The other day I read an interview with Patrick McGoohan, and in that interview McGoohan stated that 'the Prisoner' is about the survival of the individual within society. That no name is ever given to the Priosner, that he could be anyone, he is everyman. "It wasn't really anything about a secret agent, who'd been locked up because he had secrets they didn't want the enemy to have. It wasn't about that at all. Tough that was how it was interpreted by a lot of people because I'd just done SECRET AGENT and I happened to be the same fellow with the same face, but no name."
So that gave me a dark thought, that such an abduction could happen to anyone, anyone at all. You, me, the man living down the street. The dark thought of someone being lifted from their home, abducted to an alien environment. Stripped of his identity, given a number, to be only know by that number. A man wakes to find himself in the Village, he doesn't know why, or how he came to be there. He doesn't know who runs this Village, or what it is they want. He resists, he rejects the Village, refusing to accept, or respond to his number, and he attempts to escape. So it doesn't matter what the Prisoner's name is. It doesn't matter which side runs the Village, or where the Village is, or who even No.1 is. It's simply all about survival of the individual. And that's all well and good, and where my dark thought ended, well it never really got going, because once I'd thought of the Prisoner going running back to the Colonel and Fotheringay, the Prisoner become a completely different person. He's no longer just someone who has been abducted to the Village, he's someone of some importance. And that is reiterated in 'Many Happy returns' when once more the Prisoner goes running back to his ex-colleagues. And finally any belief I might have generated about the Prisoner being "everyman" was completely torpedoed when I recalled that the Prisoner resigned from a top secret, confidential job. But then that shouldn't matter, he's an individual like anyone else. He's simply better equipped to survive as an individual in the Village than you or I might be. It's just that for you and I, the Village would be more of a nightmare world, than it is for the Prisoner known as No.6.
Be seeing you
Hello David,
ReplyDeleteit's an interesting thought.. Of course, Number 6 the former Secret Agent is a special person and he is brought to the village for special reasons. But in a way I think that this is only one truth of several truths that change with the point of view.
I think that the abduction is simply a good explanation why Number 6 would have been brought to the village. When he arrives there and starts to get involved, the former secret agents identity is ripped of and he becomes everyman who struggles to remain an individual, like we do when we get aware about our prisons. In a way I think that Number 6 as Everyman wasn't abducted to the village, he has always lived there, like we ourselves live in our everyday village.
Very best wishes
Jana
BCNU
Hello Jana,
DeleteAn interesting point of view. "Everyman wasn't abducted to the Village, he has always lived there, like we ourselves live our everyday lives." Meaning it's all in the mind, or that the Village is representative of the world we all live in. The whole world as the Village, the world that has long since become the global Village!
Very kind regards
David
BCNU
"Call me Nobody." That's what Ulysses replied when asked for his name by the ogre Polyphemus. Because nobody may as well be every man in disguise. That's the calibre we're talking about. Too far-fetched? Look at most Homerian Prisoner story of all, "Many Happy Returns". - BCNU!
ReplyDeleteHello Arno,
DeleteAn interesting comment, and they do say that there is far more to 'the Prisoner' than first meets the eye, and so it would seem 'the Prisoner' is in the beholder. But I think this is the first time I've heard Ulysses brought into the equation.
Very best regards
David
BCNU
Not really. Remember what Michael wrote about A. Skene's "trilogy" of episodes! - BCNU!
ReplyDeleteHello Arno,
DeleteAh yes, I admit I had forgotten. Thank you for reminding me.
Very kind regards
David