The Tin Drum

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1959

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Book 1, Chapters 1-8

Book 1, Chapters 9-16

Book 2, Chapters 1-9

Book 2, Chapters 10-18

Book 3, Chapters 1-12

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

The Tensions Between Language and Trauma

Oskar is a traumatized individual. He grew up in a violent, chaotic world and lost many people close to him. As a way of navigating his traumatic past, he writes. However, Oskar is not sure whether anything as normal as language could hope to convey the abnormality of his existence. After witnessing the realities of war, after seeing innocent people gunned down for no reason, after talking to people who escaped from the extermination camps, and seeing his own family members and friends willingly signing up to a fascist regime, Oskar struggles to fit the complexity of his past into written language.

As soon as he gets the paper and writing materials from Bruno, his first speculative thoughts ponder the nature of fiction itself. Everything that was written before the 20th century seems an inadequate point of comparison for conveying Oskar's experiences. The styles, tropes, structures, and styles of the past cannot wrestle with the realities of the Holocaust, or convey the guilt, shame, and trauma that has been such a big part of Oskar's life. As such, The Tin Drum becomes an exploration of language itself and the question of whether humanity has sunk to such lows that language itself must be expunged.

In his quest to revitalize the language, Oskar eschews the traditional. He tells the story in a non-linear structure, flitting back and forth between the past and present in his goal to find a new future. The non-linear structure jumps from past to present between paragraphs and even sentences as Oskar searches for himself through the structure of his novel. The literary role of the narrator is also an extension of language's struggle to convey the barbarism of the 20th century: Oskar is not a reliable narrator and he is painfully aware of his own unreliability. From the opening lines of the novel, he accepts that his audience may not trust the word of a man confined to a psychiatric hospital.

That Oskar immediately moves on from the questions of his own reliability illustrates why the role of the unreliable narrator in The Tin Drum is largely inconsequential. The world portrayed through Oskar's narration is brutal and barbaric. If Oskar were unreliable, the world would be a less barbaric place. As such, Oskar reframes the role of the unreliable narrator. In Oskar's world, the unreliability of the narrator is a consequence of the fractured relationship between trauma and language. He almost wishes that he was not accurately recalling his past because this would provide him with catharsis and an opportunity to heal. Instead, his role as the narrator is to reflect and confess to his own brutal past and his own traumatizing experiences. He seeks atonement for himself as a man, as a narrator, and his language as a whole.

The death and rebirth of language is also explored through the literary genre of the novel. The Tin Drum is a magical realist novel. In magical realism, supernatural or magical ideas are woven into an otherwise realistic world. Oskar's brutal depiction of life under the Nazi regime is interspersed with stories about shattering glass with his voice or the hypnotic powers of his drumming. The magical realism of the novel is a juxtaposition between absurd magical elements and horrific reality. Oskar, a fully-conscious man trapped in the body of a child and an unreliable narrator housed in a psychiatric hospital. If his story is unreliable or magical, then it is an attempt to navigate a traumatic past by filling in the most painful memories with supernatural absurdity. The magical realism of The Tin Drum is literature as a coping device, with language as the only means left—however imperfect it may be—for trying to make sense of trauma and violence.

The Ambient Shame of the Past

The Tin Drum portrays life during the rise and fall of the Nazi regime in Germany. The Nazis commit many atrocities during the course of the novel, including the execution of Jan, the invasion of Danzig, and the Holocaust. To Oskar, however, the Nazis and their attendant atrocities are part of a broader, shameful period which he struggles to navigate. As he delves into his memories, Oskar often conflates the atrocities of the Nazis with his own mistakes.

The execution of Jan is an example of this conflation. After the German soldiers attack the Polish Postal Office, Oskar helps the soldiers identify Jan, who is then led away and executed. The Nazis execute Jan but Oskar blames himself for his uncle/father's death. Oskar's past is filled with so much shame and trauma that he cannot untangle his personal guilt from the atrocities of the regime under which it is committed. Instead, Oskar's world is replete with an ambient level of trauma which colors every experience. In the totalitarian, violent society created by the Nazis, every action or gesture is inherently shameful. Oskar's past as someone who has grown up in this society is tarnished with this ambient shame, to the extent that he cannot tell his own story without telling the story of this wider societal shame.

