 is similar to both V For Vendetta and The Hunger Games in the fact that it is set in an apocalyptic future. However The Matrix is set in a world where the reality perceived by the population is a simulation created by machines who want to harvest their warmth and energy.

Like V a single human known as  Neo  rises against the machines which control his world. Although V’s world is controlled by people rather than computers the concept is in my view the same. A single hero rising from the ashes of a broken world to overthrow the ones oppressing his people.

This is also similar to The Hunger Games in that the character  Neo  is fighting against the control of a higher power in order to gain freedom.  Neo  is also similar to Amanda from the TV series Revenge which is mentioned above. This is because even though he is known as  Neo  he has a true identity as Thomas Anderson when he is not hacking the computer systems.

A comparison can also be drawn between the character of Elphaba in the novel Wicked by Gregory Maguire. In The Matrix Neo and his group of rebels disconnect other oppressed humans from the machine and recruit them to fight the machines. Similarly in Wicked Elphaba draws attention to the plight of the oppressed animals spreading the truth of the Wizards wrongdoing and when he refuses to change his treatment of them she begins like V and Neo to turn to war.

The final similarity I will draw is between the film  The Matrix and the film Watchmen. Like Watchmen the character Neo is reacting to sanctions placed against him by a higher power. In Watchmen the government has outlawed those vigilantes who are protecting society. Similarly in The Matrix humans are being oppressed and used for warmth and energy to suit the needs of the controllers. Although the situation is different the concept is the same in that one group is suppressing another to suit their needs in a war torn world.

Based on these comparisons I believe that the character of Neo fits my chosen theme of Identity being forged through hardship. Neo is a normal human person who discovers via his hacking talents that his people are being abused and oppressed by a higher power. In reaction to this Neo chooses to take on the identity of Neo and enter the dangerous world of The Matrix therefore surrendering his true life as Thomas Anderson.

In conclusion I feel that I have been successful in proving the ongoing theme of identity being forged in hardship which runs throughout these 6 sources and also proving that these sources’ can be connected to each other using this theme.

Works Cited

Collins, Suzanne, and Phil Falco. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic, 2008. Print

Maguire, Gregory. Wicked: The Life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West: A Novel. New York: Regan, 1995. Print.

Revenge. By Mike Kelly. 2011. Tv Show.

The Matrix. Dir. Watchoski Brothers. 1999. Film

Watchmen. Dir. Zach Snyder. 2009. Film.

V per Vendetta. Dir. James McTeigue. Warner Home Video, 2006. Film