498 Grass, Gunter
graSS, gunTEr The Tin Drum
(1959)
Oskar Matzerath is undoubtedly one of the most
remarkable characters in modern fiction. Both first-
person narrator and main character of The Tin Drum
(1959), Oskar, a 30-year-old inmate of an asylum,
relates his life story. Born, he claims, with fully
developed intellectual abilities, he decides at the age
of three, the age at which he acquires his first tin
drum, to reject the adult world and to stop growing.
In order to provide an explanation for his stunted
growth, he says, he throws himself down the cellar
stairs. Thus able to view the world from the perspec-
tive of a perpetual three-year-old, Oskar witnesses
the rise and fall of Nazi Germany and the brutal
events of World War II. As the war draws to a close,
Oskar begins to grow again. In the final chapters
of the book, Oskar recounts his family’s move from
Danzig to West Germany and his experience from
the postwar years up until his confinement in the
mental institution.
Grass employs a complex narrative structure for
the novel, moving between first- and third-person
narration. Oskar refers to himself as “I” but also
as “Oskar,” as if he is speaking about another per-
son. Oskar’s self-alienation, his status as a mental
patient, and his often contradictory accounts of the
past, make Oskar a very unreliable narrator. The
reader must therefore question the truthfulness of
his account, an autobiography that links the events
of Oskar’s life to the catastrophes of the first half of
20th-century German history.
Christina Kraenzle
Guilt in The Tin Drum
One of the novel’s central themes is the question of
guilt. Oskar begins his account from the confines of
a mental institution, where he has been incarcerated
for the murder of Sister Dorothea Köngetter. Oskar
denies the charge, but admits to an obsession with
the nurse, giving considerable support to the case
against him. However, on his 30th birthday there is
a new development in the case. Oskar reports that
fresh evidence suggests the murder was committed
by a jealous, fellow nurse; the courts have recognized
his innocence and he will soon be released. But as
the reader by this point is keenly aware, Oskar is
an unreliable narrator, often changing his story to
either admit or deny his complicity in past events.
We cannot take this final claim of innocence at face
value.
Moreover, this is not the first death in which
Oskar has been involved. Throughout the novel,
Oskar claims responsibility for the deaths of his
mother and his two “presumptive” fathers, Alfred
Matzerath and Jan Bronski. The first to die is
Oskar’s mother Agnes, who gorges herself on fish
after discovering the pregnancy that may well be the
result of her affair with Jan Bronski. While Oskar
initially displays no signs of guilt, he later tells
Roswitha Raguna that others hold him responsible.
Later, Oskar suggests that he was exaggerating
his account in an attempt to impress Roswitha.
Still later, however, Oskar reports that he indeed
overheard his grandmother blaming him, claiming
that Agnes died because she could no longer stand
Oskar’s drumming. Several chapters later, Oskar
claims responsibility for both his mother’s and Jan
Bronski’s death.
Oskar offers a similarly contradictory account
of Jan Bronski’s death. In the first version of the
story, Oskar describes how Jan is driven away by
the Germans and waves a last goodbye to Oskar.
In the next chapter, however, Oskar declares that
he must correct an omission, namely that when the
Germans arrived, Oskar pretended to the soldiers
that Jan Bronski had forced him into the post office
in order to use him as a human shield. Subsequently,
Bronski is beaten, taken away, and later executed.
Oskar allegedly commits the act of treachery out
of concern for his own comfort and safety and to
protect his precious tin drums.
In the case of Alfred Matzerath’s death, Oskar
initially maintains that he takes the Nazi Party pin,
which Matzerath has discarded, only to protect
young Kurt. He ostensibly hands it back to Matzer-
ath because he wishes to pick a louse from a Russian
soldier’s collar. Matzerath panics, attempts to swal-
low the incriminating object, and chokes, prompting
one of the soldiers to kill him. In the next chapter,
however, Oskar changes his story and claims he
deliberately exposed Matzerath’s party membership,
and even opened the pin so that his father might
choke on it.