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Chapters 8–12

Summary: Chapter 8: Vengeance

Rosemary Almond, who has turned to cabaret dancing to earn money, runs into Evey outside the Kitty-Kat Keller cabaret. Later, Evey hides in an alley with a gun she found at Gordon’s, hoping to exact vengeance on Gordon’s killers, but she loses consciousness after being abducted by what appears to be the state police.

Summary: Chapters 9: Vermin

Evey experiences a dream state where her memories mix with her subconscious mind. In Evey’s childhood home, she sees her father, who transforms into Gordon and then back again, as they become sexually intimate in a room that transforms into the Bishop’s chambers. In Evey’s dream state, V chases and attacks her. She later awakens and sees that she’s in a prison cell. 

Summary: Chapter 10: Vengeance

A rat comes in and out of Evey’s cell, and she realizes her dream state was induced by chloroform when she was captured in the street. Guards play film of her prostitution solicitation, accuse her of murder, shave her head, and torture her. Later, in the rat’s hole, she sees a scroll of toilet paper that turns out to be a letter from a former prisoner named Valerie.

Summary: Chapter 11: Valerie

Evey reads Valerie’s letter and learns about her background. Valerie came out as a lesbian when she was young and was consequently shunned by her family. After attending drama college, she became an actress, and while starring in the film Salt Flats, she met her partner, Ruth. Ruth often brought Valerie roses, and the couple was happy together. But in 1992, the postwar Norsefire regime rounded up gay people, including Ruth, who gave up Valerie’s name while being tortured. Valerie’s letter speaks of the horrors of prison and persecution, but people, she wrote, can preserve their freedom by maintaining their integrity. Recalling the letter’s message, Evey refuses to sign a statement saying she was brainwashed by V and participated in his killings. 

Summary: Chapter 12: The Verdict

Evey is told that if she doesn’t sign the paper, she’ll be shot and killed. When she chooses death, she’s told there’s nothing left to threaten her with and that she’s free. She leaves her cell and walks through prison hallways that eventually lead to the Shadow Gallery and V.

Analysis: Chapters 8–12

V's idea of rebuilding the world begins with the reeducation of Evey, as a representative of the work it will take for people to remake their world. The bulk of the second half of Book Two revolves around her imprisonment and torture, entirely orchestrated and carried out by V. By forcing Evey to undergo such horrors, V believes that it will allow her to transcend the fear that she has been living under for the better part of her life and use that new freedom to work toward the utopian, anarchist future that V has foreseen, symbolically releasing Evey from the "prison" of her life. This reeducation is later echoed in Finch's trip to the ruins of the Larkhill prison camp under the influence of LSD in an attempt to better understand V. Both experiences force characters to consider the world differently, as well as question what they have been taught. This insistence on reeducating and remaking oneself—or an entire nation—in the face of overwhelming orthodoxy is one of the main themes of V for Vendetta.

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