Jack Arnold
Pink Floyd – The Wall essay (first draft)
Introduction, concept albums and the 1970s
"You can't watch The Wall unless you're really drunk or really high."
-Alex Zambelli, IMDb reviews 1999
"It is brutal, cynical and disturbing, but it has moments of flesh-tingling beauty and an uplifting message in the end."
-sero, IMDb reviews 2000
"A concept album that must rank up there with the most remarkable ever recorded. Because make no mistake about it, regardless of you feelings on The Wall, as an album, there's no arguing about how exraordinary it is."
-Med57, sputnikmusic reviews 2005
"This isn't the most fun to listen to and some viewers don't find it too much fun to watch, but the 1982 film is without question the best of all serious fiction films devoted to rock."
-Roger Ebert, music reviews 2010
These are several reviews of Pink Floyd's The Wall, posted on the internet. The Wall was written as a concept album in 1978 by the band's co-founder and bassist Roger Waters after an incident during the tour to promote their tenth studio album Animals in which he spat on a fan. The original album was released on the 30th November 1979, and was turned into a film in 1982 by filmmaker Alan Parker and featuring animation from satirical cartoonist Gerald Scarfe. The film starred punk musician Bob Geldof of The Boomtown Rats, who later became famous for his charity work with Live Aid.
But what are concept albums? Well, concept albums are albums with an overarching theme. Unlike most albums, all concept albums have a single theme linking songs together, although how closely the songs are linked depends on album to album. Whilst many people think that the 1970s was the time of the release of the first concept albums, the first two concept albums were instead released in 1940 (Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads) and 1947 (Merle Travis' Folk Songs of the Hills) respectively. Whilst these two were the first concept albums, it would not be until 1969 when the British rock band The Who would release Tommy. Whilst not the first rock concept album per se (as many other bands had released early concept albums beforehand), Tommy was the first album to have all of its songs centred around a single theme. Other artists would follow suit with their own concept albums, e.g. Genesis releasing The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1972), Pink Floyd with The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and Animals (1973, 1975 and 1977 respectively) and Iron Maiden with Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (1988).
The 1970s were a turbulent period in history in both social and political aspects- as such this may have impacted on the content of the album. As the website farminginthe70s/worldevents_ shows, one of the most important events was the widening of the Vietnam War thanks to President Nixon sending more American troops to Vietnam in 1970. Another event was the landing of Apollo 15 on the Moon, alongside the founding of Greenpeace in 1971. In 1975, Microsoft was founded, with the ALTAIR being the first widely available personal computer that ran on the company's BASIC software- though it would not be until 1990 that Sir Tim Berners-Lee would propose a World Wide Web. 1976 saw the beginnings of tech giant Apple, which was founded by Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak. 1977 ushered in new advances in medicine, with the first genetic engineering techniques used to make insulin for diabetics. This continued into 1978, when the first test-tube baby was born. 1979 also brought great changes both politically and socially, with Margaret Thatcher becoming Britain's first (and currently only) female Prime Minister, though she would later be removed from office in 1990. As . also implies, 1979 witnessed the introduction of the Walkman, with all thanks going to Sony. In 1970, unfortunately, the Beatles broke up, and in 1973, the first American space station Skylab was launched.
The Story
Into this historical context comes the protagonist of The Wall, whose name is "Pink". Pink (who's real name is assumedly Floyd Pinkerton) is a rock star who, according to the film's synopsis on the DVD case, is a "burned out case". The story itself takes place before a rock concert in Los Angeles, with Pink having a mental breakdown beforehand.
The first half of the story is mainly told through flashbacks- we witness Pink as a child being abused and humiliated by his schoolmaster (The Happiest Days of our Lives) reflecting that most schools were quite abusive in the 1950s and the 1960s. Pink is also negatively affected by his overprotective mother (Mother), and these traumatic experiences cause him to craft mental "bricks" in his wall, with this culminating in his wife's "betrayal" (Don't Leave Me Now). The first half of the album ends with Pink choosing to mentally isolate himself from the world (Goodbye Cruel World), leading to a mental journey in the album's second half.
The second half of the album is quite "confusing" for lack of a better word as opposed to the first half, due to taking place within Pink's mind; it begins with Pink wondering if he made the right decision of self-imposed isolation (Hey You), which results in the aforementioned rock concert in In the Flesh (Part 2). During the concert, Pink begins to hallucinate that he is at a Nazi-esque rally with him being a Hitler-esque dictator figure (Run Like Hell; Waiting for the Worms), ending with Pink putting himself on a self-imposed trial and destroying his psychological wall (The Trial).
In this essay, I will evaluate and consider previous analyses of The Wall before presenting my own hypothesis that the album is a foray into "power". To support this, I am going to consider several meanings of the concept and explore how power imbalances are portrayed in this magnificent piece of work.
What is Power?
On the subject of power itself, there are two main definitions- the physics definition and the sociology definition, which is the predominant type expressed in the film. The physics definition as defined by wiki/Power_(physics) is the rate of work and equivalent to energy exerted per unit time, e.g. a wind machine or a car. The sociological definition as outlined by Max Weber is the ability to influence and control the course of events; those who can influence people and control the course of events more easily have more power, e.g. David Cameron or Barack Obama; as such, common people have less power as they are less able to control and influence events in their favour. Indeed, The Wall is about power and one of the main points that I will be considering is power imbalances, i.e. when power is unequally divided between two or more parties.
Another interpretation of power is, according to . , is physical might, hence why burly, muscular men would be considered to be more powerful than scrawny men. The same website also defines power as being derived from "moral efficacy" (the ability to produce a desired result) and "political control"; e.g. people like the aforementioned Cameron and Obama.
Another way we could look at the concept of power is mental capability and the religious view; i.e. saints and scholars would be more capable of understanding god than, say, an idiot. There is also the scriptures; hence, the Torah in Judaism is said to contain a great amount of power. Perhaps in this case power is derived from the view of something as sacred, and thus those who are unable to comprehend such divine power are regarded as powerless. To use another religious example, the Bible in Christianity is viewed by most Christians as powerful as it contains the core laws and tenets that comprise the religion's core beliefs. However, we also need to consider that when it was first recorded, few people could argue with it; hence why it was considered a powerful religion. Also, in the Tudor times, people believed that damnation and eternal paradise were actually real; another example of power.
But can power be dangerous? From 2003 to 2006, there were multiple abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by US Military personnel. These included incidences of physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy and even murder. Whilst The Wall was released to the big screen in 1982, it could very well have been an ominous foreshadowing of the prison abuses. This may have been because the guards were in a position of absolute power, and as the saying goes, "absolute power corrupts absolutely". Maybe this might have been because the guards associated very closely with their roles, and took cruel advantage of their power over the poor prisoners. This is further exemplified (in the film) when policemen brutalise several eager concert-goers, even going so far as to arrest them, though this will be discussed later on.
