Numbering!

   We know that Number Six rejected his number the moment he was discharged from the hospital, on the day after his arrival in the Village. He removed the numbered badge pinned to the lapel of his blazer, tossing it into the back of the taxi. Then when he met with the new Number 2 he voiced his protest, "I'm not a number, I am a person." Yet when Number 6 encounters people like Nadia during ‘The Chimes of Big Ben,’ he freely admits that no names are used in The Village, only numbers, and yet freely admits to her that he is Number 6!
   So having stripped the Prisoner of his name {not that he ever seemed to have one} of his very identity, they then gave him a new identity, that of Number 6. And yet as time passed they went one step further. In 'The Schizoid Man' Number 6 was abducted from his home, taking away his identity, his possessions, giving him a new identity, with new possessions in a new home. Also a new appearance so that when Number 6 woke up one morning, he is no longer the man he thought he was. Number 6 pins a numbered badge onto the lapel of his blazer. But just as before, Number 6 takes it off and tosses it away. “I’ll not need that to remind me that I am your Number Six!” And from that moment on, Number 6, although previously rejecting his new identity of Number 6, he is now desperate to prove his identity. Maintaining that he is Number 6!
   Even when having escaped the confines of The Village in ‘Many Happy Returns,’ the identity of Number 6 persists. "You're a stubborn fellow Number Six" the Colonel tells him. Under these normal circumstances one would have expected the Colonel to use his ex-colleagues name, not that of his Village identity! As they say, what’s in a name? Eh Number 6!

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