The Tin Drum

“What novel has the epic scope of a photo album?”

Oskar is in the process of writing a novel about his entire life while, at the same time, pointing out the limitations of the novel as an artistic form. He acknowledges the inherent impossibility of the task ahead, understanding that the novel cannot hope to portray the vast complexities of life. A photo album is presented as an alternative with a more “epic scope” (33), but Oskar's actions speak louder than his words: He continues to write the novel, even while acknowledging its limitations, just as he proceeds to live his life in spite of the various challenges and traumas he faces. Oskar’s obsession with photos also mirrors his attachment in the novel to the family photo album, which speaks to The Complications of Family Ties.

“Even bad books are books, and therefore holy.”

Through his narration, Oskar notes his reverence for books as an artistic medium. His reverence for books colors his decision to write a book of his own. If every book is “holy,” then Oskar's decision to write a book becomes a holy act, the creation of a personal hagiography that is more of a confession than a celebration of his life. Oskar's book-writing process takes on a spiritual dimension, even if he believes that he is writing a bad book. The act of writing itself is a search for spiritual atonement from the guilt he constantly feels.

“The likes of us should never be part of the audience. We have to be on the stage, in the arena. We have to perform and direct the action, otherwise our kind will be manipulated by those who do.”

Bebra's advice to Oskar is lifechanging. From this moment on, Oskar takes the advice to heart and makes sure to position himself in relation to the “stage” and the “arena.” Even as the narrator, Oskar cannot be part of the audience. He feels a need to perform, whether as the narrator or as the character in his own novel. Everything is a performance, Oskar comes to understand the stage can be literal as well as metaphorical: The novel becomes a performance of the idea of Oskar as a character, especially his fear of being manipulated by the more powerful people Bebra warned him about.

“Who will take me under her skirts today?”

Oskar feels a desire for emotional comfort and love in the form of his grandmother's skirts, but these platonic desires are also conflated with sex. Oskar tells the story of his mother's conception and finds comfort in the description of a memory that he cannot possibly have. Oskar wants to find his own equivalent, to go back to a time before the wars and the trauma, before his own birth, but also to a romantic moment between two people who experienced a healthier sexual relationship than any Oskar has ever known. His desire for comfort is built on a foundation of envy for a kind of relationship and a kind of peace he has never really known.

“As for me, they took away my toy merchant, tried to banish all toys from the world along with him.”

After being confronted with the brutal, antisemitic reality of Kristallnacht, Oskar senses that his childlike innocence is ebbing away. Innocence cannot persist in a world ruled by fascism; Markus and his toy store are relics of the past, defiled and destroyed by the rise of a violent political movement. The children of Germany and Poland are added to the long list of the victims of fascism, forced to grow up in the shadow of violence that will not simply allow them to be children.

“My uncle didn't understand. My presumptive father didn't see what I was driving at. My poor mama's lover was so busy with his fear, so filled with it, that my pleading gestures had no effect but to increase that fear.”

When Oskar thinks about Jan, he struggles to untangle Jan's various identities. Due to the complicated nature of their relationship, Oskar is never quite sure whether Jan is his uncle, his father, or simply his mother's lover. As a way of dealing with this confusion, he simply describes Jan in every possible term. In successive sentences, Oskar lays bare the full relationship with Jan as though he is examining him from every angle. Jan, like so many other characters, does not have a simple identity. Instead, he is a nuanced kaleidoscope of an individual whose flaws and fractures only add to his complexities.

“Oskar was apprehensive about the tram ride past the cemetery at Saspe.”

Oskar's narration moves back and forth between first and third person. He refers to himself by the first person singular “I,” but also as “Oskar.” On certain occasions, the decision to narrate in first or third person is emotional. When travelling past the place where Jan is buried, for example, Oskar feels anxious. He blames himself for Jan's death, so he chooses to refer to himself in the third person, distancing himself from the person in his past and discussing Oskar as a character in a novel rather than re-experience the traumatic moment of travelling past Jan's grave. Oskar’s struggles to fully confront and inhabit the person he used to be reflect the wider societal reluctance to confront the sins of the wartime past.

