the tin druthe tin drumm

7/25/2019 The Tin DruThe Tin Drumm

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The Tin Drumopens with the line, Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital, thus setting the stage for its

unreliable narrator, Oskar Matzerath, who tells varying versions of his story throughout the book Oskar beginshis life story with his !ashubian grandmother "nna #ronski and her improbable impregnation by $oseph

!ol%ai&zek, who eludes poli&e by hiding under "nna's four skirts as she sits in a potato field (his fantasti&

&on&eption is only one of the mira&ulous events that o&&ur in the novel (he importan&e of history is evident

in Oskar's &on&ern with the an&estry details

"nna's daughter "gnes grows up into a lovely woman, falls in love with her beautiful &ousin $an #ronski, but

marries the German "lfred Matzerath, whom she nurses during the war (hroughout the first part of the novel,

"gnes is torn between these two men, %ust as the )oles are torn between Germany and )oland, and Oskar&ontinually spe&ulates on the true nature of his parentage, unable to de&ide whi&h of the two men is his real

father *hen Oskar is born, &lairaudient and with his mental development &ompleted at birth, "lfred Matzerath

promises that Oskar shall inherit the gro&ery when he grows up )referring his mother's promise of a tin drumon his third birthday, and entran&ed by the sound of a moth beating its wings against a si+tywatt light bulb,

Oskar de&ides to stay: #esides, the midwife had already &ut my umbili&al &ord (hat is a pattern with Oskar:

*henever possible, Oskar &hooses &hildhood pursuits over adult responsibilities- whenever possible, he &laims

responsibility for a&tions that have already o&&urred or that he &ould not have &ontrolled

On his third birthday, Oskar does indeed re&eive his drum, and, disgusted with the world of adults, with its

de&eption and sordidness, in&luding his mother's ongoing affair with her &ousin $an, Oskar de&ides that he willnot be&ome an adult: .e throws himself down the &ellar stairs in order to have an e+planation for his having

stopped growing at the age of three (hroughout book /, Oskar drums his way through the in&reasingly sordid

0anzig environs, paralleling the rise of 1ational 2o&ialism Germany's in&reasing aggression mirrors the

deteriorating personal moral standards of the &hara&ters Oskar's tin drum serves as an e+tended metaphor notonly for Germany's military aggression but also for all human violen&e, as well as for Oskar's refusal to grow

up

#ook 3 parallels *orld *ar II (he atta&k on the )olish post offi&e makes a partisan martyr out of Oskar'spresumptive father $an #ronski In this book, Oskar's asso&iation with violen&e and immorality in&reases,

though he does not a&tually &ommit the &rimes himself 4a defense that, histori&ally, has often been &laimed by

a&&used 1azi war &riminals5 Oskar travels with the dwarf #ebra, whom he met in book /, who is now part of$oseph Goebbels's 1azi propaganda ma&hine In 1azi uniform, Oskar tours )aris and other o&&upied territories,

playing his drum and breaking glass for the German soldiers with his voi&e Oskar's disillusionment with the

&hur&h in general, and with 6atholi&ism in parti&ular, whi&h began in book /, &ontinues until Oskar de&ides thathe himself is $esus Oskar7$esus leads a gang of %uvenile delin8uents, &alled the 0usters, inspiring them to

&ommit ever greater &rimes "fter the gang is betrayed, Oskar7$esus is put on trial but found inno&ent be&ause of

his age (his trial foreshadows the trial in book 9, in whi&h Oskar is found guilty and pla&ed in a mental

institution (he violen&e and destru&tion of book 3 in&reases, resulting in "lfred Matzerath's death "t

Matzerath's funeral, Oskar is hit in the head by a ro&k, throws himself into Matzerath's grave, and de&ides togrow, to begin a responsible, adult life

#ook 9 is the re&onstru&tion of Oskar's life, %ust as it is the rebuilding of )oland, Germany, and urope after thewar Oskar's fas&ination with women &ontinues In book /, his mother was the ob%e&t of his interest In book 3

he was interested in Maria, until she was unfaithful- then he turned to the midget ;oswitha In book 9, Oskar is

fas&inated with 2ister 0orothea, whom he never sees and with whose murder he is &harged (he details ofGrass's various postwar o&&upations appear here: Oskar be&omes an apprenti&e stonemason and a %azz

drummer Oskar also be&omes a wealthy re&ording star by taking old people, through his drumming, ba&k to

their &hildhoods Oskar spends most of book 9 ruminating about the events in books / and 3 #ook 9 is


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&onsidered, almost unanimously by the &riti&s, to be less effe&tive than the earlier parts of the novel, perhapsbe&ause Grass tries, unsu&&essfully, to show Oskar's 4Germany's5 survival despite his having be&ome deformed

during his growth spurt, or perhaps be&ause Grass la&ked the ne&essary distan&e to present his material

ob%e&tively (he film version of The Tin Drumdid not in&lude book 9, ending with Oskar's beginning to growand leaving his birthpla&e of 0anzig (he novel ends with a &hildren's rhyme about the #la&k *it&h, a line to

whi&h Oskar has repeatedly referred throughout the novel: .ere's the bla&k, wi&ked *it&h7 .a< ha< ha>, Oskar's !ashubian grandmother is sitting in a potato field, her wide skirts &on&ealing the fugitive

