Walls: Our Worlds Foundation

Anna Grossi
1/21/2016
Walls Final Exam

Walls are everywhere. You cant simply walk outside of your house and
not see walls. Heck, even if you live in the middle of an empty desert, your
house still has them! They have winded their way through our worlds history
too. With both negative and positive effects, walls have been the foundation
of our protection, separation, and creativity for centuries.
There is not just one use for a wall. Lets use the Great Wall of China as
an example. The article Who, When and Why... says, As early as the
Warring States Periods (476 BC - 221 BC), the ruling powers began to build
walls as a defense against the northern nomadic tribes and other potential
enemies(1). The Great Wall was used as protection against invaders, but
that isnt the only thing walls are good for. Another example would be the
US-Mexico border. The desire to establish clear complete authority over the
states territory is the first factor that underlies the construction of a border
barrier (4) says the article Why Build a Border Wall?. The US-Mexico
border is used to separate two territories so that one side (the US) has
control over its land, and the other side (Mexico) has control over its land.
Those are both practical reasons for walls to be built, however. The Lennon
Wall is used as a canvas for art dedicated to John Lennon. The wall today
represents a symbol of global ideals such as love and peace, according to
Wikipedia-Lennon Wall. As you can see, walls are not just structures standing
tall and bland, separating two areas. They are used as many things, and
these are just a few of the many great examples.
The next two paragraphs will focus on one wall, and its positive and
negative effects on the people around it. For the first paragraph, I chose the
wall in the poem Mending Wall by Robert Frost. The speaker sees the wall
as something that makes a friendship with his neighbor nearly impossible,
when he says, 'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it/ Where there are
cows?/ But here there are no cows./ Before I built a wall I'd ask to know/ What
I was walling in or walling out,/ And to whom I was like to give offence (3035). The speaker is saying how he feels that animals are truly the only things
that need walls to stay separated, and how his neighbor is making him feel
as if he is being walled out of his life. What I thought about this, is that the
neighbor is trying to avoid him by building the wall again each year. Some
walls in real life keep people from ever interacting, like the one in the poem.
However, the neighbor has different ideas. He has this idea that, 'Good
fences make good neighbors' (27). The neighbor wants to keep his side free
of the speaker, almost avoiding all contact with him. If you stay on your side

Anna Grossi
1/21/2016
Walls Final Exam
and respect my side, we can stay friendly, is what I think he is really saying.
In real life I guess this is the case too. Border walls insure that one country
stays separated from the other, and keeps things from disrespecting it. Both
of the opinions in the story address real life situations, giving them an even
deeper meaning (to me, at least).
The second wall I will be focusing on is the Great Wall of China. During
the time the walls were being built, China was split into 7 different states.
These many walls were used to defend the states individually. But, in 221 BC,
Emperor Qin unified the six other states, and became Emperor of what is
now China. According to the website History of China, In order to strengthen
his newly born authority and defend the Huns in the north, he ordered
connecting the walls once built by the other states as well as adding some
sections of his own. The emperor brought together seven states (who, may I
add, were once warring) because of the wall. And now look at China! I
wonder what the world would be like if the Great Wall was never built?
However, the people who were sent to build the wall were not treated well,
and the families of the builders were devastated when they left. The builders
were given little food, little rest, and no protection while they worked. Often
they were attacked by the tribes that China was trying to keep out. When
they died, sometimes their bodies were used as building material! Gross,
right? They werent even given proper funerals, and if they werent used in
the wall, they were buried in mass graves by the building site. In the story
Meng Jiangnu Bitter Weeping, the character of Meng Jiangnu had her
husband taken away from her to build the wall. It was a hard time for Meng
Jiangnu after her husband was taken away - she missed her husband and
cried nearly every day(2) Mengs love was taken away from her, and
unfortunately that happened to almost everyone at the time. Men of all
classes were called on to work. They had no choice. As you can see, the
Great Wall did a lot of good for all of China, but not for the people who
worked on it. You could say that the positive moral here is that there is power
in unity, and the negative lesson is that it takes a lot of sacrifice to to good.
To conclude, I will say that walls have many uses. They can be good,
bad, or even both. Whether they are fictional (think of the Mending Wall
poem), or real (the Great Wall of China), walls will always have an effect on
the people around them. Throughout history many have been forgotten, but
they still were important at the time they were standing. Walls will be on this
planet until the end of the human race, as long as our need for shelter and
protection is still alive. I mean, who would want to live in a world without
walls to hold it up?