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322 Style: Volume 43, No. 3, Fall 2009
Benjamin Biebuyck
Ghent University1
Acting Figuratively, Telling Tropically. Figures of
Insanity in Günter Grass’s Die Blechtrommel
Günter Grass’s bestselling novel Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) was originally
published in 1959 and rapidly enjoyed a vivid and enthusiastic reception in the
non-German world, where the comic vicissitudes of an adolescent midget were
read as an accomplished allegory representing the unprecedented madness of the
industrialized terror characteristic of German politics during the Third Reich.
In the writer’s homeland, however, the novel was rejected by public opinion as
pornographic and trouble-making.2 To explain the background of such a diverging
reception surely requires a complex sociological investigation, but there is not much
doubt that the picaresque and playful undertone of the novel was experienced by
the German reading public as irreconcilable with the ongoing process of trauma
handling. One of the most noticeable levels on which the incongruity between the
novelistic universe and the cultural context of reception was felt, is the exuberant
narrative style and the abundant use of figurative speech. Both aspects of the
novel are functional under the narrative umbrella of the protagonist’s mental
capriciousness: as a child Oscar is unable to understand the dynamics of the adult
world, as an adult he is deluded into absurd self-incriminations, agonized by the
surfacing, but still largely implicit sense of being a non-resistant German during
the Second World War. In this sense, the overt joy (or even lust) of telling and the
concomitant figurativeness can be seen as the protagonist’s disengagement from
the excruciating gravity of the world in which he lives, as his escape into a parallel
universe. As such, they present themselves as appropriate means of expression for
the unreliable and self-admitted insane narrator.
But when analyzed more closely, the novel displays a complex series of
processes in which figurative communication, and even figurative behavior, are
subjected to practices of negotiation, in which the narrator is not the controlling
instance, but turns out to be controlled himself.3 The result is a form of paradoxical
narration that confronts us with a series of fundamental questions about the relation
between rhetoric and the representation of madness. In Die Blechtrommel the
mental destabilization of the speaker in moments of affective, epistemological
Acting Figuratively 323
and experiential crisis, often (but not always) goes hand in hand with an increase
of the density, in which figurative language occurs — an increase which may be
read as a rhetorical and narrative disinhibition. In the following, I will investigate
several textual instances of such a disinhibition, paying particular attention to the
closing chapter of the book, entitled “Dreißig” (“Thirty”). This analysis is part of
a larger project to explore the specific narrative potential of rhetorical figures and
the networking they engage in.4
Figurative Performances
Before I go ahead with the analysis, I should determine more closely the circumstances
under which figurative language operates. Many different recent publications on
the subject indicate that a variety of tropes typical of literary discourse do not
necessarily recur to underlying cognitive procedures (“understanding one thing
in terms of another”), but unfold specifically on the level of language and word-
play. As figurative processes, they are triggered by the estranging co-occurrence
of two non-reducible concepts and the interaction between these; by doing so,
they instigate an interpretive exercise by means of which addressees try to come
to terms with the initial estrangement. In this context, it is important to address
briefly three theoretical issues.
First and foremost, tropes rely on the addressee’s attribution of intentionality
to the speaker. Even though tropes more than once have been described as instances
of a (category) mistake,5 the reader has to be convinced of the speaker’s intention
to transgress a contextually validated norm in order to undertake the interpretive
effort (instead of rectifying the mistake). The question is not so much whether
the attributed intention corresponds to the actual one or even if there is an actual
intention at all. Rather, the addressee must assume the speaker capable of involving
the transgressive mode of tropes. In other words, the figurative speech must be
embedded in a contextual frame which allows the addressee to perceive it as (part
of) a successful speech act. This would explain why addressees are reluctant to
deal with anomalous language of not fully competent speakers (such as language
learners or young children) or of language users incapable of intentionality (such
as computer translators) as figurative.
The second point of interest is the fundamental difference between figurativeness
and polysemy.6 Using a term in an unusual context (probably as a result of
“understanding one thing in terms of another”) bears witness to the human faculty to
re-appropriate or re-functionalize in situations of shortage or limitations traditional
and available concepts which have become obsolete. Such re-appropriations, which
go hand in hand with the attribution of the concepts concerned to a new spot in the
324 Benjamin Biebuyck
conceptual structure, a new “home,” are nothing more or less than indications of the
flexibility and the dynamics of the cognitive apparatus, signs of the polyvalence of
the instruments it disposes of and the speed with which (linguistic) habits are created
and expire. But using old concepts in new contexts is not figurative unless this use
intends the violation of a norm and not the setting of a (new) norm and occurs in
such a manner that both norm (i.e. standard predication) and norm violation (i.e.