$oseph !ol%ai&zek from pursuing &onstables 2he thereby &on&eives Oskar's mother, "gnes In />39, in the free&ity of 0anzig, "gnes !ol%ai&zek marries "lfred Matzerath, a &itizen of the German ;ei&h, and introdu&es him

to her )olish &ousin and lover, $an #ronski, with whom "lfred be&omes fast friends *hen Oskar is born, he

soon shows himself to be an infant whose mental development is &omplete at birth

Oskar is promised a drum for his third birthday (hat drum, in its many atavisti& re&urren&es, allows him mutely

to voi&e his protest against the meaninglessness of a world that formulates its destru&tive nonsense in empty

language (he drum also allows him to re&reate the history of his &ons&iousness and to re&all in the variedmusi& of the drum the rhythms of his mind's apprehensions of the world around him On his third birthday,

Oskar, by a sheer a&t of will, de&ides to stop growing and to remain with his threeyearold body and his totally

&ons&ious mind for the rest of his life "s he later boasts, he remains from then on a pre&o&ious threeyearold ina world of adults who tower over him but are nevertheless inferior to him *hile he is &omplete both inside and

out, free from all ne&essity to grow, develop, and &hange as time passes, they &ontinue to move toward old age

and the grave

Oskar's refusal to grow, to measure his shadow by that of older persons, or to &ompete for the things they

desire, is the assertion of his individuality against a world that, mis&onstruing him, tries to for&e him into an

alien pattern .e is pleased when he dis&overs his ability to shatter glass with his voi&e, a talent that be&omes

not only a means of destru&tion, the venting of his hostility and outrage, but also an art whereby he &an &ut aneat hole in the window of a %ewelry shop, through whi&h #ronski?upon whom he heaps the filial affe&tion he

does not feel for his a&tual father?&an snat&h an e+pensive ne&kla&e for his beloved "gnes

(he later period of Oskar's re&orded e+isten&e is &rammed with outlandish events .is mother, after witnessinga revolting s&ene of eels being e+tra&ted from the head of a dead horse submerged in water, perversely enfor&es

a diet of fish on herself and dies Oskar be&omes fas&inated with the hieroglyphi& s&ars on the massive ba&k of

his friend .erbert (ru&zinski, but .erbert, who works as a maritime museum attendant, grows enamored of aship's wooden figurehead &alled 1iobe In an attempt to make love to her, he is instead impaled to her by a

doubleedged ship's a+e $an #ronski is e+e&uted after an 22 raid on the )olish post offi&e, where he had gone

with Oskar Oskar is overwhelmed with guilt after the death of his mother and that of the man who was

probably his father

In one of the most superbly preposterous sedu&tion s&enes in literature, Oskar be&omes the lover of .erbert's

youngest sister, Maria, and fathers a &hild with her Maria then marries "lfred Matzerath, and Oskar, as

prodigious se+ually as he is diminutive physi&ally, turns to the ampler &omforts of @ina Greff, whose &losetedgay husband, upon re&eiving a summons to appear in &ourt on a morals &harge, &ommits a fantasti&ally

elaborate, grotes8ue sui&ide Oskar then %oins #ebra's troupe of entertainers and be&omes the lover of the

timeless ;oswitha ;aguna *hen the ;ussians invade 0anzig, "lfred Matzerath, to &on&eal his affiliations,swallows a 1azi )arty pin, whi&h Oskar has shoved into his hand, and dies "gain Oskar feels responsible for

the death of a parent
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#efore long, against his will, Oskar begins to grow and to develop a hump .is postwar life takes him to *estGermany, where he is at various times a bla&k marketeer, a model, and a night&lub entertainer, and eventually to

0Asseldorf, where a destiny not his own &at&hes up with him in the guise of the a&&usation that he killed 2ister

0orothea !Bngetter, the woman who had been living in the room ne+t to his (he testimony of Cittlar, meant tosave Oskar 4although Cittlar earlier thought him guilty5, damns him Oskar submits to being %udged insane and

atoning for a guilt not stri&tly his be&ause of his own sense that he is guilty by impli&ation, an emblem of the

modern world even in his isolation from it

Os&ar Matzerath 4mattseh;".(5, a deranged dwarf storyteller who willed himself to stop growing at the age

of three to prote&t himself from the insane so&iety of 1azi Germany Os&ar has magi&al powers imparted to him

by a su&&ession of tin drums .e en&ounters representatives of virtually all segments of German so&iety andbeats his drum as these people a&&ommodate themselves to the 1azi regime to a greater or lesser degree

Agnes Matzerath

"gnes Matzerath, Os&ar's mother, who &arries on a love affair with her &ousin throughout the first part of thenovel "gnes and other female &hara&ters suffer the disabilities imparted by the 1azi attitude toward women,

whi&h relegates them to a subordinate position in family relationships and the workpla&e