Alternate Analyses
However, before we look at how power imbalances are portrayed, we will first analyse the multitude of analyses that The Wall has procured. I have particularly considered documentaries (namely The Other Side of The Wall and Retrospective) which provide insightful remarks from the makers of the album and film. I have also researched analyses on the Internet (including the Democratic Underground user SmileyBoy) and the book Tearing down The Wall by Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff.
The documentary The Other Side of The Wall tells us the story of how the album was conceived in the first place. It was mainly derived from now ex-bassist Roger Waters during a 1977 show in Montreal promoting their 10th studio album Animals. During the final show of the tour, Waters noted a particularly unruly fan (well, many unruly fans) who were setting off fireworks and spending the show baying for the song "Money". When one of the unruly fans attempted to climb onto the stage, Waters proceeded to spit on the fan's face, and immediately came to regret it. After spitting on the fan's face, Waters hallucinated that the fans were being bombed to bits, still cheering and applauding. In fact, on the tour, Waters had been feeling especially alienated from the fans, and this was spreading to the other members as well. Whilst there is no doubt how alienated the band was feeling at that point, Waters was presumably the only one to express this alienation.
Regarding another analysis, the Democratic Underground user SmileyBoy has identified and summarised the main themes of the work as being, "anti-war, dramatising the stress of war to a young boy whose father has gone off to fight in World War II", "anti-conformist, portraying the things that children go through in school and how the educational system works to try and make children conformist", "the glorification of the relationships between boys/men and their mothers" and "the rise of a fascist society, leading pillages and raids of businesses, and wooing a crowd of people in a rally like Hitler would have done".
The Other Side of The Wall is shown to clearly emphasise that the central theme is based around the image of a wall, representing alienation from both society and one's fans and admirers. It also emphasises that a large portion of it is semi-autobiographical from Waters' past, with his father Eric Fletcher Waters having been killed in the war months after Waters was born, alongside his rather horrible education. Whilst I'm not condemning education at all in the slightest, education in the 1950s and 1960s was very harsh and, in some cases, outright brutal. Schooling worked on shaming- putting down the children's efforts and largely being concerned with them going to university so they would get "good results". Such poor schooling can be detrimental to many people, and it is a shame that Waters had to endure such poor teaching. The documentary also places a large focus on the mother's suffocating love after the father's death, and as such, the main protagonist (called "Pink") builds a wall to both protect himself and hide his inner insecurities and vulnerability. This vulnerability is preyed on and exarcerbated by his mother and teacher. Before going through with the decision to isolate himself from the world, Pink reviews his past life and everyone who has hurt him (both directly and indirectly), going insane as a result. Waters even refers to it as a "journey into memory and madness".
Tearing down The Wall by Nemcoff also focuses on isolation and alienation. However, he also explores the idea of violence and isolation being in a cycle. Granted, the book is a general "decoding" of the album, analysing the album song by song. Whilst he does seem to focus on the idea of cycles, he does not fully implement this idea until pages 45/46 (which, if you are not familiar with the book, analyses Another Brick in the Wall Part 2: Education). However, the cycle explored here is a cycle of abuse. If one is not familiar with the album, there is a general assumption that there is a cycle of violence. Of course, Pink's schoolmaster is abused by his wife when he returns home at night. This frustrates and humiliates him, so he abuses a child the next day to relieve himself of the anger and frustration, only for it to (as per the laws of karma) rebound back on him with his wife's abuse. This is best exemplified with the famous quote, "If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?!" Nemcoff uses this to evidence his view that The Wall is largely based on the cyclical 360 degree pattern.
Going back to the 1982 film version of The Wall, there is a second documentary called Retrospective. Whilst the date of recording is unknown, my guess is that it was presumably recorded quite recently as opposed to The Other Side of The Wall, which merely goes into the creative processes that gave birth to the album. In this documentary, Waters says, "Alan [Parker] would ask me, 'what is this f- song about?'", which shows that not even Parker, the film director, knew what the film was about. However, in Retrospective, Waters emphasises the pain of marriage and the father dying as the culmination of a nightmare. Also, he posits that the "fascist stuff" can happen to anyone who is given power in a situation (though I will reflect on this later when analysing the power imbalances). He goes on to say that the film is "deeply flawed because it doesn't have any laughs". In fact, all of the commentators (Waters, Parker, cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, producer Alan Marshall, director of photography Peter Bizou and sound mixer James Guthrie) admit that the film has a message that they did not realise at the time of production. Alongside Nemcoff in his book, Waters also advocates that there is a cycle, but one of disconnectedness from one generation to another. This reflects Nemcoff's assertation that cycles are a promiment element of the work. As a point of interest, Waters finishes his interview with the view that "I'm f- confused but I get the sense that I can make a difference".
So what do I make of this? Do I disown these analyses and say that they are wrong? Do I agree with them? Well, I truly and honestly believe that regardless of the analysis studied, all of them are valid. Whilst I do support them, my own hypothesis that I would like to present is that The Wall is first and foremost a study into power imbalances in the 20th Century. This is the simple hypothesis that I will up to the utmost limits of my ability evidence using the film.
Theme 1: The War
Firstly, let us consider the representation of power through war. In fact, the first song in the film (When the Tigers Broke Free) is set in wartime during World War II. Power is immediately represented in the "forward commander", who would have power over the troops due to his rank. However, the "generals" are shown to be more powerful than him, telling the forward commander to "sit tight" when he requests that his troops be withdrawn from the battlefield. This is the earliest example of a power imbalance, and it is a recurring element throughout the film. As "the Anzio bridgehead was held for the price of a few hundred ordinary lives", it can be interpreted as an all too familiar reminder that power can sometimes cloud a person's mind and cause them to make incredibly stupid decisions as seen with the generals, as they "gave thanks" for the troops' sacrifice. Power in this instance is shown to be destructive, as the next song The Thin Ice reminds us with the carnage of the Battle of Anzio, which was a major battlefield duing WWII.
Another representation of war is the animated sequence for Goodbye Blue Sky. In the sequence, we see a black German war eagle, showing how the power of Nazism can frighten people and ruin their lives. This is shown by the burning cities symbolising how destructive Nazism was- not only for Britain as countless young lives were lost against it, but also being detrimental and ironically destructive for Germany itself. In fact, at the end of the sequence, we see a crumbling Union Jack, which effectively shows how damaging the war was to every country that participated in it, asking the question, "In the end, was the sacrifice and destruction of many innocent lives really worth it?" As the Nazis were a wartime tyrannical dynasty, this exacerbated the damage that both countries suffered.
Whilst The Happiest Days of our Lives is not actually about the war expicitly, the scene with the train at the beginning is a metaphor as to how war can explicitly damage the young. When it destroys the bullet Pink lays on the line, the train shows its passengers as multiple people who are blank faced and look almost exactly the same. (This is after Pink finds bullets in his father's drawer. What happens is that he lays a bullet on the line as a train thunders past. The train destroys the bullet, causing Pink to hallucinate that the passengers are all faceless people.) This could be a reference as to how war shatters any and all chances of individuality. To use an example, the government used to hold a belief that the army had everything a soldier could ever want. The battalion would be the soldier's family; the regiment his "soul". In fact, aside from their names, the soldiers all wore the same military outfit, representing their loss of identity. Musically, in this track there is a certain war theme inasmuch as the drum beat is very militaristic, making it seem as though music itself has lost its individuality.
