Search This Blog

Friday 29 July 2016

The Inner self!

    Many enthusiasts for ‘the Prisoner’ have asked why Number 6 did not himself report Number 2 at the end of ‘Hammer Into Anvil?” If he had done would Number 1 have believed him, certainly Number 1 would have known the game was up long before the moment that Number 2 reported himself. Well you had realised that Number 1 had been watching Number 2, or at the very least been advised of Number2’s behaviour at the time of his interview with Number 6. The oversized red telephone began to bleep, Number 2 answered it.
   “Number 2….yes sir….yes sir everything is under control….no sir, no problems….assistance? No, no sir, I can manage….yes sir, of course, be seeing you.” It was at that point Number 6 realised Number 2’s weak spot, that he was afraid of his master…. The Number 1.
And anyway who was Number 6 to report anybody, he is after all just a prisoner, a prisoner like anyone, just like you and me in fact. And if he had, whose voice do you reckon Number 6 would have heard. His own? If as is supposed Number 1 is the alter ego of Number 6, then yes, Number 6 would have heard his own voice speaking back to him.
    In ‘Once Upon a Time’ Number 6 knew who he was;
    Number 2 {looking at the butler with the key to the cage} “Ah…. ha, ha, ha, he thinks you’re the boss now.”
   Number 6 “I am.”
   Number 2 “I’m number 2, I’m the boss, open the door.”
   Number 6 “Number 1 is the boss!
   In ‘Fall Out’ Number 6 finally got to meet with Number 1, as he strips away the black and white mask and the ape mask underneath. Number 6 is confronted by himself as he rushes round and round the control room screaming like some demented maniac. This is very much a Jekyll and Hyde scenario, of hypocrisy. The pretence of having standards or beliefs that are contrary to one’s real character or actual behaviour, mans double being, or good versus evil if you prefer. Number 6 and Number 1, Jekyll and Hyde the divided self, a double standard. Man is not truly one, but truly two. These two carry on an eternal struggle in the nature of man, yet they are chained together and that chain spells repression for the evil and remorse for the good.
If the good could be separated from the evil, how much freer the good in us would be, what heights it might scale? And the sum of all evil once liberated would fulfil itself and trouble us no more.
    Yet can good and evil exist without the other as two separate entities, would not their combined strength in fact be weakened because of that separation? The truth of the matter is good cannot live or exist without evil and vice versa, like Number 6 and Number 1 we each of us struggle at times with our other self. Sometimes the good comes out of us and we feel better for it, but there are times more than we would like to admit, when evil gets the better of us, times when you know you are doing wrong but cannot help yourself and sometimes you enjoy doing that evil thing. Mr Hyde has no inhibitions, he would tell the truth and shame the devil, unlike Doctor Jekyll who is controlled by his inhibitions and would be more diplomatic.
   The case of Number 6 and his other self the Number 1 is not as Captain James T. Kirk in the ‘Star Trek’ episode ‘The Enemy Within,’ where a malfunction of the Enterprise’s transporter divides Kirk’s good and evil side and become two separate entities. Kirk’s good self grows weak and deteriorates, while his evil self grows strong.
In the case of Number 6, it is more of a struggle between the conscious and unconscious mind, the prisoner being a divided personality. It is as though Number 6 no longer wishes to be Number 1, having first rejected The Village he has created, and the prison for himself, as well as the person he has become.
    Of course we are told at the very beginning of ‘Arrival’ who Number 1 is, but that does depend upon where you place the emphasis. Because ordinarily Number 2 could just be telling the Prisoner he’s Number 6!

“Where am I?”
“In the village”
“What do you want?”
“Information”
“Whose side are you on?”
“That would be telling we want information…..information…..information”
“You won’t get it.”
“By hook or by crook, we will”
“Who are you?”
“I am the new number two”
“Who is number 1?”
You are, number six”
“I am not a number, I am a free man!”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.”

Be seeing you

No comments:

Post a Comment