Alfred Matzerath

"lfred Matzerath, "gnes' husband but probably not Os&ar's father "lfred is a small business owner who

willingly embra&ed the 1azi )arty long before "dolf .itler &ame to power, as did many other members of his

so&ial &lass .e is myopi& and greedy, willing to sa&rifi&e any prin&iple to gain a per&eived e&onomi& advantage

.e dies after the ;ussian invasion of 0anzig by swallowing his 1azi party badge

Jan Bronsi

$an #ronski 4yahn #;O1skee5, "gnes' )olish &ousin, her lover, and probably Os&ar's father $an is good

hearted and generous but either too dense or too indifferent to realize what the 1azi regime truly represents $anis devoted to "gnes and be&omes &lose friends with Os&ar, but he never takes a stand on politi&al or moral

issues

Mr! Be"ra

Mr #ebra 4#.brah5, a &ir&us midget who befriends Os&ar after his mother's death #ebra is an a&&omplished

artist, talented in many different fields .e is the &onsummate survivor, showing Os&ar how to a&&ommodate

himself to virtually any situation .e does not parti&ularly &are for the 1azis but is determined to adapt to any

situation

#os$itha #aguna

;oswitha ;aguna 4rohzCtah rahG*nah5, an asso&iate of #ebra who is even shorter than the midget and&apable of sleeping anypla&e at any time "lthough ;oswitha displays enough intelligen&e to realize the evil

rampant in Germany, she manages to sleep through most of the 1azi horror

%er"ert Truczinsi


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.erbert (ru&zinski 4trew(2I.12kee5, a neighbor of the Matzeraths in 0anzig "s was the &ase with manyGermans, he remained &onvin&ed that )resident )aul von .indenburg 4(he *ooden (itan5 &ould &ontrol

.itler and the 1azis after />99 (he heavily tattooed (ru&zinski be&omes enamored of the wooden figurehead

of a ship and impales himself on it

Maria Truczinsi

Maria (ru&zinski, .erbert's younger sister, who be&omes Os&ar's lover in an unlikely relationship Maria

eventually bears Os&ar's &hild and then pro&eeds to marry his father 4despite his 1azi affiliations5, who &ouldobviously provide for her and the infant mu&h more readily than &ould Os&ar

Sister Dorothea &oengetter

2ister 0orothea !oengetter 4dohroh("Dah !.1gehttehr5, a neighbor of Os&ar in postwar *est Germanyand one of the few people in the novel not impli&ated in any &ompli&ity with the 1azi regime 0espite, or

perhaps be&ause of, her goodness, 2ister 0orothea be&omes a murder vi&tim Os&ar is falsely a&&used of her

murder

'ottfried von ittlar

Gottfried von Cittlar 4GO(freed fon CI.(lahr5, an a&8uaintan&e of both 2ister 0orothea and Os&ar whose

testimony inadvertently results in Os&ar's &onvi&tion for murder

The Tin Drum Characters

Oskar, the strange boy who refuses to grow and who has been &alled a fantasy figure in the tradition of Germanfolk heroes, will remain one of the most unforgettable &hara&ters in world literature #esides willing himself not

to grow, Oskar has e+traordinary powers over people around him, as well as the ability to shatter glass with hisvoi&e Other &riti&s have likened Oskar to the artist .is tin drum seems like a toy to the adults around him- yet,it has a powerful influen&e on events In one ma%or s&ene in the novel, Oskar disrupts a 1azi rally by hiding

under the bandstand #y beating out the rhythm to E(he #lue 0anubeE he &onfuses the band and annihilates the

1azi songs *hen he shifts into a 6harleston, the spe&tators begin dan&ing and the whole spe&ta&le is ruined(he 1azis, however, set out to find leftist saboteurs and ignore little Oskar "lthough many may believe art

&annot affe&t anything important, Grass, to many &riti&s, is pointing out its power *hen Oskar be&omes part of

a traveling show, he falls under the influen&e of a dwarf, #ebra, who also &onsiders himself an artist Grassseems to be saying that artists, despite their being regarded as &urious dwarfs, not only have power, but nearly

supernatural power 6ompared to Oskar, the other &hara&ters of The Tin Drumare se&ondary (hey are always,

however, vividly drawn and powerfully imagined, in a way reminis&ent of 0i&kensFs minor &hara&ters OskarFs

family, parti&ularly his mother and grandmother, and the traveling players #ebra and ;oswitha are among apanoply of &hara&ters who keep this lengthy work &onsistently lively

GAnter Grass's i&ono&lasti& novel The Tin Drumshook the moral &ompla&en&y of the German people and for&ed

them to a&knowledge their responsibility for the triumph of 1azism arlier, Grass had won minor a&&laim for

his poetry, but in />> Group H, a German asso&iation of young artists and writers, awarded him its

prepubli&ation &ash prize for The Tin Drum *hen the novel appeared, it &aused one of the greatest uproars in

the history of German literature (ranslated into most ma%or languages over the ne+t few years, it won
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international &riti&al a&&laim Grass himself instantly be&ame the bestknown and most &ontroversial figure of

postwar German literature

In addition to Group H's prepubli&ation prize, The Tin Drumwon three ma%or international literary awards In

