Week 13

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Week 13

• The Tin Drum

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Director

• Volker Schlöndorff
• The Ogre, The Legend of Rita, Palmetto, The
  Handmaids Tale
• Theme the human potential for evil
• Theme the search for moral values, the desire to
  try out power and keep power over one another
• http//www.ruminator.com/content/040502.html

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• I wouldnt call youth innocent, because I dont
  believe much in innocence. I do believe in the
  discovery of evil, and how difficult it is to
  know beforehand whats good and whats bad. You
  find out after the fact where the good is and
  where the evil is and there is no line that you
  can see clearly when you cross from good to bad.
  Everybody is just ambiguous, both good and evil.
• http//www.ruminator.com/content/040502.html

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• I recall that we did pretty bad things, actually
  knowing they were bad. You spend part of your
  childhood trying things out trying out violence,
  experimenting with inflicting pain on others, as
  well as trying to be good to others. I dont see
  much innocence in childhood maybe ethical
  innocence is something we acquire through life.
  http//www.ruminator.com/content/040502.html

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http//www.ruminator.com/content/040502.html
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When he was 11 he starred in The Tin Drum, which
caused much controversy due to the fact that
David was shown in sex scenes with an adult.
http//www.davidbennent.de/
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Characters

• Oskar Matzerath a deranged dwarf storyteller
• Agnes Matzerath Oscars mother
• Alfred Matzerath Agnes husband
• Jan Bronski Agnes Polish cousin, her lover and
  possibly Oskars father
• Mr. Bebra a circus midget, the consummate
  survivor
• Roswitha Raguna Bebras associate
• Maria Truczinski a neighbors sister, who
  becomes Oscars lover, bears Oscars child and
  then proceeds to marry his father.

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The Tin Drum

• Author Günter Grass
• Genres satire, allegory, surrealist fiction,
  picaresque fiction, a fictional version of the
  theater of the absurd
• The autobiographical novel chronicles Europes
  violent history during the first half of the 20th
  century. It focuses on Germanys role in that
  upheaval as the narrator records his experiences,
  first in a Polish city Danzig (an area between
  Germany and Poland, set up as a semiautonomous
  state after WWI), then in a German city,
  Düsseldorf.

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Plot of the Novel

• 1. When Oskar was born, he soon showed himself to
  be an infant whose mental development was
  complete at birth.
• 2. On his 3rd birthday, Oskar, by a sheer act of
  will, decided to stop growing.
• 3. He discovered that he had an ability to
  shatter glass with his voice, a talent that
  became a means of destruction when he wanted to
  express his hostility and outrage.

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• 4. Oscars mother, after witnessing a revolting
  scene of eels being extracted from the head of a
  dead horse submerged in water, perversely
  enforced a diet of fish on herself and died.
• 5. Jan Bronski was executed after an S.S. raid on
  the Polish post office where he had gone with
  Oskar.
• 6. Oskar became Marias lover and fathered her
  child. Maria then married Alfred Matzerath.

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• 7. Oskar then joined Bebras troupe of
  entertainers for the Nazis and became the lover
  of the timeless Roswitha Raguna.
• 8. When the Russians invaded Danzig, Alfred
  Matzerath, to conceal his affiliations, swallowed
  the Nazi party pin that Oskar had shoved into his
  hand and died.
• 9. Before long, he began to grow (symbolizing
  possibilities of a new beginning in West Germany)
  and develop a hump (showing that the hopes are
  quickly crushed).

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• 10. His postwar life took him to West Germany,
  where he was wrongly accused of killing a
  neighbor.
• 11. Oskar submitted to being judged insane and
  atoning for a guilt not strictly his, because to
  his own sense he was guilty by implication.
• (Taken from Literary Reference Centerpowered by
  EBSCOhost)

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(No Transcript)
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Food for Thought

• 1. Why does Oskar refuse to grow? Why does he
  choose the infantile perspective?
• 2. Discuss the depiction of the Nazi regime. Is
  it presented positively or negatively?
• 3. What causes Oskars mothers suffering?
• 4. What are the functions of women in the film?
• 5. What is the drum a symbol of?
• 6. In what ways is The Tin Drum a Bildungsroman
  and an anti-bildungsroman?