ad-hoc-predication) remain active as vectors of significance.7
The third theoretical point to be made is that the figurative understood in the
manner described above, is not restricted to language use, but can also be observed
on other levels of human behavior. An interesting phenomenon in this context is
the habit, observed particularly with (young) men, to use the back of a cigarette-
lighter as a beer bottle-opener. When they do so, there is no doubt that the lighter
maintains its original function — it is even reinforced, so as to emphasize the
norm-transgressing symbolic inherent to the entire situation in which this behavior
occurs. The gesture communicates that the lighter is used in a wrong, yet functional
fashion, both with respect to the drinking a bottle of beer and to being part of a
recognizable micro-culture. In this sense, it might be labeled a “figurative,” or
more specifically, a “metaphorical act.” Obviously, it is from an anthropological or
psychological perspective quite common that people perform acts with symbolic
bearing.8 Yet, it is reasonable to preserve the term “figurative behavior” for situations
in which both levels of behavior are equivalent and interact functionally. Although
it requires much more research to fully substantiate this thesis, I think it is safe to
suggest that figurative speech can be conceived as a subcategory of the much more
encompassing category of “figurative performance”.
When approaching the problematic relationship between rhetoric and insanity
in Günter Grass’s Blechtrommel, it seems crucial to account for these three
fundamental insights. Oscar Matzerath, the midget protagonist, displays a constant
desire to redefine the reality with which he is confronted. What do his actions and
words mean, when they appear in situations in which standard mental operations
are represented as derailed? He conceives of the penis of a Iesus infans statue in the
cathedral as a “Gießkännchen” (“watering can”, 181), uses “Brausepulver” (“fizz
powder”) as a paradoxical catalyst of sexual fervor with his future stepmother Maria
(350) and systematically calls his little brother his son.9 Insofar as these are the
result of his dispositional unreliability, it is impossible to address these instances
as “figurative.” But it is my contention that the narrator in Grass’s novel does not
merely lose grip on reality. His way of approaching the historical events whose
representation he undertakes, not only displays the fundamental figurativeness of
Acting Figuratively 325
his actions; it also shows that this figurativeness ultimately operates as the means
to restore interpersonal understanding between the naïvely disturbed protagonist
and his both psychologically and materially devastated surroundings.
Rhetoric and The Family Romance
The representation of madness often implies the increase of forms which present
themselves as figurative only at first sight. They show a norm-transgressive logic
and partake in an encompassing movement of freeing the speaker from prevailing
conventions. But when the speakers trespass communicative norms, they do not do
so with the intention to break a (societal) norm, but rather to replace this norm with
a new, highly personalized alternative, based on their idiosyncratic and delusional
perception of reality. Hence, it is only logical that their (seemingly figurative)
words gradually obtain imperative force and are acted out by the protagonists. That
they speak as if they actually interact with the world outside, does not affect the
dissolution of the initial figurative appearance. The context makes clear that there
is no question of two equivalent and interacting levels of communication. But to
what extent is this also the case in Grass” Blechtrommel?
Throughout the novel Oskar fantasizes about and even participates directly in a
number of gruesome wrongdoings, but he spares no effort to inculpate himself and
to be punished accordingly — telling his story is the most concrete manifestation
of this.10 The novel does not convey a clear image of Oskar’s insanity — his stay
in the mental hospital is motivated by the argument that he is considered not to
be “voll,” not taken seriously (“full,” “complete,” 766). Usually, his madness is
interpreted as an allegory of the way in which Adenauer’s Germany belittled the
scope of its culpability — the voluntary dwarfism of the protagonist serves as a
symbol of the unwillingness of post-war society to confess its involvement in the
terror and persecution of the Nazi-regime.11 There is no doubt that some of Oskar’s
observations are functional delusions: they are destined to release him from a
situation of unbearable guilt. But the novel also offers many hints not to overestimate
this symbolic or even allegorical subtext. There is indeed an interconnection to be
investigated between the personal biography of the protagonist and the communal
history of a political landscape — as is the case in many of Grass’s other novels — but
in this interconnection varying attitudes towards and operations within a figurative
repertoire are of much bigger importance than has been established so far.
One way of approaching the baroquely described narrative turns and the
“drastic imagery” (Preece 40) of Die Blechtrommel is to read the novel as a literary
transvaluation of what Freud has called in a short essay, written in 1909, “a family
romance” (Freud 224).12 A family romance is a personal, biographic narrative
326 Benjamin Biebuyck
resulting from the mythomaniac imagination of a child who feels unloved and
rejected by one or both of his parents and thus develops neurotic behavior, which
can continue — secretly or overtly — in adult life. Freud consciously refers to this
phenomenon with literary terms and describes the workings of this imagination as
“dichten” (Freud 225). In the centre of the family romance stands the contestation
or even denial of the parental position of the father, which is the pivotal point in
the construction of an alternative biography. In his frenetic search for his “proper”
descent, the neurotic subject replaces his “real” father by a more prestigious
counterpart. Although it avails itself of free association,13 the family romance
normally follows the trails of reality closely, but because of the addition of a new
genealogical dimension reality gets gradually overwritten by a heroic counter-
discourse often displaying overt or indirect monarchic undertones.
