Even if you don’t know his name, you almost certainly know his face.
Somewhere along the line—on the news, on the Internet, at the Occupy Wall Street camp —you’ve seen that broad smirk, stretching mischievously from cheek to rosy cheek. You’ve seen those dark eye slits, squinted contentedly in mute self-satisfaction. You’ve seen that razor-thin mustache. That dark, glistening hair. That towering captain hat.
Even if you don’t know his name, you almost certainly know his face.
Somewhere along the line—on the news, on the Internet, at the Occupy Wall Street camp —you’ve seen that broad smirk, stretching mischievously from cheek to rosy cheek. You’ve seen those dark eye slits, squinted contentedly in mute self-satisfaction. You’ve seen that razor-thin mustache. That dark, glistening hair. That towering captain hat.
His name was Guy Fawkes. And it is his grinning likeness we see masking our modern day protesters, Internet revolutionaries and Alan Moore fan boys.
The image of Guy Fawkes has been associated with revolution and anarchy since at least the early eighties, when the titular character in Alan Moore’s graphic novel V for Vendetta donned a Guy Fawkes mask in support of his anti-establishment activities. Fawkes’ character had appeared in literature since as early as his own time, and he is frequently romanticized to the point of caricature.
Due to the “success” of the 2005 V for Vendetta film adaptation, Fawkes’ image has become a popular Internet meme. In 2008, the hacker group called Anonymous adopted the mask as its mascot.
And why not? The visage of Guy Fawkes is this generation’s Che Guevara poster. He represents revolution—the triumph of the popular will over the faceless establishment, the anonymity of the individual for the sake of shared sentiment. He is the stalwart champion of the people, the bane of authoritarian government. It’s all pretty sick.
Except for the fact that it’s all horrible, preposterous lies.
It is true that Guy Fawkes did exist, and he did in fact try to blow up the English House of Lords in 1605. It may be true, as the story goes, that he was the only man to ever enter Parliament with honest intentions (ho ho). And it is indisputable that the man did indeed possess stunning facial hair.
What isn’t true is the idea that Guy Fawkes was in any way associated with anarchy or the popular will.
Guido “Guy” Fawkes, born in 1570, was a devout English Catholic who had participated in the Eighty Years’ War on the side of the Spanish. Along with twelve other conspirators, Guy Fawkes was one of the architects of the Gunpowder Treason Plot.
Though Fawkes was not himself the leader of the plot—that post belonged to Robert Catesby—his role in it was significant.
The plot itself was unorthodox, if not downright cartoonish. Fawkes had been appointed to guard considerable stores of explosives in the undercroft beneath the House of Lords, after his cohorts managed to secure the lease. The plan was to detonate these volatile charges on Nov. 5, engulfing the only vestige of representative government in England at the time in a fireball of revolution.
The plan failed. The conspirators were found out after an anonymous letter was sent to the authorities detailing the plot. The conspirators were all sentenced to death by hanging, and their bodies were to be drawn and quartered.
This was the case for all the conspirators except the brave Guy Fawkes, who “heroically” jumped off a building before his sentence could be dealt. This, of course, was after he had revealed to the court the names of his co-conspirators and publicly recanted his misdeeds.
Not exactly Braveheart.
More importantly than the deed itself is the motivation Fawkes and the conspirators had for such an elaborate scheme. They were not anarchists or champions of democracy. Their target, after all, was one of the few things in English government at the time that could be said to be even remotely democratic. They were revolutionaries, yes; in the sense that they wanted to replace their Protestant autocracy with a Catholic one.
Vive la revolucion, I guess.
Ah, iconoclasm. Not only was Fawkes not a working class hero, he was little more than a second-banana in someone else’s political scheme not to destroy an authoritarian government, but to create one. Which, it should be noted, he failed pathetically to do.
So you can write this one up along with all the other sad realities in the pitiful hall of historical misconceptions, wherein George Washington never chops down a cherry tree, the Vikings don’t wear horned helmets and Columbus was a decent human being. The moral of the story is plain.
Never believe in anything that’s been sensationalized. Ever. Especially if it’s the mascot for an Internet phenomenon or the impetus for a graphic novel–turned-blockbuster.
Good points about the historical figure of Guy Fawkes. What’s more important to our generation is the fact that it means something entirely than it did for Guy Fawkes. You mentioned the graphic novel V for Vendetta — this is the new meaning. This is what it’s about today. So the fact that we’ve taken something from the past and given it new meaning is also another triumph.