A Summary and Analysis of Sartre’s The Wall
The Wall by Jean-Paul Sartre is a short philosophical story about three prisoners, who are sentenced to death for fighting or for their relevance to the fight against the views of Francisco Franco, the Spanish Dictator. The three men, Tom, Juan, and the narrator, Pablo, are first interrogated and then placed in a cell together. Tom and Pablo have actually fought against the Dictator, whereas Juan is a young boy— the brother of a rebel. Shortly after being placed in the cell, they are told they will be killed in the morning. A doctor is also placed in their cell but instead of helping them, he only monitors their condition. The awareness of imminent death takes a physiological toll on Tom and Pablo, as Tom soils himself without noticing and in spite of the cold cell Pablo begins to sweat heavily. As he thinks back on his life, the realization that he will die in mere hours drastically alters his perspective. He no longer takes interest in his favorable memories or the people he cared about before, as he now realizes how meaningless everything is. It can be imagined that, although not stated, Tom and Juan are also experiencing this change.
Pablo is asked by the doctor whether he would like to call his lover, Concha. He thinks “last night I would have given an arm to see her again for five minutes. That was why I talked about her, it was stronger than I was. Now I had no more desire to see her, I had nothing more to say to her. I would not even have wanted to hold her in my arms. My body filled with horror because it was [sic] grey and sweating--and I wasn't sure that her body didn't fill me with horror”.1
As the night marches on, the psychological difference between the doctor and the three men grows larger; the three prisoners cannot stand, whereas the doctor is able to easily. The prisoners exhibit vastly different psychological defense mechanisms, Juan runs around waving his arms, screaming and pleading. Tom begins to smile, but Pablo decides he wants to “die cleanly”, and thus does not plead or resist in any way. When morning comes Tom and Juan are taken away by soldiers, but Pablo is interrogated once more. His interrogators want to know where his leader (Ramon Gris) is hiding. Pablo tells them he has no idea when in reality he suspects that Grisis hiding out with his cousins four kilometers from the city. Pablo is then taken to a room where he is asked to consider telling them one last time. He then realizes that he isn't refusing to tell his captors where Gris is because he honors or cares about Gris, or because he cares about the revolution. He is refusing to tell his captors where Gris is for the exact opposite reason— he doesn’t care about Gris or anything at all. When the interrogators enter fifteen minutes later, he tells them that Gris is hiding out in a cemetery, simply because he wants to waste their time. After a while, Pablo is told that he won’t be executed and that, against all odds, Gris was found hiding in a cemetery, as Pablo had said. Upon hearing this, Pablo falls over laughing.
Sartre, an existentialist, uses this story as a metaphor for his philosophy. It is hard for the reader to comprehend why Pablo wouldn’t want to call Concha, especially when he wanted to just the day before. However, Pablo simply realized how irrelevant everything is, as everyone and everything must die. Whether it be in hours or years. Just the day before, he had been living in the illusion that everything, himself included, was to last ad infinitum. But having his death sentence read to him ultimately disillusioned him and unveiled the truth.
This illusion makes it seem that the doctor has more time on the earth than the three men, however, twenty-four over infinity is practically equivalent to one hundred trillion over infinity. Meaning, even if the doctor managed to live another hundred trillion hours, in the grand scheme of things he would have lived just as long as Pablo.
Although also about fascism, Sartre’s story invites the reader to think not only about the insignificance of our lives, but also the illusion of significance that we create. The Wall also invites the reader to ponder on how useful this illusion actually is. Although it is just an illusion, it allows people to function in society, to have compassion for others, and to be happy. Then again, an existentialist would likely say that this illusion isn’t useful, as functioning in society, caring about others, and being happy does not matter if everything is insignificant anyways.
1Sartre, Jean-Paul, The Wall and Other Stories, trans. Lloyd Alexander (New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1969), 11-12.