Significance of the Wall

Why do people build walls? I pondered this question this week. There are so many famous walls in history: Hadrian's wall, the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, the Wailing Wall, and the Veteran's Wall. With the exception of the last two, the other walls fit the stereotype. Typically, walls do three things: separate people, provide (an illusion) of protection, and distinct what is home from the foreign. As the exception to the rule, the Wailing Wall was transformed into an area to connect with God and the Vietnam Veteran's Wall has connected the nation with the brave soldiers who preserve our freedom. In the town of Wall, there are no walls that are meant to commemorate or connect people. The typical wall motif is pervasive in the novel.

The physical rock wall separates Una from Dunstan and later, Tristan from Yvaine. There are also the walls of society that pervade the book. These walls separate Tristan from the rest of the town and especially from Victoria. No matter how hard Tristan climbs, he never reaches the other side of the wall where Victoria and Humphrey are. Even Yvaine is separated from the other stars, as she shines the brightest. There are even the political walls that Septimus and Ditchwater Sal try to climb, but only end up falling to their peril.

The old guardian of the wall provides this illusion of protection. Dunstan fights him on the necessity of having a wall. If a wall just separates a field, then is it really necessary? If a person believes that a wall is protecting them, then is its function to provide the comfort of protection? Yet, this wall impedes the magical world from crossing over, as Yvaine finds out. The gaurdian complains later he had been mostly concerned with the humans going to the other side of the wall, but he should have really been worrying about the witches and what-not that was seeking to come over. However, if that hole in the wall had been properly protected, then Tristan would not have existed.

This wall theme also makes the distinction of what is home and what is foreign. Tristan is at home in the other world and is foreign to the town of Wall. Many of the events that occur in this book are on the edge of being safe/conservative (home) and being dangerous/careless (foreign) . For example, the sexual scenes in the novel are on the edge of most people's standards. There is also the landing scene where Yvaine falls, breaking her leg and screams "FUCK!" If this were truly a Victorian setting, both occurrences would not be on the edge, but far beyond redemption.