Summary/ Intro
Jean Paul Sartre, a great playwright philosopher, French author and public Intellectual. Sartre was
pushed into the path of being a great thinker from a young age, by his parents, who taught him math
and introduced him to classical literature. As a teenager he began consuming philosophical texts. Later
in life, he then studied and earned certificates in psychology, history of philosophy, logic, general
philosophy, ethics and sociology, and physics. In 1939, Sartre was drafted into the French army, there he
was captured by German soldiers, where he lived nine months as a prisoner of war. In 1941 Sartre was
released from German authority, shortly after he started his writing career. No doubt, Sartre pulled
heavy inspiration in his writing from his experience as a prisoner, as well as his lifetime of philosophical
thought and study. Sartre found that a more comprehensible and efficient way to convey his
philosophical ideas was by creating analogical stories. This philosophical writing technique is evident in
his first work Nausea. Where he uses the story as an example of how the idea, he is trying to explore can
manifest in the way people think and act.
The wall takes place during the Spanish civil war between the Republicans and a group formed from
Monarchists, Falangists, Conservatives, and Traditionalists called the Nationalists. The story of The Wall
begins with Pablo entering a big room, seemingly a makeshift prison lobby. The narration takes the point
of view of Pablo Ibbieta the friend of a wanted man, Ramon Gris. Pablo and two prisoners were
questioned by some prison guards, then sent a cell to await their sentence. While the prisoners awaited
their sentence overnight, in a cold hospital cellar, they familiarized themselves with each other. Juan
Mirbal, the young brother of an anarchist/militiaman and Tom Steinbock, a member of the International
Brigade, the enemy of the Nationalists.
After one night of waiting, Pablo comes to the quick realization that soon, him and his two cellmates
were all were going to be torn to shreds by a firing squad. Pablo imagines a very detailed and descriptive
image of what he thinks is his inevitable demise. “I thought how rifle bullets, or the sharp points of
bayonets would soon be sunk into this mass of tender flesh as in a lump of butter.” From this greatly
descriptive metaphor I think Pablo’s thoughts about his gruesome future become clear. The evening
after the first night, the prisoners received their verdicts, they were all sentenced to death the next
morning. What shortly ensues is playing out of the way people can respond to impending doom.
Intro to the theoretical concept
Freuds psychoanalytic theory of personality will be used to examine the characters in the wall. Freuds
theory rests on the basis that the human psyche is split into three distinctive personality components,
the id, ego and superego. An important distinction is that these are systems of thought not physical
components of the brain. The id is the primitive and instinctive part of the personality. The id is a part of
the unconscious psyche that contains all the urges and impulses, as well as the libido, a kind of
generalized sexual energy that is used for doing anything. The id is also kind of stubborn, for it responds
only to what Freud called the pleasure principle. The Id is stubborn and remains infantile, it does not
change with time or experience. The pleasure principal is the concept that all impulsive wishes should
be satisfied immediately. When the id achieves its wish pleasure is experienced, when it does not,
unpleasure or tension is experienced. The ego is the only part of the conscious personality. It's what the
person is aware of when they think about themselves. The ego develops to mediate between the
unrealistic id and the external real world. It is the decision-making component of personality. Ideally, the
ego works by reason, whereas the id is chaotic and unreasonable. The ego operates according to the
reality principle, working out realistic ways of satisfying the id’s demands, often compromising or
postponing satisfaction to avoid negative consequences of society. The ego considers social realities and
norms, etiquette and rules in deciding how to behave. The ego operates at conscious, preconscious, and
unconscious levels. The ego’s consideration of reality is conscious. However, it may also keep forbidden
desires hidden by unconsciously repressing them. Much of the ego’s functioning is also preconscious,
meaning it happens below awareness but takes little effort to bring those thoughts into consciousness.
An unintentional error regarded as revealing subconscious feelings is called a Freudian slip . The
superego consists of two components: the conscious and the ego ideal. The conscious is the part of the
superego that forbids unacceptable behaviors and punishes with feelings of guilt when a person does
something they shouldn’t. The ego ideal, or ideal self, includes the rules and standards of good behavior
one should adhere to. If one is successful in doing so, it leads to feelings of pride.
An application of the theory to the story:
From the moment he gets placed into the cell with Juan and Tom he starts having conscious gory
thoughts about exactly how he is going to die and visualizing it. For example, “I thought of bullets, I
imagined their burning hail through my body”. Since the ego resides in both the conscious thought and
the subconscious thought. Pablo’s id is having the natural response to the vast shortening of his life,
intense existential fear. He forcefully repressed his id’s natural reaction, as he thought it was the best
way to cope. “I was calm: we had all night to understand.” His calmness was a false sense as we later
find out. Pablo’s false sense of calm is the representation is the void in his personality where his id once
settled. Pablo’s ego had to come up with a sufficient rationalization in accordance with his superego in
order to make the decision to repress the id, because extensive energy in needed to do so.