“Maria blushed from the forehead down.”

When Oskar tries to kindle Maria's memory regarding the fizz powder, she reacts in a way he did not expect. She is embarrassed by the memory that he clearly treasures and he is surprised that she does not want to return to this moment in their shared past. Oskar is a subjective narrator; his struggles with empathy are demonstrated in his failure to understand why Maria might not look back fondly on their sexual history, given the context in which it occurred. Oskar cannot conceive of other people's subjective experiences of the past.

“Slowly, silently, and steadily, I was overcome by a liberating nausea.”

Oskar's style of narration is a compendium of intersecting memories and sensory experiences. Since he experiences these memories so vividly, particularly when he drums, he can struggle to escape from the more traumatic moments in his past. Being freed from these memories can feel liberating, even if he must be sick in order to do so. For Oskar, there is freedom in the sickness of forgetting, allowing him to experience a brief moment of liberation from his own trauma.

“Seventy-five kilos.”

Oskar titles his composition “seventy-five kilos” (214) out of a sense of guilt. As Oskar grows up, his proximity to so much death and suffering leads him to blame himself even in situations where he may not be at fault. Following Jan's death, Oskar realizes that he was complicit. Oskar does not kill Greff but the guilt from Jan's death lingers in his mind, causing Oskar to instinctively blame himself because he was having an affair with Greff's wife. Drumming and music are ways in which Oskar can navigate his grief and strive for atonement, even in situations where he perhaps should not feel guilty.

“Oskernello Raguna, born on the twenty-first of October nineteen hundred twelve in Naples.”

To perform in Bebra's troupe, Oskar is given forged documents. In a literal sense, he assumes a new identity and stops being “Oskar” for some time. This change in identity mirrors a period of growth in Oskar's life, as he is away from his family for an extended period of time. This new identity is unsustainable, however, as it is built on a foundation of deceit. Oskar cannot be Oskernello because he is aware of the falsity of this existence at all times. Oskar can perform the role of Oskernello for a short time but he cannot escape his true self, nor the mistakes and traumas of his true past.

“Soon there won't be another puppy between Caen and Le Havre.”

The Nazis build gun bunkers by sacrificing a puppy for good luck. Even in a novel which documents the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II, this moment of comic absurdity stands out. The off-hand, careless manner in which the soldiers discuss puppy murder illustrates the banality of evil and the speed with which people become familiarized with violence in the midst of war. Furthermore, the gun bunkers do not work and need to be rebuilt. The puppy sacrifice achieves nothing, but demonstrates the way in which mindless violence is repeated, accepted, and normalized by the war.

“I hate you, little fellow, you and your bag of tricks.”

Oskar shouts his disbelief at the statue of Jesus but the criticisms could just as easily be directed at himself. Throughout the novel, he compares himself and his life to that of Jesus Christ. Oskar is still struggling to deal with his reduced physical form, his traumatic memories, and the burden of his guilt. In certain ways, he hates himself but he does not know how to vocalize this self-loathing. He hates himself and his “bag of tricks” (244), but shouts this at the Jesus statue as a way of processing and displacing these complicated emotions.

“This question was bound to come up. It lay in the very nature of the encounter. This particular formulation plays an important role in human conversation.”

The Dusters ask Oskar for his name. The question is simple but evokes a momentary existential crisis in Oskar, as he dwells on the ways in which his experiences and his names are intertwined to construct his identity. His own “very nature” (249) is inseparable from his experiences and, even after he has changed names, he very much remains Oskar. When they ask Oskar for his name, they want to understand his identity. As a result, Oskar struggles to comprehend how he can give them a true understanding of the meaning of Oskar the identity rather than just Oskar the name.

“We have nothing to do with parties, we're fighting against our parents and all grownups, regardless of what they may be for or against.”

