I didn't get the whole scene. Like what do the people circling the wheel supposed to represent, why do they do it and what does Billy mean when he says the "I know you're a bad machine, thats why the factory keeps you here", etc?
shareIF IT IS REPRESENTATIVE OR A METAPHOR FOR SOMETHING (THE WALKING IN A CIRCLE) (sorry caps lock!!) it is for the circular thought processes of a mentally ill mind.
As for the 'machines' and 'factory': The Factory is society and goverment in general, and the machine is an individual. The character of Ahmed probably really was a professor, but as happens from time to time, He 'searched for the secret too soon': too much knowledge can sometimes turn a person insane.
spoiler warning
Billy constantly got approached by this man who would continually tell him that he would never leave, which was of course extremely frustrating for Billy as all he could think about was his escape.
So he told this crazy guy that he was from "the factory" and that he was keeping an eye on the bad machines, so that the crazy guy would leave him alone. It worked, he left him alone from then on.
I would like to suggest reading the book to many people who have just watched the film, you will see the film is mostly nonsense. The escape in the film is pure fiction, nothing even slightly similar happened. It wasn't even that prison that he escaped from. And Max was never even in the nuthouse with him...
I really thought it was somehow related to walking around the Ka'aba in Mecca as Muslims do during the Haj pilgrimage. Though for the life of me I can't imagine how it would relate to it, why people would be doing that in a Turkish prison. But it was the only thing I could think of. I'm as stumped as you are, I have no explanation.
"The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history."
Mao
I presumed they just did it for religious reasons.
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