From Charles Dickens ...
In the book Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens set the stage for Pink Floyd's epic open-air rock opera The Wall. Dickens wrote about a gentleman who had been thrown into Debtor's prison for twenty-three years, and who, when he came out of it, began to build walls in his imagination.
In a chapter entitled "Castle in the Air," Dickens wrote about the imaginary constructions the mind will make to wall in--or to wall out--emotion. Before we get to that chapter, though, let's see how our protagonist came to building a castle in the air.
Edward Dorrit had been a gentleman of some means and manner before a business set-back sent him to the Marshalsea debtor's prison. Cast into this position, he employed a fiction to maintain his dignity. As the most prominent member of that "College," he would accept "testimonials" from other "collegians." Basically, he was begging from beggars. Using that fiction, though, he was able to outwardly manifest a degree of dignity. Yet, whenever he was reminded of his actual position, he broke down and wept.
As fortune would have it, he would have a great fortune after twenty-three years in the Marshalsea as the previously unknown heir to an astonishingly large estate. He was released from prison, regained his status as a "gentleman" and traveled the world to run from his past. As he ran, the memories of prison ran alongside. He began to see slights in the actions of others who could not possibly know he had once begged from beggars in the Marshalsea Prison. Characters from his past also cropped up to remind him of those prison walls. And so we come to the chapter entitled "Castle in the Air," in which Dickens wrote:
"Mr. Dorrit, in his snug corner, fell to castle-building as he rode along. It was evident that he had a very large castle in hand. All day long he was running towers up, taking towers down, adding a wing here, putting on a battlement there, looking to the walls, strengthening the defences, giving ornamental touches to the interior, making in all respects a superb castle of it...." |
Dickens had his protagonist swell his dignity with some costly purchases in a fine Parisian jewelry store, so that his "castle" grew:
"... As he strolled back to his hotel afterwards he carried his head high: having plainly got up his castle, now, to a much loftier altitude than the two square towers of Notre Dame.
Building away with all his might, but reserving the plans of his castle exclusively for his own eye, Mr. Dorrit [set off] for Marseilles. Building on, building on, busily, busily, from morning to night. Falling asleep, and leaving great blocks of building materials dangling in the air; waking again, to resume work and get them into their places."
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He was building a castle in his mind to protect him from the memories, his secret shame. The next chapter is ominously entitled, "The Storming of the Castle in the Air." In it, the construction of the imaginary castle has finally driven the old prisoner mad, and he dies shortly afterwards, attended by his loving daughter, Little Dorrit:
"Quietly, quietly, all the lines of the plan of the great Castle melted, one after another. Quietly, quietly, the ruled and cross-ruled countenance on which they were traced, became fair and blank. Quietly, quietly, the reflected marks of the prison bars and of the zig-zag iron on the wall-top, faded away. Quietly, quietly, the face subsided into a fair younger likeness of her own that she had ever seen under the grey hair, and sank to rest."
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I am quite sure that Charles Dickens detractors, if there are any, would be spurred on by envy if for one reason: In the 1800s, he wrote about everything. He didn't miss anything. I'm a great admirer of his work, but that makes even me a little jealous.
... To Pink Floyd ...
Pink Floyd chose a wise course. They took a few of the most imaginative stories told by the greatest storyteller of all time and set them to music. You can see Oliver Twist and David Copperfield in "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)/We Don't Need No Education." The grand theme of the rock opera, of course, was the wall itself, and like Dickens, Pink Floyd had its protagonist, a character by the name of "Pink," erect it and then have it come down.
I've tried to discover if any of the members of Pink Floyd have acknowledged a Dickens influence in their rock opera, but I haven't located anything helpful in that direction. Perhaps the Dickens stories have become so much a part of the British subconscious there needn't be an overt influence? I don't know. In the material I have viewed, the major influences discussed included a bad touring experience in stadiums involving rabid fans (and Roger Waters' disdain for them), and the legendary breakdown of former Pink Floyd leader Syd Barrett. Here are some sample lyrics from The Wall:
Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
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Hey You
Hey you, out there on your own
Sitting naked by the phone
Would you touch me?
Hey you, with your ear against the wall
Waiting for someone to call out
Would you touch me?
Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone?
Open your heart, Im coming home.
But it was only fantasy.
