Evey Hammond - Biography

Biography

Evey grew up on Shooters Hill in south-east London. As a child, she lost both her parents; her mother died following a nuclear war in the early 1980s, and her father was arrested and executed by Norsefire, the fascist dictatorship that seized power during the war's aftermath, because of his socialist political leanings. Sent to a youth hostel, she is forced to work packing matches into boxes for shipment, and then begins working at a munitions factory.

Struck by poverty, Evey tries to become a prostitute. The first potential customer she approaches turns out to be a Fingerman, a member of Norsefire's secret police, working on a vice squad sting operation. As the man is about to rape her, she is saved by a mysterious man in a Guy Fawkes mask and black cloak, calling himself "V." V lets Evey watch him blow up the Houses of Parliament.

V takes Evey to his underground hideout, which he refers to as the "Shadow Gallery." He blindfolds her so she cannot see where they were going. Evey comes to confide in V, telling him about the death of her parents. V comforts her and she becomes dependent on him for safety and security. When Evey offers to repay V's kindness, he dresses her up as a young girl and sends her to distract Anthony James Lilliman, a paedophile bishop and former Norsefire official whom he has targeted for revenge. Evey is stricken with guilt over her complicity in the bishop's murder, and she realizes that V is far more sinister than she suspected.

When Evey finds herself abandoned by V and alone in the streets, she is taken in by an older man, Gordon, who is involved in organized crime, and who becomes her lover. When Gordon is murdered by Alistair Harper, a Scottish gangster, Evey tries to take revenge, but is herself captured by a Fingerman because he thought that she was going to kill Commander Peter Creedy of the Finger. She is thrown in prison and tortured by the police, who know of her connection to V. Inside her cell, Evey is passed a letter from the adjoining cell, written by a woman named Valerie Page. The letter is the story of Valerie's life, from her first love to her film career to her imprisonment for being a lesbian. Valerie's tragic death and firm resolve inspire Evey not to give into the interrogations. When Evey says that she would rather die than surrender her integrity by informing on V, she is surprisingly set free from her cell.

Evey soon learns that V had staged her imprisonment and torture, putting her through the same experiences that shaped him. Initially furious, Evey comes to understand and accept her identity and freedom. The inspiring letter was not fake, as it had been given to V by Valerie when he was an inmate at the Larkhill Resettlement camp, a concentration camp run by Norsefire to eliminate those considered "inferior" (Jews, blacks, Muslims, homosexuals, etc.) under Chancellor Adam Susan's fascist world view.

After V exacts his revenge on all of his former torturers, he is mortally wounded when he allows Detective Eric Finch, the head of London's police force, to shoot him numerous times. V dies in Evey's arms, leaving her to carry out the final step in his plan to blow up 10 Downing Street. Declining to learn his true identity to maintain the symbolism of his cause, she dons his Guy Fawkes mask and rescues Sergeant Dominic Stone from an angry mob. She brings him to the Shadow Gallery, identifies herself as V to London, which causes chaos throughout the country, and the cycle begins anew.