The Wall

The Wall: Activities

Julieta Veo

1: 1. The boy sees masks on the faces of the people in the train. Later he sees similar masks on the faces of the children in his fantasy. What is the meaning of that?

The scene where the people in the train got masks on their faces is linked with a historical event, when the Jews were taken to concentration camps during Hitler’s dictatorship. Afterwards, the boy sees masks on the faces of the children in his fantasy who are dragged towards a painful end which represents the lack of personal thoughts due to the possessive educational system. In both cases, the masks represents the repression of individuality. The faceless persons portray a dramatic scene, they don’t look human and this is caused due to the systems and its laws. The lack of expression and to be negatively equal to the rest are also some features that masks symbolise.

2: The riot scene ends and the camera returns to the boy in the classroom as the children recite the lesson. Think of a possible explanation for this.

I think the riot scene was a deep wish the boy got, and so it was his imagination the one that created the chaos portrayed after he was hitted unfairly by his professor. The educational system was harsh and wrongful, but though children wanted to shout and deny it, literally causing disturbs and a total liberation of manipulation, it was almost impossible to express yourself, and that’s why on the final scene the boy is still on the classroom unable to do something about injustice.

3: What kind of education does the movie portray? Use the song “The happiest days of our lives” to help you.

Linked to my answer in point 2, the education the movie portrays is terribly strict and cruel. Teachers shaped the minds of the kids in order to think in one way, the way society wants. It was a “lesson” the repetition of a concept, totally cold and intolerable towards variations. Being able to express your opinions or thoughts was unacceptable, we can see this situation when the derisive teacher humiliates his student who wrote a poem, whatsmore the mocking teacher “corrects” the student mistaken action by hitting him with a stick. Shamefully, this was the educational system which repressed students ability to “think out of the box”.

4:  Education is only one of the various social institutions the movie deals with. What others did you notice and how are they portrayed?

The other “social institution” I can remember that had appeared in the movie is a political rally.

5: We, in Argentina, often rely on education to solve most of our social problems. We blame education, or the lack of it, for many of them. Consider the huge success (described in the text below) of the song “Another brick in the wall” which claims “we don’t need no education” and compare it to what you think about education.

The song “Another brick in the wall” claims children don’t need education and challenges the authorities rejecting their control over them. What I think is that  the youth need to be educated with values and on a creative way. I agree on the fact we have to reject the educational system that aims to overshadow kids minds. While it is true that nowadays with the amount of information we can access and the fact that education is firstly developed in our homes, it is not that we are able to “self-teach” us completely. We need the mentoring of experts in order to increase our knowledge. In addition, nowadays and in most parts of the world, education is also a way to shape our personality and our thoughts, we are able to express freely our points of view. This is a controversial topic, we can argue for long time if we need or not education on our lives but I believe we do. We do in order to learn and after that, create our own views and opinions, we do in order to grow as a thinkable person which acts honestly and respecting his or her convictions and the rest´s.

6: Up to what extent is education a way of “thought control”?

I think, education at least nowadays, is both. Presents an open space that lets students think freely but about specific topics which are previously controlled and supervised by authorities. So, students are able to reason, to make up personal opinions and come up with beliefs and different arguments though limited by almost invisible boundaries. Teachers tell us what is right or wrong according to a punctual source, and so we adopt the same thought regardless we are also encouraged to express candidly. We know, we all tend to be biased but such great systems as the educational one, directs us “kindly” to think on a specific way. The way our superiors want to, not talking  just about school authorities but beyond.

7: Explain the meaning of the double-hammer symbol. Use the scene “In the flesh” to answer.

Hammers are a major symbol which is portrayed all along the movie.

The scene “In the flesh” portrays sort of a political theme where the main character adopts the role of a harsh and claimed dictator. The hammers take on a more militaristic aspect. As I see it, the hammer is a tool that constructs but also destructs, therefore, as the political symbol which represented the society was the “drawing” of two hammers, I can think about the fact how the authorities on one side “construct” the people they wanted to take part of their society, by shaping their thought and expressions and by the other side, they “destruct” the ones who didn’t fit to their plan by repressing them in any way.

8: The children falling into the meat grinder is a visual metaphor that makes a powerful point. What is the metaphor and what point does it make?

One of the most shocking scenes of the movie, is the one where children fall into the meat grinder. The whole disturbing picture can be analyse.

Firstly, the scene portrays how children march through a complex mechanism that creates them on faceless people who eventually lack of their right to be human.  After walking with deliberation the kids  finally fall to a meat grinder. I think the metaphor in the scene is how the educational system or the social sphere pressures the youth and so future generations to think as they planned, and so fit without any problem into a scheme which requires order and rule avoiding individualism, which is a “problem”. This system is represented by the meat grinder which makes people equal and dependent, without special features, just one more of the mass.

9: What is the wall? Can you say whether it is a good thing or not?

The wall in the movie is constructed by the experiences of the protagonist though we can adopt this metaphor for ourselves. We build a wall which is constructed by our life history and the moments we went through, sometimes to separate us from the rest of the world. However in the case of the protagonist of the movie, the wall it’s not a positive thing.  All his struggles are the bricks that constitute the wall, a wall full of unfairness and harsh situations.  The main character isolates himself in his mental and painful wall, each brick further closing him off from the rest of the world.