The wall was too high,
As you can see.
No matter how he tried,
He could not break free.
And the worms ate into his brain.
Hey you, standing in the road
always doing what you're told,
Can you help me?
Hey you, out there beyond the wall,
Breaking bottles in the hall,
Can you help me?
Hey you, don't tell me there's no hope at all
Together we stand, divided we fall.
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The Trial
Good morning, Worm your honor.
The crown will plainly show
The prisoner who now stands before you
Was caught red-handed showing feelings
Showing feelings of an almost human nature;
This will not do.
Call the schoolmaster!
I always said he'd come to no good
In the end your honor.
If they'd let me have my way I could
Have flayed him into shape.
But my hands were tied,
The bleeding hearts and artists
Let him get away with murder.
Let me hammer him today?
Crazy,
Toys in the attic I am crazy,
Truly gone fishing.
They must have taken my marbles away.
Crazy, toys in the attic he is crazy.
You little shit you're in it now,
I hope they throw away the key.
You should have talked to me more often
Than you did, but no! You had to go
Your own way, have you broken any
Homes up lately?
Just five minutes, Worm your honor,
Him and Me, alone.
Baaaaaaaaaaabe!
Come to mother baby let me hold you
in my arms.
M'lud I never wanted him to
Get in any trouble.
Why'd he ever have to leave me?
Worm, your honor, let me take him home.
Crazy,
Over the rainbow, I am crazy,
Bars in the window.
There must have been a door there in the wall
When I came in.
Crazy, over the rainbow, he is crazy.
The evidence before the court is
Incontrovertible, there's no need for
The jury to retire.
In all my years of judging
I have never heard before
Of someone more deserving
Of the full penalty of law.
The way you made them suffer,
Your exquisite wife and mother,
Fills me with the urge to defecate!
Since, my friend, you have revealed your
Deepest fear,
I sentence you to be exposed before
Your peers.
Tear down the wall!
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Unlike Dickens, who used a single--though continual and wearing--experience to cause the eventual mental breakdown of Edward Dorrit and the building of "Castles in the Air," Pink Floyd described a number of different experiences that added "bricks" to their protagonist's "wall." Those experiences included wrenching school days, the death of a father, a failed marriage, and a too-clingy mother. In the lyrics to "The Trial" quoted above, you can hear the schoolmaster, the wife and the mother testify inside "Pink's" mind. Both of the artists described a process that lasted decades, culminating with the walls coming down.
I hope you have enjoyed my trifle. Charles Dickens and Pink Floyd, on the other hand, were not dealing with a small topic. I think they were brave artists for venturing into the darkness as they did. The sad kind of madness that overtook Edward Dorrit must have created a sensation when it first began to appear in monthly newspaper serials in 1855. Not too long before that story circulated, insanity was likely treated by a majority of the population as some kind of demonic possession. And, although I don't think you can sell too little gloom to teenagers and young adults, the sheer visual and sonic assault from Pink Floyd attacking an often-shunned subject matter could have been a huge critical and financial disaster if not done carefully. It ended up a critics' Top 100 album with over 23,000,000 copies sold.
Fri Dec 19, 2014 at 6:14 PM PT: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used the same mechanism in one of his Sherlock Holmes mysteries. In The Adventure of the Three Garridebs, Mr. Nathan Garrideb was the victim of a hoax, that, in short summary, was supposed to provide him with five million dollars if he could locate a third adult male named "Garrideb." It was actually a scheme to get him out of his house so that counterfeiting equipment and counterfeit bills, hidden in the house by a previous owner, could be recovered by the hoaxer, a man who claimed to be the second "Garrideb."
Mr. Nathan Garrideb was a collector of interesting items and dreamed of using that money to add to his collection, which he could then leave to Britain in his will and become immortalized in that way. When the hoax was unveiled, and Nathan Garrideb realized his dreams were crushed, the following was noted by the narrator:
"So those were the facts about Killer Evans [the hoaxer] and his remarkable invention of the three Garridebs. We heard later that our poor old freind [the victim Nathan Garrideb] never got over the shock of his dissipated dreams. When his castle in the air fell down, it buried him beneath the ruins. He was last heard of at a nursing-home in Brixton."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, THE CASE BOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, The Adventure of the Three Garridebs (1927).