The Dusters are members of the younger generation who have grown up in the shadow of World War II. They have been raised in a world that has been ruined by the previous generation. These young Germans must confront a reality in which their parents, relatives, friends, and everyone else was part of a state bureaucracy that conducted genocide and murdered millions, while also decimating their homeland. The Dusters are not political—they are pure, unfettered rage directed at the mistakes of their parents.

“A mixed assortment of totally ordinary Russians, I judged.”

Throughout the war, Oskar witnesses the way in which seemingly normal people can become embroiled in violent, horrific situations. Members of his own family joined the Nazi party for social reasons, while his mentor Bebra went to work for Joseph Goebbels. When the Russians arrive in Danzig, Oskar notes that they seem “totally ordinary” (267). Nevertheless, these “totally ordinary” people will commit atrocities. In the midst of World War II, violence is the new ordinary and everyone is trapped in cycles of violence and trauma which leave no one unaffected.

“Oskar, despite his hump, despite his parsimonious size, carried a male member with him which, should the need arise, could match that of any so-called normal man.”

Oskar the narrator and Oskar the character blur together, despite the narrator's attempts to be objective. Oskar the narrator speaks about Oskar the character in the third person, revealing his insecurities regarding his “male member” (318). That he includes the clarifying point regarding his penis size but attempts to hide it behind a third person reference to Oskar the character indicates that Oskar cannot help but include the point, even if it serves no narrative function. Instead, the point suggests that Oskar's insecurities continue into his adulthood and his role as Oskar the narrator.

“She disconcerted me, this girlfriend. Her existence gave Oskar all sorts of ideas.”

Oskar is disconcerted by the existence of Dorothea's female friend because, unlike Oskar, she has the ability to actually know Dorothea. He envies this friend's knowledge of the woman that he supposedly loves, but also resents her for undermining the false version of Dorothea that he has constructed in his mind. Oskar has fallen in love with an invented person, so anyone who contradicts or draws attention to his construction becomes a problem. Oskar’s escape into idealized mythmaking is another maladaptive coping mechanism in the face of his unresolved trauma.

“Innocence flourishes like a weed.”

Weeds are invasive plants which need to be removed from gardens on a frequent basis. If left untended, the weeds will always return. In the context of the war, Oskar compares innocence to weeds. War is the gardener, plucking the innocence from the people affected. Like weeds, innocence can flourish and return when given the opportunity: Oskar and his peers may have been robbed of their innocence, but this damage is not necessarily permanent. The fact that innocence is depicted as a “weed,” however, also speaks to the ways in which wartime and totalitarianism have warped the usual ideas about morality and immorality, innocence and guilt.

“Young people have a different way of crying.”

Oskar's description of the emotions of young people comes from a unique perspective. Though he has spent most of his life in the body of a younger person, he was born with a fully-fledged consciousness. His view of children crying, for example, is taken from the point of view of someone whose mind developed in a very different way. As such, his description is that of an outsider, someone who has seen other children crying and has never truly experienced it for himself.

“There's nothing earthly about seashells.”

Seashells are both earthly and alien at the same time. They are natural objects, but ones which emerge from the depths of the ocean, away from human sight and activity. When the shells are used to decorate gun bunkers, they seem even less earthly. The guns and the detritus of the war seem so unnatural and so inhumane that the nearby seashells only seem more alien to those who have been traumatized by the war.

“Oskar doesn't have space here to describe his successes in detail.”

Throughout his narration, Oskar never shies away from describing the most horrific or traumatizing events in his life. When he needs to describe his successes, however, he is reticent. This reluctance toward self-praise is an extension of Oskar's self-loathing. He views himself through the lens of shame and guilt—a negative tendency which distorts his own self-image so much that he does not consider himself to ever be worthy of praise.

“It seems he'd devoted all his free time, including holidays, to making sure a document issued in thirty-nine was finally enforced.”

The violence of the war continues even after the ostensible end of the war. The bureaucratic forms which contain a death sentence for the Polish postal worker are a metaphor for the psychological trauma which will never leave those affected by the war. Like a death sentence, the trauma hangs over the victims even after the violence itself has ended. The pain inflicted in 1939 can come back to haunt the victims at any time.