I was making study of Andrew Pixley’s
excellent book ‘the Prisoner – A Complete Guide’ when I observed in ‘The
Schizoid Man’ section. There are a number of dates, between 12th of
February when a doctor handed Number 6 a flashlight linked by a wire to a
control box, shocking Number 6 when he picked it up with his bare hand, and 10th
of March when Number 6 was placed in bed at Number 12’s cottage. The calendar
still set at Wednesday the 10th of February, suggesting the year is 1965, as stipulated
by Patrick McGoohan. But for what reason remains a mystery. Perhaps because of
something personal to him, or he simply wanted to suggest that the Prisoner had
been abducted in 1964. But this would then put ‘The Schizoid Man’ into conflict
with ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling,’ by which time ZM73 had been
incarcerated in The Village a year. By setting ‘the Prisoner’ back to 1964
would make it two years!
So, between the evening when the Prisoner’s
abduction from his cottage on the 10th of February until his being
placed in the bed of ‘12 Private’ on the 10th of March, Number 6 had
undergone a months conditioning, and a physical make-over in order to alter his
appearance. And that is fair enough as it goes, yet it does conflict with ‘Many
Happy Returns,’ during which Number 6 has spent twenty-five days at sea, and to
do that Number 6 must have put to sea aboard his sea-going raft on the 21st
of February in order for Number 6 to be washed ashore at Beachy Head on the 18th
of March. So some ten days before Number 6 set off on his sea voyage, having
woken up to find The Village deserted, he had already been taken from his
cottage under sedation, and was undergoing both physical and mental
conditioning treatment! And that is what ‘the Prisoner’ lacks, continuity
between the episodes, as well as suffering from too many scriptwriters not knowing
what the others have written!
Be seeing you
Is there continuity between the episodes of your life? Of course not. You're plunged in and out of situations with no regard or respect for time and circumstances. People say things like, "It's been a long week!" or "It doesn't seem like a year!", all part of an unpredictable life's rich pattern. 'The Prisoner' cleverly reflects this by making nonsense of any attempt to order #6's life, which we can manage no better than our own.
ReplyDeleteA fair observation to some degree. However, we''re dealing with the life of a fictitious character, not a real one, whose "biography" has been made up by somebody, in this case: a number of script writers. There's at least some story telling meaning it's got to have a start, a centre part and a finale, an ending. According to this premise we're supposed to think there's a "logical" and coherent succession of temporal events on an imaginary timeline. But as David details it isn't. Not everywhere, not always. - BCNU!
ReplyDeleteThe Prisoner is timeless. How many times have we heard that? Why try to constrain it to a year?
ReplyDeleteAnd anyway how do #6 and we KNOW that the dates are as we see them? The Village controls the chronology with its technology.
Every assumption we make about The Prisoner is probably wrong.