(Power is also represented in this track by the schoolmaster, with him being portrayed less as a teacher and more as a tyrannical warlord desperate to control his "students" by any means and crush their individuality to smithereens.)
The song Vera also has an interpretation on the power of war. The song seems to suggest the power of propaganda as shown by paraphrasing the Vera Lynn song "We'll Meet Again", asking, "Do you remember how she said that we'll meet again, some sunny day?". As Pink's father never came home (and many never did), it could be Pink seeing through the propaganda and seeing how empty an assumption is, recognising how powerful propaganda can be. It can be considered that the government is very willing to use underhanded tactics to maintain power and control, even resorting to lying.
Another thing I myself have noticed is that the first track on the album (In the Flesh?) is very militaristic in its musical form as well. Unlike other songs on the album (excluding the aforementioned Happiest Days), the drums have military precision like no other, possibly referencing the power of weaponry being destructive and detrimental to the environment. Also, the scenes representing social revolution and violence are accompanied by very loud music, representing the chaos of war. This could be a subtle reference as to how all revolutions are wars, but against a ruling class or government.
Moving on to another aspect of war, the haphazard nature of the album could be analogous to a mind suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). People afflicted with PTSD often have trouble with accurate memory, which is hinted at in the overly strange, alien and unconventional story form of the album. This not only reflects Pink's own mind at the beginning, but also the minds of the poor soldiers who came out of the war alive, having to suffer with a constant reminder of the horrors they experienced. This shows that war also has power to destroy someone's mind.
Theme 2: The Establishment and Social Revolution
The second theme I will explore in The Wall is the power of the Establishment. If you are unfamilliar with such a concept, the Establishment is an arranged social order, with the main ruling class usually being the monarchy or the government. However, The Wall turns the idea of the Establishment upside down, what with the film's love of violent riots. Riots are examples of rebellion against the Establishment, as they are intended to establish a new social order.
As far as the violent riots go, In the Flesh? shows fans breaking down the chained door keeping them out. This could be interpreted as power going from the authorities who placed the chain on the door to the people, who proceed to rebel against policemen. These policemen, who are figures of authority, respond with violence, showing how far they are willing to go to preserve the power of the Establishment. This is juxtaposed against scenes of the Battle of Anzio, representing the war against the Nazis, so we have a military war and a people's revolution contrasted against each other.
Alongside violent uprisings, revolutions can also be peaceful. A good example of this is shown in the track Bring the Boys Back Home, which is significantly more peaceful. Here, the masses protest in song not to "leave the children on their own", showing how revolutions have the potential to be peaceful. (This has basis in history- peaceful revolutions have tended to be more successful. Such revolutions include the Bloodless Revolution of 1688, the Peaceful Revolution of 1989 and the Power People Revolution of 1986.)
The Establishment and the power it wields are shown in other ways, too. For example, in Comfortably Numb, Pink's management have power to force him to appear on stage despite his semi-conscious state. This includes injecting a drug designed to wake him up during his overdose, and also forcibly dress him before dragging him off to the limosine. This symbolises how Pink is powerless in relation to his record company, and how he is unable to rebel himself. This is when we see the imagery of the worms, which symbolise how the Establishment has destroyed him.
The cut song Hey You is another example of the Establishment. The song features a violent riot scene involving a battle between skinheads and policemen. This shows two extremes of authority and how revolutions can happen when those authorities clash. The ensuing riot is shown to be very destructive, which is what revolution is- violent war. There is an underlying motif of war throughout the film.
Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 also features an interpretation of the Establishment, but here the Establishment is shown to be people in authority, e.g. teachers. This is when the Establishment is shown to be detrimental and destructive to the people living under it. This is primarily underlined through the teachers who constantly belittle and put down the students, which prompts a revolution led by another Establishment (the students), fronted mainly by prefects and senior students, who are normally associated with authority, ironically.
The Establishment is also featured in Run Like Hell, but unlike the other examples, here it is portrayed as almost powerless. Whereas the other songs implied or outright confirmed the Establishment as being a powerful, authoritarian part of society, this is all reversed in Run Like Hell with Pink's fascist goons creating absolute chaos whilst persecuting minority groups and with no government actually being powerful enough to stop them. This is a quite dramatic and drastic turn of events, in which the revolution against the minority groups being implied to succeed. (Incidentally, this is an example of why not having an Establishment does not tend to be for the best, as it means that a new order can be created without anyone to stop the rebels.)
As far as rebellions go, what I understand is that a rebellion is a power imbalance between the government and the people. Depending on how the imbalance goes, this means that either the people or the government will gain absolute power needed to rule a country. This results in a social order being drawn up by the winners, and, in time, an Establishment is created by the implementation of this social order, which can be reinforced or weakened depending on how the people in charge implement the social order they have conceived. This is effectively what is being shown via the film's preoccupation with riot scenes – a confusion on who really holds the power.
On the topic of social revolution, we see many ordinary people fighting back against the Establishment and the authorities. But why do we bear witness to such scenes? Well, I believe it is time to look at another figure who is instrumental to understanding power imbalances in The Wall- Max Weber. If you do not know about Weber's stance on power, Weber believed that the powerful had an ability to influence others and control the course of events. The Weberian model of power is very prominent throughout the film, as shown in Another Brick in the Wall with the teacher being able to influence the students to conform to a majority that does not think and only goes to university to get "good results", and in Comfortably Numb, wherein Pink's management influence him to appear on stage in spite of his overdose.
Going back to Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2, the song seems to present a view on one of Weber's dystopian critiques. In the critique, Weber notes that society is created from an individualistic drive of a Reformation, but ironically creating a society that is less and less welcoming of individuality as a whole. This is effectively what is being shown during ABITW 2, making it likely that Waters may have known about Weber at some point.
Another thing I noticed in the film is how the revolution scenes take place. Instead of being very fantastical and chaotic, all of them feature a disturbing level of conformity and power. In Bring the Boys Back Home, for example, the revolution here (despite an air of peacefulness and elegance) is largely dominated by adults and senior citizens. This implies that they have already become the Establishment which they are rebelling against. Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 follows a similar idea, but in this instance, the revolution is primarily led by prefects and senior school students, whom one would normally associate with authority and being higher up the social ladder. This shows that most (if not all) revolutions already have a sense of conformity long before the fighting starts. This is relevant to my interest in power, as it is likely that the people leading the revolution have been able to influence the masses into joining the cause and have the ability to influence the revolution in any way they choose. This is especially present in Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, but also in Run Like Hell, where Pink leads his fascist goons to attack several minority groups.
Even though I will not go into too much detail on Waiting for the Worms, the song is also about revolution, even though I did not realise it at first. Whilst I will talk about the iconic marching hammers later on, there is a large focus on hammers during the song. I have thus interpreted it to be a dark joke on how revolutions often destroy society, only to create a new one. This is also what hammers do, having the power both to create buildings as a construction tool and being able to tear buildings down as well. This is what a revolution does; they initially destroy the old society that existed beforehand, only to later create a new society after the rebels win. At least, that is how I view it.
