Bonnie CrabbHumanities 340Rough Draft Literary CriticismCan you imagine walking where the streets are dark and cold without any glimmer of excitement and joy while security cameras watch your every move? Alan Moore certainly could. In fact, he felt like he lived in such a place. He saw 1980s England as a fascist society where the lower classes were oppressed. In Moore's graphic novel, V for Vendetta, he describes that historical moment through the story of future London under the Norsefire regime. History plays a very important role in Moore's story and his ideologies on class distinction are very important. For these reasons, a cultural poetics and a Marxist literary criticism analyze the story of V for Vendetta in a very interesting and informative way. Using these two literary criticisms I will analyze how Alan Moore's historical period and economic class were brought to shape his view of class distinctions in his graphic novel and in particular how Shadow Gallery, Evey and Rose show how prevalent it is class distinction. in society and how it hinders individuals and society as a whole. Cultural poetics involves history. This form of criticism allows history to reconstruct its history. He grew up in a part of Northampton also known as The Boroughs. Northampton is a poor, lower class area with a high rate of illiteracy. Moore first came into contact with the middle class and more educated people when he began attending Northampton Grammar School. He went from being the top of his class to being the lowest. Throughout V for Vendetta we see Moore's disapproval of hierarchy and class distinction. Alan Moore knew from his life the challenges associated with the working class and the poor. In this novel the main characters, V and Evey, overcome class distinctions through anarchy. V destroys the failed system and Evey works to build a better life for those in it