The Wall Analysis

- The narrative voice

First person

Author’s intention to communicate in a concrete way the existential choice that the character makes

Limited perspective

There is an unbreachable disparity between what he knows and what Pablo thinks he knows

Open future with the experience of the character is indefinite

- The significance of the wall

The wall of the title could allude to several walls or barriers

The wall the prisoners will be shot against

The wall separates life and death

The wall that separates individuals from one another

The wall that represents brute matter, which contrasts with consciousness, and to which the men will be reduced when shot

The Wall itself symbolises the inevitability and unknowing of one’s death.

- The ironic ending

Existentialism

Unpredictable fate/future

To the extent that Pablo is free in his mind the can be theorized as immortal, then there is no future and past; his future cannot be predicted from either his past or from any kind of reasoning

The river in Siddhartha is unpredictable and only exist at the present

“Everything began to spin and I found myself sitting on the ground: I laughed so hard I cried.”

Pablo’s laughter could be interpreted as his realization that life is fundamentally unpredictable, hence absurd, or his sudden understanding that his previous abdication of freedom had been irresponsible, given the unknown nature of human events.

Submission to the laws of fiction/unabashed fictiveness

By pointing to the story’s artificiality and dramatic ending, that it asserted its limitations as fiction. (Powerful ending)

Cemetery

Symbolizes meaninglessness and nothingness

Pablo sends the soldiers away out of spite “thinking about the spectacle they would make” and he can see them “lifting up tombstones, opening the doors of the vaults one by one.”

- The death/execution

Fear of unknown

The death is in principle nonexperimental and not something can be anticipated

Like Tom, is incapable to understand what will happen after he is propped against the wall and shot.

Example: “It made no sense. I only found words or emptiness.”

Pablo’s