Theme 3: Adults and Children
As a person interested in the portrayal of power in The Wall, one thing that has particularly struck me is the power imbalances between adults and children. This is mainly represented in the album with the song Mother. The whole song is one large power imbalance, with Pink sounding quite uncertain in the song's verses and his mother sounding quite powerful and in control in the choruses. This is shown quite clearly with the lyrics "Mama's gonna put all her fears into you/ Mama's gonna make all your nightmares come true". The line, "Of course mama's gonna help build the wall" also shows a quite biased power imbalance, presumably implying that, with all intents and purposes, Pink's mother is largely in control of his life, contributing to his later social decay.
Whilst not appearing on the album per se, the very first song heard in the film is Nat King Cole's The Boy that Santa Claus Forgot, which can infer that children are subject to abuse and cruelty by adults. Whilst the song may seem to be an obvious reminder that things do not always go to plan, it can also serve as a reminder to how vulnerable children are. This is definitely the case with Pink in the film.
Even though we do get a full glimpse of the power imbalance between Pink and his mother in Mother, we get a hint of this power imbalance during the song Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1. In the song, we see just how desperate the kid is for a father to play with in the playground. This can imply that the father has power in the context of physical and emotional strength.
Another glimpse of the power imbalance is also in The Happiest Days of Our Lives. Here, the imbalance is seen with the cruelty of the teacher. In the song, we literally see the teacher hitting Pink's hands with a ruler showing his physical cruelty. This is exacerbated with the lyric "exposing every weakness", which implies that all teachers in the 1950s and 1960s were cruel, doing absolutely everything they can to belittle and put down the students to keep them in line. This is spoofed for humour purposes in Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2 when the "ideal citizens" fall blindly into an oversized meat grinder turning them into worm-shaped meat, possibly representing how conformist schools were back then. Of course, this rebounds on the teacher when it is revealed that there is a power imbalance between him and his wife, although I will cover this later.
Taking a moment to go back to the song Mother, we also see a power imbalance when we see Pink during his illness, lying helplessly in a bed and vulnerable with the doctor and his mother looking quite imposing and terrifying. At least, this is how he interprets them to be. Of course, this also shows his amount of dependence on them; his mother to just provide basic care and love and the doctor to cure him from whatever illness he has contracted.
Following on from the theme of dependence on adults, Bring the Boys Back Home somehow suggests that dependence on adults is not necessarily a bad thing. Of course, one of the people's protests is to not "leave the children on their own". Whilst the song is an anthem to stress the importance of family and togetherness, I have interpreted the song's very title to be a reference to Pink's mother's overprotectiveness, as it references bringing people back home to their families. This, if one is to analyse it critically, may be speaking out against the fact that people are entitled to their free will and thus can choose to live on their own. However, people are and can be dependent on adults if they are unable to live on their own or are unwilling to leave their parents. Either way, it seems to imply that there must be an imbalance between the parents and the children.
The power imbalance of adults over children is given a slight reference during the second half of the album after Pink goes through with building his mental wall. Firstly, there is Nobody Home, which may allude to Pink missing the power of his mother to control him and secondly, there is Comfortably Numb, which visually shows Pink as being helpless in his seat as his management tries to resuscitate him. It can be argued that Pink is still a child (at least psychologically) and still needs adults to guide his actions.
Also, I would like to consider the impact of parenting. Normally, there is a power imbalance in real life between parents and children. I know this from prior life experience. However, how the child will develop often depends on the type of parenting they receive. Now I'm quite normal (apart from being autistic), as this was likely the result of having two parents to care for me. But what if for some reason, one of them died or left? Here, this is where the power imbalance gets distorted. Households with generally two parents to care for the child before they reach adolescence tend to have a weaker power imbalance as the child has a parent they can relate to. In Pink's case where there is only one parent (as I read in Psychology Today), the power imbalance is distorted as the parent tries to keep that child from doing the same thing that caused the other parent to leave. This often results in parents adopting an authoritarian parenting style, wherein they become controlling towards the very people they are trying to protect. This often means the child also develops habits of an authoritarian personality in later life, hence why in the song Don't Leave Me Now Pink mentions "beating his wife to a pulp on a Saturday night" and "putting her through the shredder in front of his friends". Whilst it is unclear how Pink actually treats his wife given what little we see of her, the lyrics to Don't Leave Me Now show that Pink's mother has inadvertently affected him causing him to develop an authoritarian personality, which, if Pink did have kids, may also exacerbate the power imbalance towards them.
Theme 4: Male and Female
One of the strangest examples of power in the film is the power imbalance between men and women. This is a bizarre angle, but I digress. One of the earliest power imbalances we see in the film is the buildup to the film-exclusive track What Shall We Do Now?. The scene leading up to the song shows Pink in America trying to phone his wife back in England. She does not answer, leaving Pink confused, but we see the actual reason why she refused to pick up the phone- she is with another man. Here, the power gap is Pink being so shocked and confused to ask why they are together, leading him to assume that she is cheating, resulting in him forming another brick in his wall. Of course, when marriages or romantic relationships in general break down, there is a severe rift between both members: both the person who has decided to end the relationship and the person who is subsequently affected. This serves as an all too familiar reminder that relationships breaking is not due to chance, but due to one having control and power over the situation and over each other. This suggests that people have power to hurt each other.
On the subject of What Shall We Do Now?, Scarfe's animated sequence intially shows two different flowers (one male, one female), who have an initially quite intimate relationship. At various points during the animation (even at the end before the male flower is unfortunately devoured), the female flower is shown in a quite intimidating and leering position, which could represent power between the sexes, and imply that women are more powerful than men. Indeed, at the end of the flower segment of the animation, the female flower is shown as a quite radiant figure compared to the terrified and ordinary male flower, and appears to be much larger, too. This may have been inspired by the fact that larger figures are seen to be more powerful than smaller figures, in large part because they are more intimidating and psychologically project their own feelings of weakness onto the small, in the hope that they will be "kept in line".
After Pink invites a groupie into his hotel room in Young Lust, we see physical violence during the next song, One of My Turns. In the song, Pink literally goes berserk, completely destroying the hotel room and scaring the groupie away. This is represented in their juxtaposed positions- Pink is shown to have control over the situation and is influencing it in the way he desires as per Weber's definition of social power, whereas the groupie is instead cowering in fear, making her look smaller, and thus less powerful.
This situation is reversed in the next song Don't Leave Me Now. The song primarily features Pink in a mental version of his hotel room as the only noticeable ornaments are the lamp, chair and TV. This serves to show Pink as utterly powerless when his "wife" arrives. One thing to note is that it is not the real wife as it is unlikely that she would be able to go to America in such a short span of time, but how Pink sees her. As the song is the flip-side to One of My Turns, we thus see the power of both man and woman reversed as well. True to form, we see Pink's "wife" turn into a menacing and quite terrifying praying mantis that is shown to be quite domineering and physically imposing, with the terrified Pink cowering in fear, making him look small and weak instead of the groupie in the previous song. This is in coordination with the Gilmour-sung "Ooooh babe.", which, unlike Waters' vocals, sound unassertive, uncertain and outright broken. Of course, those who are quiet and shy tend to be less powerful as they are prone to being manipulated as they are too afraid to argue or talk back, which is cleverly referened by the vocals, unlike Waters who sounds loud, oppressive and borderline psychotic.
