It's Six Of One And Twelve Of Another

    I know why Alison-No.24 was busy taking photographs, for the village festival, which at that time was still a month away. Of course the viewer saw nothing of the village festival, because we were concentrating on the re-conditioning of No.6 at the time, during which time he grew both moustache and beard, and his hair had been dyed black.

   But why did Alison-No.24 need to take so many Polaroid photographs of No.6? Indeed it was fortunate for No.6 that he allowed Alison to take that final photograph, the one which No.6 kept. Because it has his hand covering his face, and shows the bruised finger, which he got when Alison knocked over the soda siphon, catching No.6's finger. It is this photographic evidence, when checked against the actual bruise rising up his fingernail, and against the date on the calendar Wednesday February 10th, which proved it couldn't possibly be the same day, but that at least a month had passed by!

   And the black hair and moustache grown by No.6 is simply something which helps carry us along with the plot. The tests of shooting and fencing are to help compound his identity of being No.12, which commenced with the Sikh and the girl pushing the old chap in the wheelchair. And that's another thing, why do certain citizens wear those tinted visors? That is most perplexing, and which I have never been able to figure out. Blimey, there's an admission for you! Perhaps you reading this might have some idea on the matter.

   Anyway, the new identity of No.6 is further strengthened by No.2, who demonstrates No,6's left handedness by tossing a black file at him. "You want to watch that Number Twelve, Number Six is right handed!" And this is further compounded with the challenge of both shooting and fencing in the village gymnasium, together with the boxing outside. "Now make up your mind, are you orthodox or southpaw?" No.6-Curtis asks.

   Of course a sub-plot of The Schizoid Man is the question of 'conditioning.' It is difficult to say how long it took the doctors to condition No.6 from being right handed to his new left-handedness. To make his favourite dish 'flapjacks' so that No.6 would reject anything else put in front of him. But it could have taken anything up to a month between his evening with Alison-No.24 as he helped her with her mind-reading act, to the day after the village festival, which passed the viewer unnoticed. Another marker might be the time it took No.6 to grow his beard and moustache to the proportion it had reached..... say a month, six weeks at most. and all this time, No.12-Curtis was parading around the village in a cream blazer! This would then make villagers see that he was the genuine article, and that the guy in the black piped blazer was the economy pack, should the need arise.

   But this lengthy conditioning of No.6, it was easily undone when No.6 earthed himself to a gas pipe in his cottage,  {this is the only time we see gas laid on in the village} receiving a jolt of electricity from a short circuiting table lamp. Would such conditioning be so easily undone in reality?

   And there are other types of conditioning employed by the medical doctors at the hospital, hypnotising, as in No.8 during the episode of Checkmate, along with the Rook-No.53's conditioning, only will he get water when he learns to obey. This in the same way as the experiments of Pavlov and his dogs, or was it rats?...... No dogs!

BCNU.