Lewis Prothero Character Analysis

The “Voice of Fate,” Lewis Prothero performs a crucial service for the Norsefire government. Every night, he reads the information printed by the Fate Computer, so that his voice is broadcast over every television and radio in England. Thanks to clever propaganda, the people of England don’t realize that Prothero exists: they believe that Prothero’s voice—supposedly a “magnificent” voice—is the voice of the computer itself. Beneath the magnificence of his voice, Prothero is a foolish and cruel man, who once worked as a guard at Larkhill Prison, the concentration camp where V was imprisoned, and seemed to have no qualms about murdering innocent people there. Prothero is known to have a vast, impressive collection of dolls—a fact that makes Roger Dascombe consider him highly “sensitive” (seemingly a euphemism for homosexual, though this is never explored). In the end, Prothero’s fondness for dolls signals the manner of his undoing: V burns his dolls, thereby driving him insane.