Taking a moment to back-step, the power gap between males and females, alongside the conflict between adults and children, is also referenced in the second half of the album, if only in passing. This is referenced in Pink's mental landscape during Comfortably Numb. Whilst his management attempts to resuscitate him because he has a concert to go to, Pink, at least in his psyche, sees his mother again. Unlike before when we saw her in the song Mother as outwardly powerless and afraid, here we see her as confident and almost being able to span the entire skyline, showing the physical power that she has left imprinted on him.
One thing I find about this section is how it defies gender stereotypes at the time. Sure, we do see the groupie cowering in fear, but at the time during the 20th Century, there was a general idea that women were weak and delicate. However, how Pink's wife and mother are represented actually take pains to defy the gender stereotypes. One example of this is The Trial, the final song of the story. Whilst I will reserve a section for this later, The Trial takes place near the end of the story when Pink decides to evaluate himself and his decisions to see if they were truly the right thing to do. And don't get me wrong here when I say that he puts himself on trial, because that is what he does in order to decide whether what he did was good or whether he should not have isolated himself from the world. Anyway, when the wife and mother appear during the associated animated sequence both of them are very physically imposing. The wife turns into a scorpion abomination that morphs into a humanoid figure later during her section, with both forms being quite frightening. In this case, it is so Pink can judge himself on what his wife would think, and thus imagines her as scary and physically intimidating so he can put himself at her mercy. The mother, on the other hand, initially manifests as a plane, but then morphs into a talking vulva which proceeds to envelop our protagonist, which shows (in a rather nauseating way) how powerful she was during his childhood. Indeed, her "testimony" is lamenting why "he ever had to leave her" and requesting to "take him home", showing that regardless of how he views her, the only thing he remembers is how smothering she was. However, it is unlikely that either of their lines would be viewed by gender theorist Lakoff as examples of women being "weak", given that the wife uses the entirety of her segment to verbally punish Pink and effectively treats Pink like a new toy, not caring if it breaks or not.
Theme 5: Powerlessness
On the subject of The Trial, there are notable instances in which The Wall can be considered a foray into the powerlessness of men. One particularly heartbreaking example is the aforementioned Nobody Home in which Pink reacts to his wife's infidelity and the decision to isolate himself by listing the material possessions that he still owns. As there is no-one "home" to speak of, it can be considered that of all the things in the world, nothing is considered less powerful than loneliness. In fact, the entire song shows just how lonely Pink feels, and how said loneliness has made him feel powerless.
Powerlessness is a frequent recurring element in The Wall, especially in the title itself. Of course, loneliness can be traced as far back as track 3: Another Brick in the Wall Part 1, especially in the film version. What happens is that Pink's mother leaves him at a playground to go shopping, and, since he does not have a father due to his father's death in the war, attempts to play with another child's father instead. When it becomes clear that the father already has a child of his own to look after, Pink goes to a swing by himself, looking at the other children with a look that tells us from the start that he already resents them for having a father and being able to live a happy life while he suffers in their place.
Powerlessness is not always borne from loneliness. In fact, as a counterpoint to Weber's theory that those with power can control and influence people and the situation at hand, it stands to reason that those who are powerless clearly lack the ability to control/influence people and the current situation. This is shown with the troops in When the Tigers Broke Free Part 1. Whilst I have already stated that the generals have power over who lives and dies, here, powerlessness is shown with the forward commander. Even though he requests that "his troops be withdrawn", the generals tell him to "sit tight", showing his powerlessness to keep the Royal Fusiliers Z Brigade from dying.
Alongside a lack of control over the situation and a lack of ability thereof to influence it in the way that one desires it, powerlessness can also be shown from a psychological perspective. One such notion in psychology is that humans are powerless over how they behave; only the humanistic approach says that humans can decide how they behave. One of the approaches that correlates to that of The Wall is the psychodynamic approach, established by Sigmund Freud at the beginning of the 20th Century. Freud's main theory on behaviour was that humans were effectively powerless towards the three states of mind within their psyche: the id (aggressive, selfish and impulsive instincts), the ego (a sort of middle ground that works via activating a range of defence mechanisms) and the superego (the moral and ideal self). Of course, if he had been alive to see the film, Freud would have probably linked Pink's mother with his fear of castration via the Oedipus complex, with his father's death being the catalyst for his mother's smothering behaviour. One of the things that makes the psychodynamic approach so interesting (as far as I'm concerned) is that it has a complete assumption that humans are powerless. The other approaches also acknowledge that humans are powerless but can work around it- the behaviourist approach intially assumed that people learn behaviours from experience but Bandura identified cognitive factors that imply free will and the fact that people can think their way out of associations; the cognitive approach sees all behaviour as input-output processing and considers that humans can think before going through with a certain decision, ranging from what to eat for breakfast to even what job to apply for; the biological approach (including bio-psychology) sees behaviour as determined by physiological forces; and the humanistic approach sees all behaviour as determined by the self and any powerlessness is conciously imposed and enforced.
Aside from social and psychological powerlessness, there are also signs of physical and external powerlessness and internal powerlessness. In this case, external powerlessness can be seen in the track Nobody Home after Pink shaves his eyebrows. In his mental landscape, his younger self arrives and sees him crouched in the corner in a lunatic asylum. When one normally assumes a small position, they are effectively relinquishing every sense of authority they have to a larger, more powerful entity. This is effectively the state Pink has been reduced to, with his younger self appearing quite intimidating and unnerving. This position is also seen in Don't Leave Me Now after Pink hides in the corner in response to his hallucinatory praying mantis wife, who looks extremely grotesque and even terrifying.
Near the end of the film during the song Stop, we see Pink hunched in a toilet cubicle, saying that he "wants to go home" and "leave the show". During the song which is ludicrously short with a grand total of 30 seconds on the album, we also see our protagonist crying. This may be out of guilt for those whom he's hurt, fear of what he has become and uncertainty of the future to come, but anyone who sheds tears is not going to be very powerful. In fact, many real life rulers (Hitler, Stalin, Mao et al) reportedly did not cry, as doing so would cause people to challenge their legitimacy of authority and their right to power.
Also, people who are powerless often have a hard time establishing authority. This can happen for any reason, may it be because they are afraid to establish their own opinion, they are unnerved by the majority or are simply unable to cope with the responsibilities given to them. This is especially what Pink goes through over the course of the film, although the ability to establish authority is largely determined by the childhood they received. As Pink came from a broken home with only one parent to care for him and receiving poor education, it is quite likely he feels powerless as he was never encouraged to think for himself and keep things together. Machiavelli even states in his famous book The Prince that those who are in power often need to keep society functioning by any means necessary, regardless of whether they violate the person's morals. Civil rights author Alice Walker states that, "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." This also applies to Pink; he has never used dishonest means to make ends meet as no-one gave him the chance to use them, and because of his poor childhood thinks he does not have any power due to the harsh imbalance between him and his mother. It is also likely that her parenting methods caused him to misinterpret her intentions, which still caused him to believe that he was effectively powerless.
