Achilles redivivus: "pink floyd: The wall" as a modern-day "iliad"

Abstract

This article elaborates on the structural, thematic and characterological similarities between Alan Parker’s Pink Floyd: The Wall and Homer’s Iliad, reading both works as epics that revolve around the hero’s wrath, its consequences and its resolution. The argument is organised around three central topics: loss as the cause of the heroes’ inaction and suffering inflicted by an inhumane power in the context of the war; law as the foundation of a social order that would redress the balance; love as the binding force of individual and collective harmony. It explains the reasons why the film, and not the album, is selected as the object of discussion before moving on to the presentation of the article’s central thesis and objectives and the justification of the choice of archetypal criticism as the methodological frame of reference. In establishing the defining features of the Achillean archetype that Parker’s film reproduces, it becomes necessary to counterbalance Achilles’ status as the example of virile might by highlighting his more human and humane dimension, the truly dominant aspect of the Iliad, already referring in passing to the similarities linking Achilles to Pink, the film’s central character. The rest of the article elaborates on how both the Iliad and Pink Floyd: The Wall feature two heroic figures that embark on a journey of self-discovery that not only entails the transformation of their subjective position inside society, but also the articulation of a set of values alternative to those that operate in their respective social formations. In developing this line of argument, the article does not lose sight of the specificities of the historical periods in which both narratives are embedded and respond to.