/>J, while Grass was a&&epting the &oveted George #A&hner )rize, members of a youth organization in0Asseldorf publi&ly burned &opies of The Tin Drum 0espite &riti&al a&&laim and many awards, Grass and The

Tin Drumbe&ame the targets of more than forty lawsuits and innumerable denun&iations in the letterstothe

editor &olumns of virtually every publi&ation in Germany )eople from all so&ial strata in Germany a&&used

Grass of pornography, blasphemy, sa&rilege, slander, defamation, and other heinous &rimes (he furor over The

Tin Drumarose from one &entral theme, that Grass refused to e+&ulpate himself or any other German from guilt

for the 1azi regime In his novel, Grass identifies 1azi affinities in most of the people and in all of the

institutions of German so&iety

6riti&s have &alled Grass's a&&ount of the 1azi era wildly satiri&al, wi&kedly humorous, and morally &hilling

Grass presents a German religious institution only too willing to a&&ommodate itself to "dolf .itler's regime

2ome of his most damning barbs are dire&ted at Grass's own 6atholi&ism, but )rotestants are not spared their

share of guilt (he pi&ture of the a&&laimed German edu&ational institution presented in The Tin Drumsuggests

that its dis&ipline and regimentation prepared the way admirably for .itler and his movement In Grass's book,

the German politi&al tradition of authoritarianism and antiliberalism almost invited a .itler to take power Grass

also showed how the 1azis &apitalized on and institutionalized a widespread view of women that relegated them

to a subordinate status in family relationships and the workfor&e In The Tin Drum, all e&onomi& &lasses in

Germany willingly sa&rifi&ed their personal freedom to gain the e&onomi& prosperity that .itler promised and

delivered In short, Grass insisted that .itler was no a&&ident but the logi&al development of German history-

therefore, all the evil of the 1azi era was the dire&t responsibility of all Germans living at the time

"fter *orld *ar II, *est Germany's new e&onomi& and military partnership with the *estern blo& engendered

an attempt on the part of many Germans to disasso&iate themselves from their &ountry's 1azi past Many

German tea&hers, historians, writers, and government offi&ials argued that .itler and his movement represented

a histori&al anomaly, not the logi&al development of German history .itler &ame to power, these apologists

maintained, be&ause of a spe&ial set of &ir&umstan&es: the German defeat in *orld *ar I and the ensuing (reaty

of Cersailles, the e&onomi& dislo&ations in Germany during the *eimar ;epubli&, and middle&lass Germans'

fear of a 6ommunist takeover (he German nation as a whole, they &on&luded, should not be for&ed to bear the

guilt for atro&ities &ommitted by a group of madmen who illegally seized &ontrol of their government

0uring the period between />H and />>, a body of literature in Germany and elsewhere propounded the thesis

that most Germans had deplored .itler and the 1azis "&&ounts of various German resistan&e groups that had


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a&tively sought to overthrow .itler appeared alongside stories of individual Germans who had helped to res&ue

$ews from deportation to &on&entration &amps German artists, writers, and s&ientists pointed out that many of

their number had emigrated shortly after .itler &ame to power Most of those who remained insisted that they

had been part of the so&alled inner emigration, that though they had remained in Germany they had never

&ooperated with the regime and had worked in subtle ways to thwart .itler's purposes

Grass portrayed those Germans who had engaged in a&tive resistan&e to .itler's regime as having been opposed

only to .itler himself and not to the substan&e of 1azism .e also dismissed those German intelle&tuals

engaged in the inner emigration as being nothing more than &ourt %esters for 1azi propaganda minister $oseph

Goebbels (aken in total, the novel &ondemned all Germans and insisted that they a&knowledge the moral and

spiritual short&omings of their institutions?it was little wonder that almost every German reader found

something offensive in The Tin Drum

0espite the &ontroversy, The Tin Drumwas widely read and dis&ussed in Germany, espe&ially by young people

4more than half a million &opies sold there during the five years following its publi&ation5 (he *est German

government began insisting that students be taught the history of the 1azi era, whi&h had been negle&ted in the

immediate postwar era In the su&&eeding de&ades, The Tin Drumand Grass's other novels and poetry be&ame

the fo&i for an entire nation as it reinterpreted its past and ree+amined the moral foundations of its institutions

"fter The Tin Drumappeared in translation in the Knited 2tates in />J/, Grass was a&&laimed by many &riti&s

as Germany's greatest living writer @iterary &riti&s in Lran&e, 0enmark, and many other &ountries went so faras to rank Grass as the world's greatest living novelist, and they praised his &ourage in raising su&h

&ontroversial issues in his own &ountry " few &riti&s were per&eptive enough to point out that the elements of

German so&iety that Grass satirized so s&athingly?whi&h, a&&ording to him, had led dire&tly to 1azism?