Comfortably Numb also has an interesting notion on powerlessness. Even though many people assume the song is about drugs, I think that it has a more existential message. The song shows Pink being resuscitated by his management in preparation for a concert later that evening; here, we already see how Pink is helpless towards his management and is unable to fight back. After he is injected with a drug (with the exact composition being left unknown), we see Pink covered in worms. To be more exact, we see him hallucinating that he is covered in worms, showing how man is ultimately powerless in the face of decay and destruction. The song also illustrates Pink's powerlessness via his thrashing about in the back of the limosine that he is more or less forced into against an unknown foe; this is implied to be a battle that he loses not because of his mental state, but because of the management forcing him to appear in the show when in all honesty he personally does not want to. This is a quite gross exarcerbation of one's instrumental power, and how misuse of it can cause people to feel powerless.
Returning to an earlier discussion point on power, it could be that power itself is powerless. As many incidents in history have proved, power without a firm belief in it is useless and very flawed. This is supposedly why the Nazis were able to overtake Germany and rule it with a totalitarian regime in 1934. It was not because any of them were weak (far from it), but because Hitler believed that he could use it to make ends meet. Conversely, Great Britain fell in the American War of Independence not because they were powerless, but because they did not believe that they could have crushed the rebels when they had the chance (although this is not a criticism of the war).
Other songs on the album are very interested in the notion of powerlessness. For example, the song "Hey You" (which starts disc 2 on the digital CD and side 3 on vinyl) shows powerlessness in Pink's situation. Whilst it is ambiguous as to what actually happens during the song, we do know that it comes after Pink isolates himself after building the titular wall, and wonders if he really made the right choice in choosing isolation over breaking it down. This is made clear by the section, "No matter how he tried, he could not break free./ And the worms ate into his brain.", in which we are told that Pink desperately tried to break down the wall in his mind, but regardless of how much effort he put in, he mentally deteriorated even further. This can imply that isolation does bring psychological powerlessness.
Powerlessness is shown in Another Brick in the Wall Part 3: Drugs, but this time, the powerlessness is less literal and more of a metaphorical powerlessness. In the song (which comes before Pink's decision to close himself off from the world), Pink sings of not having "arms around him" or not having "drugs to calm him". This can imply that he is cutting himself off from the power of the arms and drugs being able to calm him down and assumes that nothing can help him. Alternatively, the "arms around him" may indicate a desire for companionship, but since he does not want "arms around him", he is self-imposing his own need for solitude on himself, and would gladly risk powerlessness if it means being alone.
The Show Must Go On also shows a good example of powerlessness in the album, but on different levels. In the context of the album (though not appearing in the film) it takes place after Pink is injected with the drugs in Comfortably Numb, initially wanting to go home and wondering if he will be able to perform as expected before deciding to continue on with the show as promised. Also, power is shown in the musical form of the song as well. Even though Pink Floyd is a rock band and the lead singer on the song is guitarist David Gilmour, the song's powerlessness is shown symbolically through the absence of a guitar note. Whilst they had already been used in rock music before, guitars were only properly realised as a powerful instrument by guitar virtuoso Jimi Hendrix; as The Show Must Go On has no guitar, it therefore lacks the power and impact that most rock songs have. This therefore represents the loss of Pink's power almost completely before he becomes a demagogue, although I will talk about this later.
In the same way that too much power can be dangerous as it can cloud one's mind leading to very stupid decisions, powerlessness can also be dangerous as one may find themselves being too unwilling to change their situation for the better, especially if one lives under a tyrannical regime. This is common in many dystopia novels, and is surprisingly present in The Wall, with it being assumed that Waters read dystopic novels at some point or was made aware of them. (Dystopic novels are novels in which the populace lives under the control of an often tyrannical regime, usually after an unspecified event in the future causes society to change for the worse.)
Theme 6: Demagogues
Alongside the theme of powerlessness, there is also a wholly related theme of demagogues. This is also a recurring element of the album, but to a lesser degree than war, the Establishment, adult-child relations, male-female relationships and a sense of powerlessness.
We first see the theme of the demagogues in the first song on the album: In the Flesh?. In the song, after the violent riot, we see Pink in his demagogue uniform, although it should be noted that the song could take place after Pink's wall has come down, alluding to Nemcoff's idea of The Wall being cyclical. Anyway, a demagogue, according to an internet description, is a political leader who gains power by appealing to the people's needs and promising to overturn injustices, rather than using a logical argument. One famous demagogue in history is Hitler, whom Pink more or less psychologically becomes later on in the story.
Back to In the Flesh?, we see Pink's audience mesmerised at his power- social psychologist Milgram would have explained this as being due to Pink wearing a uniform showing his authority and Bandura would have explained it as Pink appearing as attractive and having a high status (at least in his fans' minds). This is the earliest time that we see the theme of a demagogue, although this takes place at the end of the story as far as Pink is concerned.
Aside from the historical context of Pink's birth during the Second World War, demagogues go relatively unmentioned until the second half of the album. We first see Pink's transformation at the end of Is There Anybody Out There?, wherein Pink shaves his eyebrows in order to escape his humanity. This is the beginning of his transformation into his dictator persona, which then finishes in Comfortably Numb after he receives the drug from his doctor. During the song In the Flesh, we see a Hitleresque Nuremberg rally, which according to Waters in one of the film's documentaries "shows a great evil". The song is meant to be a parody of racist attitudes and xenophobia; to present this, Pink calls for all the minority groups ("Jews", "coons" et al) to be driven "up against the wall", and later states that "If I'd had my way, I'd have all of you shot!", which hammers home how silly and how evil racism is, especially Hitler's own anti-Semitic attitudes.
Following on from In the Flesh to Run Like Hell, we see Pink's thugs persecuting several minority groups, with the thugs creating absolute chaos and anarchy throughout the town. Whilst we are not told where the town is, it is likely that it is in Los Angeles. One thing of note is that all the minority groups are black, and whilst I have to state that I am by no means racist myself, I find the scene to be a very accurate and chilling portrayal of just how far demagogues can go to twist the truth. In fact, most of Hitler's manipulation of the German people during the 1930s was largely propaganda created by his colleague Josef Goebbels about how the Jews were responsible for all of Germany's misfortunes. Whilst the propaganda was initally met with a quite cold response, the German people eventually gave in and accepted that the Jews were responsible even though it was a blatant lie. This is reflected in the lyrics of In the Flesh, which seem to "advise" Pink's followers to not accept those who are minorities.
