“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
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