be&ame present in every industrialized nation in the se&ond half of the twentieth &entury "lthough Grass

dire&ted his message to Germans, many of his admirers argued that all humankind must learn from his pages or

suffer a resurgen&e of the tyranny that nearly engulfed the world before />H

Lrom earliest infan&y, the unnaturally pre&o&ious Oskar Matzerath is so appalled by the &ruel absurdities of lifethat he refuses to grow beyond the age of three 6hoosing the perspe&tive of infantile &uriosity, he instead

pro&eeds to unmask the world of the adults around him: the smallmindedness of his German father, the

sensuality and guilt of his mother, and the weakness of her ineffe&tual )olish lover 6ompensating for his own

vulnerability with sly aggressiveness, Oskar be&omes at least partially responsible for their unhappy fates

0uring the />3's and />9's, Oskar's hometown of 0anzig 4now Gdansk5 was pre&ariously per&hed between

German and )olish spheres of influen&e .is deteriorating family life represents, therefore, not only a private


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tragedy but also the histori&al &ollapse of 0anzig's German)olish symbiosis under the impa&t of 1azism and

the horrors of war "n amoral will to live makes Oskar survive the &atastrophe by alternately pra&ti&ing

strategies of a&&ommodation and rebelliousness

"t the end of the war, possibilities of a new beginning in *est Germany enti&e him to grow again "s thesehopes are 8ui&kly &rushed, his body revolts by developing a hump Infantile desires and fears reassert

themselves, and Oskar finally agrees to be &ommitted to a mental institution

(hough the hero's &hildish fas&ination with what is revolting, perverse, and sa&rilegious s&andalized many

readers, Grass's first novel was immediately re&ognized as a ma%or event in postwar German literature (he

sho&king absen&e of moral restraint in Oskar's fight with adult reality is, on the one hand, an indi&tment of that

reality's moral pretensions- on the other hand, however, it is also meant to &hallenge e+isting morality to &ome

to terms with this fi&tional world, whi&h offers few signposts for moral orientation and yet seems in su&hdesperate need of them

the Tin Drum'nter 'rass

4Lull name GAnter *ilhelm Grass5 (he following entry presents &riti&ism on GrassFs novelDie

Blechtrommel4/>>- The Tin Drum5 Lor further dis&ussion of GrassFs life and works, see CLC,

Columes /, 3, H, J, //, /, 33, and 93

1arrated by the insane dwarf Oskar, The Tin Drumin&orporates elements of German folklore and the grotes8ue

to e+plore the politi&al, e&onomi&, and so&ial &omple+ities of German life from /> through *orld *ar II and

the beginning of the German postwar E&onomi& Mira&leE 2et in 0anzig and 0Asseldorf, the story &hroni&les

the fortunes of Oskar and his family during the rise and fall of 1azism 2in&e its publi&ation, the novel has

raised profound and painful issues for &ontemporary Germans, in&luding the e+tent to whi&h the German publi&

was &ompli&it in and remains responsible for 1azi war &rimes Lor these reasons, The Tin Drumis widely

regarded as GrassFs most important, influential, and thoughtprovoking work

*lot and Ma+or Characters

The Tin Drumis narrated by Oskar Matzerath, a thirtyyearold inmate in an institution for the &riminally

insane "lthough Grass avoids a stri&tly linear narrative stru&ture, allowing Oskar to alternately dis&uss his

present situation and reminis&e about his past, the novel is divided into three &hronologi&al &omponents #ook

One begins with OskarFs grandparents and the birth of his mother, "gnes, in /> "gnes marries "lfred

Matzerath, a gro&er and future 1azi )arty member, but &ontinues her love affair with )olish postoffi&e


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employee $an #ronski, thus raising 8uestions about OskarFs paternity *hen Oskar is three years old, he de&ides

in an a&t of demoni& will, not to grow any taller or to develop physi&ally- already &onvin&ed of his intelle&tual

superiority and disgusted by petitbourgeois German so&iety, he &hooses to remain the size of a &hild and be

per&eived a freak Oskar is given a tin drum, whi&h he keeps with him as a talisman at all times .is drumming

and his preternatural ability to s&ream allow him to destroy and disrupt things, in&luding the familyFs

grandfather &lo&k, 1azi rallies, and the windows in the 0anzig state theater "fter "gnes kills herself by gorging

on fish and eels, #ook One ends with Oskar re&ounting the sui&ide of 2igismund Markus, the $ewish toy and tin

drum mer&hant, who poisons himself during the ransa&king of synagogues and $ewish businesses known

asKristallnacht;the Enight of broken glass,EKristallnachtserved as a prelude to .itlerFs attempt to e+terminate

the $ews In #ook (wo, OskarFs widowed father hires a young woman, Maria, to work in his gro&ery store #oth

he and Oskar have se+ual relations with her and she be&omes pregnant Oskar then de&ides to leave 0anzig and

devote himself to a dissolute life of se+ and thievery .e eventually returns to find Maria has given birth to

!urt, who is either OskarFs son or halfbrother "s the ;ussian "rmy enters and gains &ontrol of 0anzig in />HH,

"lfred swallows his 1azi )arty lapel pin to prote&t himself, and, in doing so, &hokes to death #ook (wo