This comes to a head during Waiting for the Worms, which is when Pink's demagogue "mask" starts to crack. The song references several minority groups and Pink's "mission" to clear them out, saying that he and his goons are "Waiting for the queers and the coons and the Reds and the Jews", which does have Nazi basis in fact. Many of the groups that Hitler considered as untermenschen were black people, homosexuals, Communists and Jews, saying that they were unworthy to even live, resulting in the Holocaust, which was in actuality genocide. Pink also mentions "waiting for the Final Solution to strengthen the strain", which Hitler enacted to ethnically cleanse Europe of "undesirables". This is present during Waiting for the Worms, but to a lesser degree. Another of the lyrics is "Do you want to send our coloured cousins home again, my friend?", which is another parody of racist attitudes towards black people.
Demagogues play a pivotal role in the story of The Wall. They both help set up the historical context of the album (as Pink is born in WWII), but also as a chilling reminder that people can easily become demagogues, as a tool to address a power imbalance.
Imagery
Now we will look at the imagery in The Wall. The album is shown to be rich in symbolic and metaphorical imagery, helping people not just look at the blatant meanings of the work, but also look at the deeper meanings behind the veil. One of the frequently recurring images in the work is that of hammers, and they play a very important role.
Hammers have a twofold purpose in the world. They are often associated with building and are construction tools, but are also associated with decay, destruction and violence. This is shown during the song Another Brick in the Wall Part 2: Education. There are both hammers working the grinder that the students blindly walk into, destroying them, and hammers that the students use to lay waste to the school, destroying it. This aspect of destruction is referenced in Waiting for the Worms, in which we see the most famous animated piece by Scarfe: hammers doing the goose-step. This is a further indication of the dark parody of Nazism, and that xenocide is never acceptable.
Another recurring image throughout The Wall is that of worms. Worms also help the world on a cyclical basis; that is, they both create and destroy. Worms are often associated with death and decay, and this is commonly implied to be a bad thing. However, worms could be useful in the world. In one instance, they do destroy living organisms and break them down, but they still create- in this interpretation, they create a food source for life to exist.
The worms first appear on the film during Another Brick in the Wall Part 2: Education when the students blindly walk into a meat grinder, destroying them and turning them into worm-shaped "meat". This is symbolic of how the government creates ideal citizens by destroying individuality, and how schools in the 1950s and 1960s destroyed the students, turning them into conformist "puppets" and sending them off to university to "do well". This is an example of when destruction goes too far. In spite of this premature introduction, their lyrical introduction into the album is on the cut song Hey You. During the bridge, the narrator sings "No matter how he tried he could not break free,/ And the worms ate into his brain.", representing the destructive nature of Pink's wall.
Worms play a large role in the aptly-named Waiting for the Worms. Here, the power the worms have is shown through the dark parody of Nazism and xenophobia, where they are interpreted as a symbol of evil and destruction. The worms are shown to be associated with Pink and his neo-Nazi goons, destroying the old order and creating a new order. This alludes to the common interpretation that worms are evil and can do nothing besides destroy.
Destruction is a common theme throughout The Wall. For example, there is physical destruction shown in The Thin Ice, which is the aftermath of the Battle of Anzio; during the song, we are treated to several shots of the physical carnage of war. Physical destruction is also represented in Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 when the students rebel, creating complete anarchy in the classroom, resulting in the school being burned down. There is also psychological destruction shown in Mother with Pink's mother. She is implied (at least in Pink's eyes) to smother him, which represents a harsh and destructive society and failure to live up to society's expectations of you. Comfortably Numb also shows psychological destruction in the drug Pink is given, which is shown to be very dangerous as it heralds his transformation into his demagogue persona, and also in the title, which is an oxymoron. One cannot normally be comfortable and numb, but one with a fractured mind may see numbness as being comfortable as they do not feel the pain of life. The numbness comforts them and cares for them. Another aspect of destruction is sociological destruction, wherein people destroy the order that allows society to function. This is shown in Run Like Hell when Pink's goons rampage through Los Angeles, picking on minority groups and creating absolute chaos, making it impossible for society to function properly.
Waiting for the Worms also shows an aspect of destruction, but here, the song shows the result of an extreme political group and the destructive consequences they bring. In this instance, it shows the consequences of the neo-Nazi goons and the implications they bring for society. It also shows the corroding effects of the wall on Pink's mind, hence why he is "waiting for the worms" to come and destroy it. Here, the worms are seen as being a force that erodes and destroys, like with Pink's goons eroding away the social order and establishing a new social order. This shows how powerful destruction is.
Another frequent image throughout The Wall is simply that of a wall. Walls are often associated with the power of protection and comfort, but can also be quite dangerous. Alongside protecting people, walls are often used to separate, having the power to lock people out and keep people in. They also have the power to divide frontiers, as they are used to keep out undesirables. One famous example was the Berlin Wall, which had the power to isolate.
Walls are often used in time of invasion as a barrier to keep out an invasion force, according to .com. In this case, they keep the people being protected inside and keep the invaders outside. They can also be beneficial to the people, and can help them feel protected.
In The Wall, walls are often depicted in the sense of isolation. This is effectively what happens to Pink; upon choosing to go through with building the titular wall, this results in his resulting insanity and eventually causes him to re-evaluate himself through a self-imposed trial. This is when walls are depicted as being dangerous, as they are shown to cause adverse effects.
Theme 7: The Justice System
Last but not least, we come to the final track on the album, The Trial. This at the end of the flashback in The Wall, wherein Pink wonders if he really did the right thing in choosing his own isolation from the world. This forces him to put himself on trial and put himself at the mercy of the very people who hurt him. Of course, these people are the main key figures in his life besides the attorney and the Worm Judge: the teacher, wife and his mother.
Right away we are shown the instrumental power of the three "accusers", as if they've all listened to Pink before, but now he will listen to them. This is also shown with the attorney, who resembles a caricature of the traditional 19th Century attorney: wig, long cape, formal outfit etc. This serves to exemplify that it is a court, and thus it is a very formal situation in which the accused are expected to listen to all that they have to say. However, it could be said that the song is a parody of a genuine law court, as the animated sequence instead shows it as a concert stadium instead of a court of law, and with Pink's utterly heinous crime of "showing feelings of an almost human nature".
The attorney then moves on to the teacher, and I consider this segment to be the most interesting. If you recall, teachers and attorneys are very important figures in society: attorneys are influential figures in law courts and teachers are authority figures in schools. Whilst we are already made aware that there is a power imbalance in the teacher's own life between him and his wife (The Happiest Days of Our Lives), it is in this song that we get overt confirmation of this power imbalance. This is exemplified by the teacher being portrayed by a marionette controlled by his wife, who is shown as being quite ugly and grotesque.
The Trial is also a good example of a kangaroo court. A kangaroo court, if you are unaware of the term, is a court where the accused are always found guilty and evidence is tampered with by the prosecution and the defence. This is what we see in The Trial, especially with Pink's so-called offence of showing human emotion. Also, we see no-one actually defending Pink, which is actually very terrifying if you consider that it is a self-imposed trial.