Oskar also acknowledges the shameful actions of those around him. Alfred is one of the first people to become involved in the Nazi Party. At first, he treats the Nazis as a social club. He plays cards with other members and, after the death of Agnes, he becomes increasingly dependent on their social function as a way to give meaning to his life as a widower. Alfred never leaves the Nazi Party. As the war draws to a close and the Russians invade Danzig, Alfred fears for his life. If he is caught by the Russians and found to be a Nazi, then he will be executed. Alfred tries to hide his Nazi involvement; the only evidence is a small pin with a Nazi insignia. As they are being held hostage by Russian soldiers, Oskar hands this pin to Alfred and leaves it open. In his desperation, Alfred does not notice the sharp, open end of the pin. He swallows it and begins to choke. His attempts to hide his shameful past lead directly to his death: significantly, he is killed by the same item which signifies his membership in the Nazi Party. At the same time, Oskar is ashamed of both his father and himself. He believes that Alfred's involvement in the Nazi Party is shameful, so the pin is given as a punishment. He also believes that this patricide is a shameful act. As with everything in Oskar's life, shame permeates every action and it is rarely unidirectional.

At the end of the war, Oskar and his family move to Dusseldorf. Though the Nazi regime has collapsed, the war has not truly ended—shame and guilt linger in society. Oskar stops one Polish man from being executed due to a long-standing death sentence issued by a regime which no longer exists. This threat of bureaucratic violence lingering long after the end of the war symbolizes the way in which violence undergirds even post-war society. By the end of the novel, Oskar is so besotted by shame and guilt that he seeks a way to punish himself. He cannot tolerate living in a society which seeks to move on so quickly. Atonement has not been earned, on an individual or a societal level, so Oskar manufactures a punishment for himself. He frames himself for murder, compelling his society to carry out the punishment for his array of sins. Whether he is sentenced for the death of Dorothea or the death of Alfred or Jan, Oskar does not care. He stares at a society which is desperate to forget, which is attempting wholeheartedly to ignore the shame of a past, and Oskar decides the past must be confronted at any cost.

The Complications of Family Ties

The story of Oskar's life is the story of his family, so much so that he starts his own biography with the meeting between his grandparents. The meeting of Anna and Joseph then becomes the story of the complicated love triangle between Anna, Jan, and Alfred. The nature of Anna's affair with Jan heightens the unconventional nature of Oskar's existence. Oskar understands that Jan may be his father, even if he does not quite understand the emotional resonance of the intersecting romances within his immediate family. As such, Oskar has two potential fathers: Alfred plays the role of Oskar's father in public, while Jan is often the figure who guides Oskar through his more difficult emotional moments. This situation is replicated in the next generation, when Oskar believes himself to be Kurt’s father, rather than his own father, Alfred.

The way in which family dynamics repeat across generations is an allegory for the way political and social violence are enacted across generations. World War I bleeds into World War II, just as the incestuous love triangle of Oskar's parents becomes the incestuous love triangle of his peers. The family members are caught in cycles of confusion as society itself is caught in patterns of violence, with each generation believing itself to be different, only to reenact the same mistakes. The family ties between Oskar and his mother, father, uncle, and son are analogous to the failings and complications of society itself.

When the situation at home becomes too overwhelming, Oskar tries to make a new family for himself. He reunites with his old friend and mentor, Bebra, and becomes part of a travelling troupe of performers. The small group of performers becomes an artificial family in the dying days of the war. They travel together, with Bebra taking the paternal role in the group and Oskar enjoying a mature sexual relationship with Roswitha. She is a woman of his height, sharing also his murky relationship between apparent and actual age. Oskar replaces one close family unit with another, but the arrangement does not last long. After witnessing the horrors of the war up close, Oskar feels a need to return home. Rather than providing him with an escape from the pains of his immediate family ties, the artificial family suffers from the same problems: The jump from authentic to artificial family illustrates Oskar's belief in the universality of shame. His family is not unique or especially guilty. Instead, they are mere iterations of the broader war and post-war condition.

In the latter stages of the novel, Oskar leaves behind his family once again. After moving out of Maria's house, he eventually frames himself for murder. In the psychiatric hospital, however, he forges a new family arrangement. This new set of family ties is a mix between the authentic and the artificial. He is visited by these members of his assembled family, from Maria to Klepp to Vittlar. By this stage, however, Oskar no longer relies on his family for support. By this stage, he has given up on the idea of marrying or having a family of his own. Instead, the very concept of family is inherently tainted in his mind. The deeper he delves into his memories, the more he comes to regard them all as morally compromised in some way. He treats their visits as perfunctory and dull, something which he tolerates before he can return to his writing. Family ties, like so many other elements of Oskar's past, become a burden that he must bear.