The Prisoner in the Gulag: Checkmate and Hammer into Anvil
The introduction to this series of posts considering whether The Prisoner could reference Soviet Russia may be found here: https://culttvblog.substack.com/p/the-prisoner-in-the-gulag-introduction
Checkmate
The theme of Checkmate is essentially conformity, so it is one which is readily applicable to life in every human society of every time, including the Soviet Union. I fear that this means that conformity is itself the most obvious subject of this episode, but there are certain aspects which are heavily redolent of life in the Soviet Union.
The image of people used as chess pieces may be most so for supporters of capitalism, themselves so blinded by capitalism’s twisted propaganda that they can’t see that they are, in fact, treated as pawns by capitalism. The hierarchy of the chess board is of course all wrong for communism, however I am sure that during the Cold War life in the Soviet Union would have been seen very much like being a chess piece.
The psychiatrisation of dissent is heavily reminiscent of the actual treatment of those guilty of social parasitism in the Soviet Union.
The hypnotisation of Number 8 to make her obsessed with Number 2 could be suggestive of Soviet science and particularly the more science fiction extremes of its development.
Checkmate and Hammer into Anvil come as a pair in the ITC viewing order, and in Checkmate Number 6 starts really sticking his fingers up at the regime. He is seen as totally abnormal, and would certainly have been a key candidate for ‘treatment’ in the Soviet Union, exactly as he is in the Village.
I think you can definitely apply the depiction of conformity and non-conformity in Checkmate to the Soviet Union, but the problem is of course that you can apply it to any culture at any time in history. For example, the way society treats people as mentally ill is open to question in different societies.
However in my opinion the main problem in applying this episode to the Soviet Union is in the quite dominant aspect of the difference between prisoners and guardians in the Village and telling them apart. I think this virtually destroys any suggestion that this episode could refer to a Communist society, where by definition there are no guardians and prisoners.
Hammer into Anvil
Hammer into Anvil is one of my favourite episodes, largely because I love the way Number 6 successfully makes Number 2 go off his head.
I have commented before on the heavy way dissent and perceived social parasitism was dealt with in the Soviet Union, and indeed the treatment of Number 73 at the start may well reflect elements of that. However while I have also commented that the Village could possibly be a sort of holiday camp parody of the Soviet gulags, Number 6’s ongoing rebellion against the system as persoified in Number 2 would certainly have been well and truly stamped out. I therefore do not think this episode is one which relates at all well to the Soviet Union.
As an aside I find the scene where Number 6 struggles and fights with guards who try to pick him up and take him to Number 2. I have been reflecting again on McGoohan’s famous refusal to do sex scenes because he wouldn’t want his children to see him in bed with any woman other than their mother. I personally find this red line of his peculiar because obviously as an actor it would be difficult never to to portray actions you wouldn’t do yourself, but the way he drew the line at a bedroom scene. I find it strange personally because in the scene fighting with the guards, he is physically fighting them but it would presumably have been acceptable to him to have his children see him fighting. Presumably he would have been able to explain to his children that what he was doing wasn’t real and he was acting, but I find it peculiar that he wouldn’t just be able to do that about a sex scene.
Another interesting thing about the episode is that I have really noticed how deferentially everyone addresses Number 6. Apart from the obvious guards everyone calls him ‘sir’ and says it in clear deference, certainly more so than I have noticed in other episodes. For example, the new shopkeeper positively toadies to him. I have just noticed this on this watch of the series, and can’t account for it.
There is also something very Alice in Wonderland about the Village shop and in fact in the following cuckoo clock sequence, because I can’t honestly think that any shop as tiny as that for a community as tiny as that would just happen to have that many cuckoo clocks heaped up for sale!
The cuckoo clock sequence reflects badly on the Village and there is clearly something very wrong.
For a start the Village has a bomb disposal squad on standby, so is clearly expecting trouble at any moment.
Number 2 leaps to the conclusion that Number 6 has made a bomb out of the cuckoo clock - at least in the show’s narrative in record time. For a community where every room is surveilled and Number 6 is definitely a Villager who would attract close surveillance it would be inconceivable that he would either have the necessary materials or be unobserved for long enough to make a cuckoo clock. Yet strangely nobody points out to Number 6 that he is clearly losing it and suspecting something virtually impossible. They all just act as if this is a normal thing to happen.
So we have a Village where the shop is brim full of cuckoo clocks, clearly ready for a bomb, and where nobody thinks it unusual that the boss is imagining a bomb threat. The sheer stress of that community must have been absolutely incredible.
So in conclusion, neither of these two episodes applies very well to the Soviet Union. Hammer into Anvil, though, has made me reflect on the sheer bizarreness of the Village.
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