{Is that really Number 6?}
On the morning of his arrival in The
Village the Prisoner is invited to join Number 2 in the Green Dome for
breakfast. But it’s a working breakfast, not that the Prisoner eats his
breakfast, and Number 2 has already had his. During the Prisoner’s debriefing
Number 2 shows him images of when he was a baby, the photographs in the
Prisoner’s personal file are projected onto the wall screen. Suddenly the
Prisoner snatches the file out of Number 2’s hands and begins to flick through
the file, but back to front, which plays no effect on the pictures projected on
the screen. The photographs are of moments in the Prisoner’s life, from the
cradle to………… the moment he discovers there is a camera behind the mirror, and
over there, yes over there too as someone is keeping him under the closest
possible surveillance. In fact those photographs give the impression that the
Prisoner has been under surveillance since the day he was born. Either that or
somehow Number 2 had been able to get his hands on the Prisoner’s family photo
album!
I know they wanted to know everything about the Prisoner, that Number 2 wanted to bring his file up to date. But really, was there any need to go all the way back to his childhood, even as far back as a baby? Mind you Number 2 did once say of the Prisoner “Even as a child there is something in your brain that is a puzzlement, I intend to discover it. “A” find missing link, when I’ve found it I will refine it and tune it, and you will play our game. “B” put it together. And if I fail, “C” BANG!” So it appears the Prisoner’s current trouble stems from his childhood {as any psychologist might tell him} and the answer is to be found in A B and C once more, even though the extraction of that answer might not be as easy!
I know they wanted to know everything about the Prisoner, that Number 2 wanted to bring his file up to date. But really, was there any need to go all the way back to his childhood, even as far back as a baby? Mind you Number 2 did once say of the Prisoner “Even as a child there is something in your brain that is a puzzlement, I intend to discover it. “A” find missing link, when I’ve found it I will refine it and tune it, and you will play our game. “B” put it together. And if I fail, “C” BANG!” So it appears the Prisoner’s current trouble stems from his childhood {as any psychologist might tell him} and the answer is to be found in A B and C once more, even though the extraction of that answer might not be as easy!
Be seeing you
Hello David,
ReplyDeleteBravo!
My thoughts exactly...did they really keep track of him from cradle to ...well, you know! Or as you said, did they go back to his birth for every bit of information that they could get?
Another thought that I had about this is that possibly this was done in order to find out if an agent, scientist, whatever...had something in their past that could be used to control them.
Blackmail could be a way to get someone to do something that they wouldn't ordinarily do.
As for The Prisoner looking at the book from Back to Front...the back of the book should have started with his birth and worked it's way up to the present time...so because he started in the back of the book it also follows that the pictures on the screen would go from baby pictures to the most recent...and that the most recent events...i.e. his resignation ..might not YET be IN the book!
Sadly...for the Village...that book was unfinished!
As for me, The Prisoner will be a source of both entertainment and intrigue for as long as I am capable of thinking!
BCNU
Karen
Hello Karen,
DeleteYours is a fair enough comment, but I’m not so sure they really had to go all the way back to the Prisoner as an infant! Mind you looking at that picture as Number 6 as a baby, it might have been the only time he was truly happy!
I would argue the point about the book being back to front, ie that the back of said book should have started with him being a baby then work through the book to the point when he was thinking of going on holiday. The general rule is a persons baby pictures go in an album first, and as photographs are inserted of a person’s life they are done so front to back, not back to front. Otherwise when one looks through a photograph album of a person’s life, they go through the progression of that person’s life. To do it back to front would be like regressing that person’s life, which is what the Prisoner did, but not what happened on the wall screen! None of which explains why?
Best regards
David
Be seeing you