Kangaroo courts are also relevant to my interest in power. In such a court, the accused are often powerless to speak out, mainly due to the grossly distorted power imbalance towards the accused and the rest of the court. This is shown in Pink's case with him being rendered as a small, motionless doll hunched up against the court wall. During Pink's own segments, he laments his own powerless, in the first chorus saying that he's "truly gone fishing", and that "they must have taken [my] marbles away". This is a common metaphor for insanity, showing Pink's powerlessness over his own sanity.
Pink's wife then takes up the reins, but this time clearly showing the power balance by using the entirety of her segment to verbally thrash him. This moment is considered by me to be a consolidation of the betrayal that Pink experienced when he discovered his wife cheating. Freud called this denial and displacement; denial as he refused to accept his wife being a cheater and thus orientated it from her perspective, and displacement as he would be the one verbally thrashing her for the betrayal if the circumstances were reversed. These, according to Freud, are defence mechanisms that the ego uses to manage the conflict between the id and the superego. The song in fact does take on Freudian undertones, with Pink's mother and the Worm Judge representing the id, the attorney and Pink's wife representing the ego and Pink's teacher representing the superego. However in this case it would be quite easy to see the wife's desire for revenge and her need for its instant gratification, making her the id instead. Some choice quotes she lays are "have you broken any homes up lately?", "you should have talked to me more often than you did", and "you had go your own way", which gives the all too subtle implication that Pink was not that loving towards her, instead choosing to do his own things which cost him his marriage. This highlights the power imbalances between the sexes, as it shows that Pink is all too easily overcome with power. As the saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
After the wife's torrent of verbal abuse, we then get the mother, which is one of the most weirdest sequences ever as Western animation goes during the 1980s. We first see the mother ejected from part of the court wall as a German bomber, showing the power of war not only on soldiers but also on civilians, which can show that the nationwide trauma after World War II still had yet to fade even well into Pink's adulthood. But the arguably most weirdest segment comes when Pink's mother, for no explanation, turns into a talking vulva which embraces Pink. This is shown to be, in Freud's mind, the power of the parents over the children and the result of a failed conflict during child development. The reason that Pink's mother turned into such an obscene thing may be due to the fact that Pink's father died, meaning that Pink did not have a rival in love for his mother. Freud suggested that during child development all children experience feelings for the parent who is their gender opposite and a murderous hatred for the parent who shares their gender. For example, boys like me would gain a love for their mother and a hatred for their father (the Oedipus complex) whilst girls would develop a hatred for their mother and love for their father (the Electra complex). As Pink's father died, he had no-one to displace his sexual attraction onto, hence why he presumably sees his mother as a talking vulva. The segment is devoted to the concept that adults have power over children, with Pink's mother wondering he "ever had to leave [me]", being somewhat oblivious to the fact that children (unless they cannot or do not want to) must leave their parents at some point. This is shown through Pink's mother cradling him in what appears to be a comfortable home with a roaring fire, which shows the power of home as it protects people and keeps them safe from harm.
When the mother's segment finishes, Pink once again sings of his insanity and powerlessness, but this time stating that there are "bars in the window". This exemplifies the nature of Pink's powerlessness, in the sense that he feels trapped and cannot do anything to try and escape. He also states that "there was a door there in the wall when [I] came in", with this assuming that if he was able to lock himself in, then he would be able to assert his power and find a way out. People often feel powerless if they are trapped and cannot find a way out of their "prison", but even though Pink acknowledges his powerless, it can be assumed that he can find a way out but chooses not to as the purpose is to re-evaluate his decisions.
On the subject of re-evaluating his decisions, the very next character is that of the Judge. The Judge has a very alien character design, originally being shown as a worm presiding over the court, but then transitions into a pair of buttocks with backwards facing legs. This can be inferred as a joke saying that the Law is "an ass", which I think may be accurate given that the song is about a kangaroo court. The Judge is shown to have immediate prestige as his lines are sung in an upper-class English accent and the lines are written in a very formal style, and as per the rules of discourse has a French/Latinate vocabulary. His power is shown via his deep baritone voice, albeit with added distortion to make him appear menacing and terrifying. Also, he has instrumental power as he is basically in charge of the entire court, which would not be all that suprising as his role is to deliver judgement upon the guilty. His first lines upon entering into the song are that "the evidence before the Court is incontrivertible- there's no need for the Jury to retire." This is a typical example of a biased judge as they often do not allow the jury time for deliberation on the guilty person's offence regardless of their crime. However, it could be indicative of an attack on the British judicial system and the notion of them having absolute power, as if Waters thinks that the very idea is absurd and improper. Also, one thing that casts the Judge in mystery is his paradoxical and conflicting nature- we know that he is a product of Pink's wall and is going to deliver his just punishment for showing human emotions, but shouldn't he actually reward Pink for expressing himself as an individual in an especially conformist era of Britain's history? Also, Pink's punishment to "tear down the wall" and to be "exposed before [his] peers" is ironic for a persona primarily based around social isolation and psychological decay.
It could be argued here that the overall weirdness of the song could be based around the psychodynamic theory suggested by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. Jung's theory was that the human mind had two halves: the mostly conscious lighter side and the mostly unconscious shadow that Jung stated was everything that the person struggled or outright refused to accept about themselves. Between these two is the central conscience that is similar to Freud's id, ego and superego. It could be said here that the power of the Judge could be the power of a person's conscience instead, with the Judge ultimately punishing Pink for isolating himself from the world but simultaneously rewarding him for facing all of his "deepest fears". This is what humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow referred to as self-actualisation, becoming what you are capable of by yourself. It could be implied that Pink could have been a social person all this time, but his childhood experiences and his wife's infidelity caused incongruence between Pink and his ideal self. Only upon facing it does Pink have the power to start again.
Of course, it can also be interpreted that it is a power struggle between Pink and his mind. This can be shown with the fact that Pink puts himself on trial after his transition into the demagogue and the imaginary conquest of Britain during Waiting for the Worms, which can imply that Pink is actually a very nice person in reality, but his experiences and his personal conflict with his wife caused his self-concept to become bloated, which resulted in his transformation into the demagogue persona. This was exacerbated by the building of Pink's psychological wall, which eventually resulted in Pink putting himself on trial and self-mediating on whether his decisions were in fact justified by his actions. Only by declaring himself guilty did Pink realise that the wall was destructive and incongruous with his actual self, but only when he realised how far he had gone. Whilst Pink arguably loses the power struggle, it can be inferred that this actually helped him to gain the power to restart his life and his relationship with his wife. Whilst Pink did not receive any positive regard for his efforts as a child, he still realised the error of his ways. It just took a long time to realise it.
Conclusion
Therefore, we can conclude that The Wall is a foray into power.
Acknowledgements
I have to give thanks to these sources, without whom the essay would be impossible:
Pink Floyd – The Wall (1982 film)
The Wall (1979 album)
Tearing Down the Wall: The Contemporary Guide to decoding Pink Floyd The Wall one Brick at a Time (Nemcoff)
Roger Waters: The Wall (2014 film; released on DVD 2015)
The Making of Pink Floyd The Wall (Scarfe)
Democratic Underground
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farminginthe70s/worldevents_
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