The Wall

I had no idea that Pink Floyd's, The Wall, is about relationships.  I don't think I had watched the movie since I was in grade or high school--and possibly once in college (I have vague memories of watching the movie in a Phi Mu's room one summer).  There are some key elements to the whole--for lack of a better description--"story" (metaphor? anecdote? allegory?).  The first is, of course, The Wall.  "Of course momma's gonna help build the wall..."

It makes sense that the wall is the male psyche, and that the urge to "build the wall" (or so it is implied) is some reaction to a sense of loss of one's mother's love (specifically in the context of the movie).  More broadly, I see an identity issue here: the notion that the significant (and first) relationships that a man has with a woman in his life will somehow define who he is as a man.

But I would also be remiss not to acknowledge an historical reference in the film, namely the impact that Britain's involvement in World War II had on so many of the fatherless men that subsequently grew up in Britain during the post-war period.

You are meant to associate with the main character of the film, Mr. Floyd.  Mr. Floyd personifies both the struggles men encounter with their identity as they define it through significant relationships with women and through the loss of a fatherly role model early in life.

But relationships are tough--and nonsensical (no matter how smart or confident you are):

Day after day,
Love turns gray,
Like the skin on a dying man.

And night after night,
We pretend it's alright.

But I have grown older,
And you have grown colder,
And nothing is very much fun, anymore.

And I... can't... feel,
Below my toes coming home.

I... feel... cold as a razor blade,
tight as a tourniquet,
dry as a funeral drum.

The wall is what we build to protect ourselves from the outside world, and the bricks are our fears.  But the bricks are also excuses as to why we do not emotionally engage the real world.

And the antidote (or response) to that fear is predictability and order, personified by the fascist-appearing uniforms and decorum of Mr. Floyd after he is discovered in the hotel.  I would guess: this is man adopting a persona so as to shield his fears or by assuming some aesthetic so as to combat fear.

Because you will always fear that which you do not understand.

I suppose a point made through the inquisition at the end of the film is that--despite a man's hardest efforts--you can't sustain the wall; you must let relationships (and all they entail) in; you must confront and accept your fears; or this all will destroy you.