Italian
The English word wall derives from the Latin vallum and means wall.
Hadrian’s Wall is a long and imposing fortified structure commissioned by the Roman Emperor Hadrian and built in the first half of the 2nd century AD. It did not represent a boundary in the sense that the Romans understood the term limes — that is, a line determined by geophysical barriers such as rivers or mountain ridges — but a defensive barrier that separated the civilized world from the chaotic and disorganized realm of the dark and rugged “barbaric” world.
This is the meaning of wall, or rampart: more commonly, fence. Taking shelter behind a wall becomes a pathological defensive mode when one fears the world and others beyond the wall, but also when one believes oneself to be superior and better. The wall is also a very evident signal directed at others: it manifests one’s unwillingness to embrace novelty and the arrogance of asserting a presumed superiority.
The Berlin Wall represented, from the post-war period until its fall, an insurmountable barrier meant to protect citizens from capitalism and assert the superiority of the communist model. Erecting walls or fences means, even today as in ancient times, the manifest will not to be contaminated by the other and to preserve one’s cultural and social identity intact. Enclosing one’s living space means excluding and excluding oneself: identity becomes almost sacred and does not tolerate interference. Those who enter your space must die — this extreme image expresses the rigidity of rejection.
The wall as defense and prison is also proposed in the song by the English rock band Pink Floyd:
«after all, you’re only another brick in the wall»
(«after all, you’re only another brick in the wall»).
The wall is brought down by removing one brick at a time. It is true that if we tear down the wall, we remain exposed, unprotected: we feel naked like Adam and Eve. This is what happens in illness, especially mental illness: isolation, narcissism, dependence on a single perspective of existence. With healing, we become more fragile but alive — without dependencies and without justifications, fully present and vital.
