What is the significance of the title? Hint: allusion
Throughout the poem Joy Kogawa alludes to the Berlin Wall, a fallen international barrier which was heavily guarded but still overcome. The title “Where There’s a Wall” stimulates imagery of barriers meant to separate people from one another, firmly establishing the topic. The titular phrase is also repeated twice throughout the poem, followed by detailed descriptions of how to penetrate walls. The allusion adds a real life example to the poem, in which a great wall was overcome, adding to it’s persuasiveness. This helps the title establish the penetrable nature of all walls, no matter how high, long, or heavily guarded they are.
What is the literal level of the poem?
At the literal level …show more content…
Not only do these repetitions emphasize the fact that these barriers are penetrable, but it also reveals that there are many ways to break them down. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the wall is not affected in one way alone; a different action will cause a different reaction even if they may have the same goal. “There’s a way through a gate or a door”(2) which would be the most common way through, or you could use “zeppelins, helicopters, rockets, bombs, battering rams, [and] armies”(10). Although one could overcome the wall in both ways, the reply from the wall is different in each case; in the first the wall is unharmed, but in the second case the forceful method’s “blast shatters the foundations”(13) of the wall, forever changing …show more content…
To understand the effectiveness of each method, it is important to recognize that the wall represents human emotions, something fragile and not meant to be attacked. Starting off, Kogawa suggests the upfront and likely popular method of going “through a gate or door”(2), yet as the poem progresses the means to overcome the wall become more underhanded. After this she recommends using a “ladder” to sneak past the “sentinel who sometimes sleeps” (5), in this way one can sneak past another’s emotional barrier. Taking a drastic turn for the worse, she soon proposes bombarding the wall with “zeppelins, helicopters, rockets, bombs, battering rams [and] armies”(10). This approach is quite forceful as it involves direct confrontation with a person's emotional barrier, attacking them head on and possibly hurting them permanently. Realizing this, as it’s “blast shatters the foundations” of the wall, Kogawa decides to use a more refined and appropriate approach, where one “whisper[s] by loose bricks” (16) in order to hear “the voice that calls from the belly of the wall” (22). Instead of harming the wall, one takes out the “loose bricks,” those which cause harm to the wall in turn creating an opening to pass through the
Throughout the poem Joy Kogawa alludes to the Berlin Wall, a fallen international barrier which was heavily guarded but still overcome. The title “Where There’s a Wall” stimulates imagery of barriers meant to separate people from one another, firmly establishing the topic. The titular phrase is also repeated twice throughout the poem, followed by detailed descriptions of how to penetrate walls. The allusion adds a real life example to the poem, in which a great wall was overcome, adding to it’s persuasiveness. This helps the title establish the penetrable nature of all walls, no matter how high, long, or heavily guarded they are.
What is the literal level of the poem?
At the literal level …show more content…
Not only do these repetitions emphasize the fact that these barriers are penetrable, but it also reveals that there are many ways to break them down. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the wall is not affected in one way alone; a different action will cause a different reaction even if they may have the same goal. “There’s a way through a gate or a door”(2) which would be the most common way through, or you could use “zeppelins, helicopters, rockets, bombs, battering rams, [and] armies”(10). Although one could overcome the wall in both ways, the reply from the wall is different in each case; in the first the wall is unharmed, but in the second case the forceful method’s “blast shatters the foundations”(13) of the wall, forever changing …show more content…
To understand the effectiveness of each method, it is important to recognize that the wall represents human emotions, something fragile and not meant to be attacked. Starting off, Kogawa suggests the upfront and likely popular method of going “through a gate or door”(2), yet as the poem progresses the means to overcome the wall become more underhanded. After this she recommends using a “ladder” to sneak past the “sentinel who sometimes sleeps” (5), in this way one can sneak past another’s emotional barrier. Taking a drastic turn for the worse, she soon proposes bombarding the wall with “zeppelins, helicopters, rockets, bombs, battering rams [and] armies”(10). This approach is quite forceful as it involves direct confrontation with a person's emotional barrier, attacking them head on and possibly hurting them permanently. Realizing this, as it’s “blast shatters the foundations” of the wall, Kogawa decides to use a more refined and appropriate approach, where one “whisper[s] by loose bricks” (16) in order to hear “the voice that calls from the belly of the wall” (22). Instead of harming the wall, one takes out the “loose bricks,” those which cause harm to the wall in turn creating an opening to pass through the