This is the Colonel but with
the mind of ZM73. He might not act the part but at least he looks it, dressed
in those clothes. However he doesn’t stay dressed like that for long. He
changes into flannel trousers, a double breasted blazer, shirt and tie, as he
was on the day of the Colonel’s arrival in The Village. Strange ZM73 should do
this, not that I’m suggesting that he always went about dressed in a charcoal
grey suit and black polo shirt.
But now he’s dressed more
like the Colonel, and less recognizable as
ZM73, or perhaps it was a question of Nigel Stock feeling happier as
himself rather than Patrick McGoohan!
Be seeing you
Probably, John Drake's clothes didn't fit the Colonel!
ReplyDelete"Perhaps he felt better as himself"
ReplyDeleteBrilliant! A more profound comment regarding this outstanding production you could not have made!
You can be what you are, a Man, or you can appear to be a 'Person'. But freeing yourself from the status of 'Person' is the hardest thing anyone can ever do. You have to understand what you're unwittingly involved in - the village. This is why No.6 is laughed to scorn every time he tries to assert he's 'not a number, but a free man'. And if I recall correctly, he even says "I am not a number I am a free PERSON" at the beginning of one episode? Brilliantly, the reply from No.2 is, "Six of one, half-a-dozen of the other" !
sam
You are quite right. You can be what you are, a man, but a person….it’s impossible to escape ones “self.” But certainly the Colonel didn’t remain in the Prisoner’s clothes for very long, even though in his mind he is No.6!
ReplyDelete“I am not a number, I am a free man,” is what he states it in the opening sequence. In his mind perhaps, but physically he’s a prisoner in the village. And he refuses to wear his numbered badge because he’s ‘I am not a number, I am a person.’!”
David
"Impossible to escape one's self" - definitely. There's no escaping reality after all. But escaping one's 'Person', one's legal-persona, though difficult, is not impossble.
ReplyDeleteNo.6 instinctively knows he's free (or at least should be free) but in order to exercise his freedom - as a man, he must seperate himself from his legal Persona, his status as a Villager. Our true status, that of Mankind is real, but we live our whole lives under a fictional status issued by the State (and therefore owned by the State). We call it our Personal Idenity without ever understanding the legal significance of that word Person. Yet lawyers know that a 'person' is a fiction ; a legal fiction.
All men are born equal, but a Person is a man born-again, into a legal society, with a new, legal-idenity, it's only BASED ON his true idenity. The legal definition says, a Person is "a man or woman considered according to the rank they hold in society." The Prisoner's rank is Number 6.
If you're not a member you're deemed not to exist ...
At the ball, in Dance of The Dead, No.6 asks why he has no costume (unlike everyone else), "perhaps because you don't exist" says No.2. But of course he exists. He's standing right there! What she's alluding to is that LEGALLY he does not exist. Not while he refuses to wear and be known as No.6 - his legal or 'Village' identity.
Later in the episode, at his trial, The Prisoner call's a character witness, by using his name. One of the judges replies, "No names are used here" ...
All our societal benefits and priveleges are granted to members only, the un-mutual (where they exist) must be won-over, and persuaded to join The Village which is a metaphor for what political philosphy calls the Body Politic.
sam
Hallo Sam.
DeleteI shall bow to your better knowledge than mine regarding this subject, but it is intriguing subject.
The high ranking of No.6 shows that he’s not just anyone. It’s strange however that although we have 6, 2 and 1, we never hear of 3,4 and 5 which are also high ranking numbers, although 6 is the first perfect number, and in the village the number 7 does not exist. And the number 8 is mostly a woman, until we come to Alexis Kanner in ‘The Girl Who Was Death’!
If you're not a member you're deemed not to exist ... that’s what they would like you to think!
Number 6 is not given a costume, but given his own suit of clothes, because he’s still himself, and he would be considering that ‘Dance of the Dead’ was originally the second episode in the series. Yet officially he does not exist because he refuses to accept, or respond to his number, he does this only when it suits him! He’s an outcast in the village because he refuses village identity!
A character witness….poor old Roland Walter Dutton, the doctor-No.40 had gone too far with his experiments, leaving Dutton in a state worse than death, a living death!
Number 6 demands that he is not a number, nor a unit of society! Number 6 is a rebel, he does not accept life in the village as a prisoner. It must be remembered that Number 6 is no longer in open society, he has been abducted to the village against his will. Fans of the Prisoner think the way Number 6 behaves in the village is the way he behaved in the outside World. They forget he was a member of society, he worked for the establishment, he lived in the city of Westminster. He accepted society, okay he resigned his job for reasons of his own, as Number 2 once said, if one can’t chuck up a job things have come to a pretty pass!
Be seeing you
David