Yet, what defines this 'love' that compels Evey into action?
As I hope has become apparent thus far, we are not meant to equate it with either sexual desire or the notion of happiness, as doing so would contradict the very impetus behind Evey's imprisonment, which is to strip her of the desires that enable her to conceal from herself and so accept the state of fascist law which has cost her and others so much. The definition must come from elsewhere.
The theme of love first appears in the episode of 'Valerie', woven into the sequence of Evey's imprisonment. Evey, reaching her breaking point under the pressure of her torturers, finds a letter scrawled on a piece of toilet paper that relates the story of Valerie, a former inmate of the same cell. She writes how she had lived happily with her female partner (she is a lesbian) until one day they were both taken away and imprisoned, tortured and eventually, we must presume, killed.
Evey obviously draws inspiration from Valerie's story as it convinces her not to sacrifice V's location to her interrogators, even though she knows for certain that it means she will be executed. What is the purpose of this episode? What is it about Valerie and her story that moves Evey to accept even her own death?
The answer seems to be 'love' and that 'last inch' that Valerie says she will not give away. The end of her story is worth quoting at some length:
'I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish... except one. An inch. It's small and it's fragile and it's the only thing in the world that's worth having. We must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us. I don't know who you are, or whether you're a man or a woman. I may never see you. I will never hug you or cry with you of get drunk with you. But I love you. I hope that you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better and that one day people have roses again. I wish I could kiss you. Valerie.' (159.6-160.5)
To give this argument a Zizekean twist, why is Valerie's story written on toilet paper if not to convey the notion that her life, under the gaze of the law, has no value, is abject filth, has become shit? What Valerie's love seems to entail is nothing connected to the existing qualities of whoever she is addressing, who, as she points out, she will never, hug, cry with or get drunk with. She even asserts how it doesn't really matter if the reader is male or female. The only point of connection is that she knows if someone is reading her story, they are facing the same circumstances she is facing as she writes it. Valerie's invocation of love is tied to the recognition of a common vulnerability, one inherent in the fundamentally political relations between the self and the other as exposed bodies. One alternative to fear of the law is love of the other in their common vulnerability to that law, a sublime love that cannot be destroyed.
What is this 'last inch' that Valerie refuses to give away? Her speech suggests it is something that cannot be reduced to her physical or material conditions. The image of her hand moving over that of her partner in which she claims that this inch is the 'only thing worth having' (160.1) suggests that the capacity to love the other in all of his or her filth and finitude which constitutes the one thing on which one must not give way under any circumstances.
In the end, Evey chooses her fidelity to this ideal over her own life. She no longer has fear of death or fear of what the law can do to her. She instead values that thing in her more than herself which connects her to everyone else. Even if everyone is shit, so too are they potentially sublime and indestructible.
As we are not quite there yet, next time I will try to finish my thought regarding what a revolutionary love entails, particularly regarding how this love paradoxically convinces Evey of the necessity for violence.
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