The Wall Jumper (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Peter Schneider
- First Published: 1982
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: The 1980’s
- Setting: West Berlin and East Berlin
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: Freedom, Communism or communists, Politics, 1980’s, Oppression, Germany or German people, Eastern Europe or eastern Europeans, Bureaucracy or bureaucrats, Berlin, Walls
- Locales: West Berlin, West Germany, East Berlin, East Germany
Characters Discussed
The narrator, an author who has lived in West Berlin for the last twenty years. Fascinated by the divisions and similarities between the two Berlins, he decides to write about someone who breaks the barrier separating East and West Berlin, a “wall jumper.” He moves back and forth between the two cities, visiting friends and hearing their stories of such jumpers, which he blends into various fantasies. He discovers that each government molds the thought processes of its inhabitants to suit its peculiar social system. In the end, he finds that he cannot...
[The entire page is 904 words long]
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