&on&ludes with "lfredFs burial and OskarFs de&ision to stop drumming "t the funeral, Oskar throws his drum

into his fatherFs grave, and !urt hits Oskar in the head with a ro&k, &ausing him to grow #ook (hree opens in

postwar Germany "fter Maria re%e&ts OskarFs proposal of marriage, he moves to 0Asseldorf where he models at

the "rts "&ademy and lusts after a nurse, 2ister 0orothea, who lives in his apartment building .e resumes his

drumming, playing with the &larinetist !lepp at the Onion 6ellar?a popular 0Asseldorf night&lub where

Germans go to peel onions, remember the past, and &ry Oskar be&omes a widely popular performer but grows

terribly lonely One day while out walking, his rented dog presents him with a human finger it has found Oskar

keeps the finger, preserving it in a %ar Identified as 0orotheaFs, the finger?and OskarFs feelings for her?is used

to &onvi&t him of her brutal murder (he novel &loses with Oskar patiently awaiting his release from the asylum

Ma+or Themes

"s !eith Miles observes, The Tin Drumillustrates 2ene&aFs a+iom, E(he knowledge of sin is the beginning of

salvationE Grass depi&ts the sins of 1azism through OskarFs re&olle&tions of the grotes8ue publi& and personal

events that shaped his life and the lives of the people around him OskarFs re%e&tion of adulthood and his

drumming and s&reaming &an be seen as metaphors of stunted development, immorality, and senseless

destru&tion that illuminate some of the effe&ts of 1azism (he novel also addresses the role of the 6hristian

6hur&h under the 1azis Lor instan&e, Grass depi&ts a seminarian and ardent 1azi, 2&hugger, who is able to

easily re&on&ile his faith with 1azi ideology Grass also draws e+pli&it and ironi& parallels between Oskar and

$esus, showing how the former be&omes a savior7fAhrer figure for a band of boy thieves during the war Linally,

Grass e+amines German alienation in the postwar era through OskarFs aimless wanderings in #ook (hree


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GrassFs pessimism about GermanyFs future is refle&ted in the fa&t that although Oskar tries to &ope with the

&hanges wrought by GermanyFs defeat and e&onomi& revival by returning to the old &omforts of his drumming,

he repeats the sins of the past with the murder?and morbid fas&ination with the dismembered appendage?of

2ister 0orothea

Critical #ece,tion

The Tin Drumbe&ame a literary and &ommer&ial su&&ess soon after its publi&ation in />> Many &riti&s noted

that GrassFs provo&ative, &riti&al, and parodisti& use of fantasy and German folklore makes e+pli&it and subverts

the ways in whi&h the 1azis employed the language and images of German ;omanti&ism as a way of

legitimizing their destru&tive ideology Lor e+ample, Oskar fre8uently refers to the #la&k 6ook or #la&k *it&h,

a folklori& figure of evil, who seems to guide his life, appearing at su&h signifi&ant events as "gnesFs death and

in the brooding spirit that hovers overKristallnacht 2ome &riti&s, su&h as ;i&hard . @awson, dis&uss thepi&ares8ue &hara&teristi&s of the novel, des&ribing Oskar as a grotes8ue variation on the &lassi& pi&aro, a ras&al

and &unningly industrious individual who lives by his wits Oskar has also been des&ribed as an epi& hero with

demigod traits due to his ability to survive and even mat&h the threats of 1azism 6riti&s point out, however,

that GrassFs te&hni8ue of moving ba&k and forth in time and mi+ing fantasy and reality &an be &onfusing to

some readers (he matter is further &ompli&ated by OskarFs unreliable narration, whi&h?given that Oskar is

insane?&ontinually for&es the reader to assess the vera&ity of what he is being told Most &riti&s agree,

however, that The Tin Drumis a literary masterpie&e, arguing that its te&hni8ue and its grasp of histori&al reality

make it utterly original

-Danzig

N0anzig or Gdansk 40"1zik- G.danshk5 Ma%or )olish port on the #alti& 2ea that has a long and &olorful

history dating from the tenth &entury "t times through the ages Germany &ontrolled the &ity, and it was &alled

0anzig 0uring other periods it was a &itystate known as Gdansk In />9>, when Germany invaded )oland andseized Gdansk, its name was again &hanged to 0anzig "fter *orld *ar II it be&ame a part of )oland and was

again &alled Gdansk, whi&h has &ontinued to be its name

GAnter Grass was born and grew up in this &ity, where his parents owned a gro&ery store (he opening se&tion

of The Tin Drumoutwardly re&alls Grass's early years through the voi&e of his fi&tional narrator, OskarMatzerath @ike Grass, Oskar was born in the />9's .is parents also operate a small gro&ery store, and mu&h

of the first part of the novel takes pla&e in the shop and the family's ad%a&ent living 8uarters Oskar su&&eeds in

&reating the ambien&e of a familyrun store, bringing the &ustomers to life, as well as making the goods, theirte+ture and smells, tangible .e fully &aptures the &olorful port &ity with its an&ient buildings, narrow streets,

and &ramped 8uarters, along with its waterfront and bea&h areas .e also re&ounts the lives of his grandparents,

who lived on a farm in the )olish provin&e of !ashubia, a rural area that he des&ribes in a distin&tive manner

