Be seeing you
A life time fan and Prisonerologist of the 1960's series 'the Prisoner', a leading authority on the subject, a short story writer, and now Prisoner novelist.
Friday, 27 January 2017
The Therapy Zone
If the Prisoner is anything,
he Is nothing but.........adaptable! Number 6 eventually adapts to life in The
Village, well at least he stops attempting to escape that’s something, having
realised that there is no escape! Look at the way he prevented a purge of The
Village, stopped Number 2 from possessing citizen’s minds. And the way he
quickly adapts to the situation he finds himself in ‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My
Darling,’ it must be due to his training I expect! Had it been anyone else they
would have gone running off into the sunset, screaming their head off once
they’d seen themselves in that mirror, and panic had set in! And in ‘Living In
Harmony,’ the Prisoner suddenly finds himself handing in both his badge and gun
to a Marshall in the
American 1800's! In any given situation the Prisoner finds himself in, he
simply accepts it and just gets on with it. As he did when he woke up one
morning to find that he is someone else ‘The Schizoid Man.’ I'm not so sure
that the everyday common man or woman would take things quite as easy as the
Prisoner, or resolve any
situation as easily as Number 6 does. But then we’re not dealing with real life
here, but a set of fictitious circumstances, and as we know anything is
possible in fiction. One rule being, the hero must survive either intact or
otherwise, but he must survive.
I can see a slight parallel between the No. 6 character and some or perhaps many of those in Philip K. Dick's novels or stories. I remember having read somewhere that Dick's character remain intact while the world they're in literally (or metaphorically) falls apart, deteriorates, transform whatever. - BCNU!
ReplyDeleteHello Arno,
DeleteYou see the hero has to survive against all odds.......even Mad Max in a post apocolyptic world! Not to mention James Bond, so many villains talk about Bond dying, wanting him to die, but its all talk, why not just get on with it and do it....because Bond must survive!
Best regards
David
Be seeing you
Yes, good point. the "hero formular" applies to No. 6 too. But I mean not surviving physically in the first place. Rather remaining principally unchanged no matter what the outside circumstances are. Usually, we'd expect from people going through existential hardships to change (and No. 6 actually says "the job changes us"). To some degree this does not occur here, thus shedding a brighter light on what's happening. The hero teaches us, in a way... Hypothesis. can you follow? - BCNU!
ReplyDeleteHello Arno,
DeleteYes I can follow, not only does No.6 survive physically, but also mentally. He's much the same man at the end as he is at the beginning, and that's the problem. No.6 doesn't change, and he should, we all change because of life experiences, situations, and circumstances.
On the other hand, perhaps the reason that No.6 isn't a changed man at the end, is because there is no end, at the end of 'Fall Out' the Prisoner is only just beginning and has yet to suffer the hardshps of The Village! Just an idea...........
David
BCNU