Pablo’s strength to repress his id is contrasted highly with his cellmates. Since his cellmates don’t have
any strong morals in contrast to Pablo, their superegos have no power against their id’s. Pablo was able
to successfully maintain his dread in the subconscious level of his psyche, because he was operating on
the morale that he must die in place of Ramon. In contrast Juan’s super ego didn’t even try to suppress
his id. Without the superego present to pull the ego away from the id, the ego gives in to the id and
becomes susceptible to the negativity the id is perceiving. Juan’s id became ferociously gripped by fear
so strongly, Juan had accrued physical manifestations of worry and dread. “His face too thin and fear
and suffering had disfigured it, twisting all his features... he had turned grey; his face and hands were
both grey,”.
What Pablo didn’t consider is that the repression of the id by the ego without resolution takes an
immense amount of energy and is extremely taxing. He wakes up feeling crushed by a “Nameless”
weight along with being covered in sweat, as if he had been exercising as full exertion for an extended
period. A doctor entered the cell, he asked Pablo if he was cold, illuminating how much anguish Pablo is
tolerating and Pablo became infuriated. This outburst wasn’t simply a retaliation against the disrespect
the doctor gave Pablo, it was anger from is id onto his ego manifesting. If the id is forced to comply to
the will of the ego for too long, it becomes bitter resentful and rife with unpleasure. Pablo was only
projecting his anger from his id to his ego, onto the doctor, displacing his egos anger. Pablo’s id gives
him signs of its frustrations, he wakes up sweaty, tired and irritated. Pablo’s id is frustrated that his ego
is adamantly obeying the super ego regardless of how intensely the id is craved for compliance. The
negative feeling Pablo experiences over his long night of contemplation is the ids unpleasure. The
unpleasure is so strong, his body reacts physically
An unintended consequence of someone’s repression of the id is that it inflicts mental anguish onto the
person. Pablo’s ego was strong enough repress the id. The id is deemed as unimportant by the ego, even
though it’s a vital part of the personality. The ego needs the id to connect with the body’s natural
instincts such as sensual perception and love. After repression, the ego can continue to think critically
but it loses connection to the id’s instincts in order to successfully repress them. The ego relies on the id
to give the starting motivation, then tweaking and guiding the id in the right direction, using logic, to
ensure the id becomes satisfied. This system gets thrown into a disastrous mess when the ego works
against the id to repress it, this is what happened to Pablo. In trying to cope with death, Pablo repressed
his id, disconnecting him from his id. Suppression caused him great damage to his psyche, he lost the
connection to his own body, his love for his wife. “I clung to nothing; in a way I was calm. But it was a
horrible calm- because of my body; my body, I saw with its eyes I heard with its ears, but it was no
longer me; it sweated and trembled by itself, and I didn’t recognize it anymore.”
The reason Pablo was able to go through this mental battle was because of his super ego, his morality.
From Pablo’s morality and ethics, the rest of his motivations can be built. The conclusion his superego
came to was that, that he was willing to die for Ramon Gris. His id (fear of death) was working in
complete opposite to the goal of his super ego (dying for his friend). Pablo’s ego made a choice to
repress the id, doing everything possible to make sure he followed the ideals of his superego.
Pablo goes through immense struggle for his ideal, to keep Ramon Gris alive. Pablo withstands the
incredible mental battle that is disconnecting from his own body, while being aware that he is going to
die. This is a beautiful example of how strong the superego is when an ideal is meaningful enough.
Which makes the ending all more brutal. In the final moments before Pablo is going to be executed the
Nationalist guards give Pablo a final request for the whereabouts Ramon Gris. They relay a final time
that if Pablo gives up Ramon he will be spared. After the guards ask Pablo a final time, Pablo has a
Freudian slip. Pablo, knowing he is going to die tries to play one final joke on the guards. He sends them
to a hiding spot he thinks he is sure there is no chance they will find Ramon. They leave swiftly, Pablo
being satisfied of his tomfoolery. Only to find out, when the guards came, he made a fatal error; they did
find Ramon Gris. All his efforts to strive for a noble ideal, repressing his id, were futile. For the instinct to
survive trumps all else.
citations
Biography.com Editors. “Jean-Paul Sartre.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 16 Apr. 2019,
https://www.biography.com/scholar/jean-paul-sartre.
Sachs, Murray. “." Reference Guide to Short Fiction. . Encyclopedia.com. 7 Oct. 2022 .”
Encyclopedia.com, Encyclopedia.com, 13 Oct. 2022,