@ike his fi&tional Oskar, Grass lived through the German invasion of the &ity in />9> and its aftermath (hese

events are turned into a vivid pie&e of fi&tion that depi&ts how the presen&e of the German o&&upation for&e


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dramati&ally alters the &ity's atmosphere "lthough Grass &ertainly drew on his early years to give this part ofthe novel its ri&h te+ture and realisti& tone, the narrative itself undermines the authenti&ity of its setting )la&es

and ob%e&ts take on a signifi&an&e in the novel far removed from reality, as Grass &onverts ordinary

surroundings and ob%e&ts into e+tended metaphors and motifs?Oskar's tin drum being the most notablee+ample

"s the narrative progresses, Gdansk, whi&h is a&&urately drawn in its pre*orld *ar II &ondition, e+emplifiesany &ity transformed from a pea&eful state by war Knder its new name of 0anzig, the &ity on&e &alled Gdanskturns into a pla&e where barbarity and fear dominate (hat its identity as Gdansk and 0anzig has va&illated

over the &enturies adds to its metaphori& possibilities, whi&h Grass e+ploits to the fullest

-Dsseldorf

N0Asseldorf Industrial &ity in west&entral Germany where Oskar is writing his memoirs in a mental hospital

"fter the war, Oskar and his family are for&ed to emigrate to 0Asseldorf Grass, who served in the German

army during *orld *ar II, also ended up in 0Asseldorf after the war and had e+perien&es there similar to thosethat Oskar re&ords in his autobiography

2tarting out as a fishing village in the seventh &entury at the point where the 0Assel ;iver flows into the ;hine

;iver, 0Asseldorf gained importan&e during the Industrial ;evolution It be&ame the finan&ial &enter of the

surrounding industrial area known as the ;uhr, whose &oal mines produ&ed the energy and whose fa&tories builtmost of the implements for both world wars 2ignifi&antly, during the />9's the German industrialists met with

.itler in 0Asseldorf to offer their support if they &ould be assured of another war In the />H's the "llies

bombed the &ity into rubble, whi&h is what Oskar finds when he arrives there 0Asseldorf's &he&kered historymakes it a suitable pla&e for Grass to &arry out his satiri& view of Germany during and after the war

Oskar relates how he and his family survive among the ruins of 0Asseldorf and how his mother makes a living

on the bla&k market "t first Oskar works as a tombstone engraver, whi&h provides the opportunity for him todes&ribe the &emeteries in detail- &emeteries are another re&urring motif in the novel @ater he be&omes a model

at the newly opened art a&ademy, a venue he pi&tures with e+a&tness

"s the &ity starts to rebuild, night &lubs and dan&e halls open in bombedout buildings, su&h as the @ion's 0en,one of Oskar's favorites Oskar's %azz trio plays in another &lub &alled the Onion 6ellar, an appropriate name

&onsidering that the owner serves raw onions to make his patrons &ry, a response they desire and en%oy (his

idiosyn&rasy illustrates how Grass e+tends the meaning of pla&e throughout the novel

In 0Asseldorf the sense of pla&e is remarkably &on&rete, in&luding its ruttedout streets, its blo&ks of shattered

apartment buildings, its on&e grand buildings that lay in ruins ven though this devastated postwar &ity, like so

many in Germany, is des&ribed in realisti& detail, it is at the same time turned into a su&&ession of metaphorsand motifs to depi&t the senselessness of war

The Tin Drum Literary Techni.ues

"lthough Grass is renowned for his linguisti& playfulness and his &areful avoidan&e of simpli&ities of theme, *

Gordon 6unliffe points out that Grass uses all the skills of a ;ealisti& author .e &an re&reate the behavior of

shopkeepers, peasants, poli&emen, and waiters .is sensitivity to diale&ts is e+traordinary .is details make skatplayers, gypsies, party offi&ials, and s&hoolmasters &ome vividly to life, even when they are the sub%e&t of satire

or dire&t ridi&ule Mu&h of this derives from his spe&ifi& interest in the lo&ale of 0anzig Grass is thereby part of

the tradition of modern authors like $ames $oy&e, *illiam Laulkner, and 6esare )avese, whose works are
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intimately related to a parti&ular pla&e .e often uses the a&tual names of shops and people from 0anzig Mu&hof the vividness of The Tin Drumderives from its &areful, sometimes sho&king, observations of su&h things as

an eelinfested horseFs head in the sea, a potato dumpling, or the inside of a toy shop (hey &reate a solid

ba&kground upon whi&h the ar&hetypal, supernatural elements &an be played out

The Tin Drum Social Concerns

0espite GrassFs assertions that his novels have no spe&ifi& meanings, it is obvious that his so&ial &on&erns and

themes are ine+tri&ably interwoven in all of his works The Tin Drum&overs the period from the />3s through

the />s and ranges from 0anzig to Germany and Lran&e Oskar MatzerathFs odyssey through the nightmare of

