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The idiom “drives me up the wall” means that someone behaves in a way that exasperates you to the point of frustration beyond reason. You drive someone up the wall when you push them to the limit. That can be either mentally or emotionally.
It’s a vivid image that suggests the picture of someone being forced to climb up a wall in a bid to escape. The idiom is used to describe someone’s behaviour or actions as highly infuriating, even more than annoying.
Examples are behaviour such as interruptions, noise-making, repetitive questions etc. Those things could drive someone up the wall. It is a very common idiom and everyone knows what the effect is on the speaker when told that their behaviour is driving someone up the wall.
Origin of the Idiom “To Drive Someone Up the Wall”
The origin of the idiom is not very evident, as it doesn’t appear to have a documented history but it most likely comes from the vivid visual image of someone climbing a wall out of frustration. It likely originated in America in the early years of the twentieth century to describe extreme frustration. In time, driving someone up the wall became a colourful way of describing that intense irritation. Due to its hyperbole it’s a humorous way of illustrating the emotional impact of being pushed to one’s limits.
The Shakespeare Connection
While the expression “to drive someone up the wall” was not directly used by Shakespeare, its vividness and emotional height are right in place in Shakespeare’s works. Shakespeare had that knack of getting human frustration or agitation across as would be understandable in modern colloquial speech.
For instance, the characters in comedies like Antipholus of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors and Dromio of Ephesus in the same play are driven into near madness through the ridiculous misunderstandings and mayhem around them. Their frustration, articulated with wit and sometimes over-the-top dialogue, could echo the meaning of being “driven up the wall.”
Shakespeare also used body and space metaphors in expressing states of minds. In Hamlet, for instance, the downfall into madness by Ophelia is realized by images of rising and falling, overwhelmed. In King Lear, frustration on the part of Lear with regard to his daughters carries the sensation of a person being pushed toward the limits of sanity, like metaphorically, climbing the walls of his mind.
“Drives Me Up The Wall” in the Media
Music
The idiom “to drive someone up the wall” seems to have entered music, too. That is, expressing frustration or irritation in such a way that it can be remembered easily. One of many examples is probably the song Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? by The Beatles, which appeared on their 1968 White Album. Although the phrase itself isn’t used, the song’s repetitive, almost maddening simplicity captures the essence of being driven to exasperation.
Also, punk and rock genres, meant for raw expressions of emotion, have adopted the idiom’s sentiment. For example, The Ramones have many songs that were high-energy, fast-paced tracks with lyrics of this feeling of being pushed to the limits-a meaning parallel to that of the idiom.
Artists like Billie Eilish are also more recently echoing such themes within the texts of their songs regarding emotional tension of being driven up the wall or annoyed. It may not be the exact phrase used, but the idea of “being driven up the wall” finds its place in music channeling frustration, hence making it timeless in expressing human feelings.
Literature
The idiom “to drive someone up the wall” has very often appeared in literature as an important way of vividly depicting frustration or irritation. For example, in J.D. Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, 1951, through the character of Holden Caulfield, who practically feels frustrated at the norms or people around him, reflects often the feeling akin to being “driven up the wall.”
Similarly, even in humorous-satirical books like P.G. In the series Jeeves and Wooster, characters in Wodehouse are often driven to distraction in a comic manner that befits the meaning of this idiom. It’s quite an informal and colloquial phrase, apt for novel dialogues where some character is irritated or saddened.
Advertising
This has been used over the years as an idiom in advertising in a humorous attempt to point out common frustrations — often to offer relief. Such was the case in the popular 1990s M&M’s advertising campaigns, which animated their candies, including one featuring a frustrated man being “driven up the wall” by his noisy neighbours, who calms down immediately after eating one of the candies.
Headache-relieving brands have also used this idiom metaphorically in ads to show tension headaches; it would mean their products take that irritation away. These campaigns take advantage of how well the idiom resonates with audiences while selling problem-solving benefits.
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