1azism has been interpreted as a parable for the German e+perien&e, but it should not be seen as a pre&iseallegory "s do many )ostmodern stylists, Grass insists that there are no EmeaningsE in his works, that he is

interested in language and style, not e+traneous abstra&tions .e has said, E2o many of them &riti&sP look for

symbols and allegories and deeper meanings, but sometimes I write of potato peels and mean potato peelsE

.is denials to the &ontrary, all his work is ri&h with ar&hetypal overtones, whi&h are simultaneously universal

and spe&ifi& to the German people "lthough readers &ertainly would not a&&ept the events in The Tin Drumon a

literal level, they have the resonan&e of mythology Oskar has been &ompared to "pollo, for e+ample, in that thesound of his drumming or his voi&e wreaks vengean&e from afar In&redibly, he tra&es his des&ent from a man

hiding in a potato field under a womanFs large skirts Grass &onverts an histori& period, still within the vivid

memory of many people, into a period of legend 2upernatural feats o&&ur 6omple+ inter&onne&tions are drawnbetween people and events that belie the frayed fabri& of &ommon reality One sees similar themati& 8ualities in

the great novels of .erman Melville, whom Grass a&knowledges as an influen&e "gainst the verifiable reality

of whaling inMoby Dick4/=/5, a &osmi&, ar&hetypal game is played out Magi& mingles with realisti& detail,

&reating a world far more evo&ative than a straightforward tale of whaling and obsession In The TinDrum,numerous hints of a larger meaning are sprinkled through the novel, although they are never allowed to

form a simple &rystal Mystery is maintained in both novels and thereby ea&h is enri&hed, yielding up varied

meanings (he Epower of bla&knessE that Melville sought is manifest also in Grass: .is fi&tional world,

apparently so &lear, be&omes more perple+ing as one e+amines it Lor e+ample, The Tin Drummay be thefantasy of an unreliable, perhaps insane, narrator as in so many modern novels, or Oskar may be a 6hrist&hild

figure in a world gone mad .e simultaneously seems both, a strange &ombination of opposites (here are noeasy answers inThe Tin Drum,whi&h is why it is one of those rare great novels that may be mined many times

for its themes of guilt, national identity, and the artistFs role, yet never be&ome e+hausted

The Tin Drum Literary *recedents

#esides the previously mentioned affinities of the works of Melville, $oy&e, Laulkner, and )avese, &riti&s have

also pointed to the pi&ares8ue Simplicissimus4/JJ>5 by $ohann $akob 6hristoffel von Grimmelshausen One ofthe most interesting &omparisons, however, has been drawn with @auren&e 2terneFsTristram Shandy4/>

/J5 Grass admits admiring the great eighteenth&entury novel and &riti&s have pointed out several influen&esLirst, mu&h of The Tin Drum,despite the many real horrors it depi&ts, &onsists of humor Many s&enes areirreverent or silly or filled with slapsti&k *ith the deta&hment and narrative distan&e ofTristram Shandy,Oskar

wat&hes the world around him go through its madness, and with the &old eye of a &hild, reveals it for all its

ludi&rousness @ike 2terne, Grass has a keen eye for absurdity, even in the midst of the ideas and events whi&hmost people take with great seriousness 2e&ondly, a great deal of the humor is linguisti& )uns, as well as

unbelievable and ine+pli&able metaphors, are &ru&ial parts of GrassFs style @ike 2terne, he is interested in

invention for its own sake, playing of word games, and imitating diale&ts *hen asked about the pe&uliar form

of his prenatal autobiography, (ristram 2handy says, E"sk my pen- it governs me- I govern not itE Grass, whodenies the ne&essity of themati& abstra&tions to fi&tion, is arguing a similar view (he novel &reates itself in its

most suitable form If the author attempts to for&e it to play philosophi&al parlor games, the integrity of the
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work is destroyed 1either Kn&le (oby nor 6olonel (im in 2terneFs novel is the definitive symbol @ikewise,Oskar is not, and must not be, redu&ed to a single symbol

The Tin Drum #elated Titles

Grass followed The Tin Drumwith Cat and Mouse4/>J9- !atz und Maus, />J/5, andDog Years4/>J-

.unde%ahre, />J95, and the three have been dubbed the E0anzig (rilogy,E be&ause they share manyelements Cat and Mousefeatures a deformed &hara&ter, like Oskar, from 0anzig, $oa&him MahlkeFs deformity

is an e+traordinarily large "damFs apple, and he is desperate for a&&eptan&e by his peers .is solution is to

a&8uire an Iron 6ross whi&h will hide his bulging throat "lthough a su&&essful athlete, he does not a&hieve

a&&eptan&e and &omes to a mysterious end "s the Emouse,E Mahlke has been &alled the most admirable personin GrassFs fi&tion and the entire work a moral parable 6riti&s, however, have been somewhat bewildered by this

novel The Tin Drumwas a long, &omple+ novel #y &omparison Cat and Mouseseems tiny and obvious in its

meanings @imiting itself to the war years in 0anzig is seen by some as an over&oming of the weakest partsof The Tin Drum,those episodes that take pla&e outside 0anzig Others think the shortness a liability as it

&aused the allegori&al stru&ture to be too prominent
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the tin druthe tin drumm

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