All of this is manifestly the case in Grass’s novel.14 Alfred Matzerath, the
German grocery keeper, is not Oskar’s father, but his cook — so the protagonist
alleges (532). His “real” father, uncle Jan, is, like his mother, of Cashubian descent
and an employee of the Polish post office in Danzig, a place with tremendous
political symbolism.15 Later on in the novel, Oskar claims paternity of his younger
brother, Kurt. His other relatives are Goethe and Rasputin, and not surprisingly, he
describes himself being dressed up as the tsarevitch, thus supplementing the Slavic
and the monarchic aspects of his narrative with the aspect of religious supremacy
(117; cf. also: the “Zarenfoto”, 70). All other characters play their idiosyncratic part
in Oskar’s “corrective” narrative. This occasionally leads to frictions between the
manifest narrative and its “real” subtext, which are either covered by the argument
of miscomprehension or incomplete perception or attributed to the flaws of Oskar’s
memory. Transmitted onto the backdrop of the ongoing Second World War, it may
become clear that his counter-narration follows the lines of denegation — it exploits
the opportunity to gather reliability through the admission of his proper unreliability
or untrustworthiness.16 When describing his ability to break and even cut glass with
his voice, he admits: “Ich weiß nicht, wie ich über die Fahrbahn des Kohlenmarktes
kam” (“I have no idea how I managed to cross the Kohlenmarkt,” 128). In the course
of the second book, he describes the narrative process as follows:
Soeben las ich den zuletzt geschriebenen Absatz noch einmal durch. Wenn ich auch nicht
zufrieden bin, sollte es um so mehr Oskars Feder sein, denn ihr ist es gelungen, knapp,
zusammenfassend, dann und wann im Sinne einer bewusst knapp zusammenfassenden
Abhandlung zu übertreiben, wenn nicht zu lügen.
I have just reread the last paragraph. I am not too well satisfied, but Oskar’s pen ought to
be for writing tersely and succinctly; it has managed as terse succinct accounts so often
do to exaggerate and mislead if not to lie. (318)
Acting Figuratively 327
The disconnection between the narrating I (“ich”) and the experiencing I (“Oskar”),
who dispose of different portions of knowledge of the narrated world, indicates
that the overlap between reality and representation is very partial. This observation
supports the hypothesis that the central narrative principle in Die Blechtrommel is
the rhetorical gesture of the oxymoron: the novel itself discloses that what is to be
narrated is not what is narrated.17
The roots of this organizing principle are to be found in the narrative setting
of the novel, which combines a retrospective stance (the vicissitudes of Oskar)
with an explanatory, simultaneous perspective (Oskar spending his last days in the
mental hospital). Oskar indicates explicitly that it is his intention to write literature,
because he believes “Dichtung” to be more truthful.18 In the course of the novel,
there are several excerpts in which the narrator unfolds his poetic mastery of
language. In the chapter entitled “Brausepulver” Oskar describes the peaceful state
of mind he finds himself in when sitting next to the swimming pool: “Der Sand
schlief, die See schlief, die Muscheln waren zertreten und hörten nicht zu” (“The
sand slept the sea slept the shells had been crushed and did not listen,”) (352). Not
much later, he concludes: “Da wurde es sehr still in unserem Wohnzimmer, nur die
Standuhr sprach immer lauter” (“A deep silence fell in our living room, only the
grandfather clock spoke louder and louder”) (377). In both cases, a personification
is combined with a question of communicative exchange (or the lack thereof). The
two examples bear witness to Oskar’s eagerness to engage in human encounter
and presuppose the possibility of such an encounter. The narrator thus displays his
intention to speak figuratively and even makes this intention explicit from time to
time. When he tells in “Desinfektionsmittel” (“Disinfectant”) how Herr Fajngold
treats Oskar’s medically inexplicable fever, the narrator practically translates his
proper metaphorical description of the disinfection therapy: he “setzte ihn [Oskar]
auf eine Lysolwolke, was heißen soll, er desinfizierte mich.”(“lifted him up on a
cloud of Lysol, that is to say, he disinfected me”) (543) And when the old city of
Danzig is destroyed, the figurative register is expanded to its extremes:
Da schwammen mitten im Pazifik zwei mächtige, wie gotische Kathedralen verzierte
Flugzeugträger aufeinander zu, ließen ihre Flugzeuge starten und versenkten sich gegen-
seitig. Die Flugzeuge aber konnten nicht mehr landen, hingen hilflos und rein allegorisch
gleich Engeln in der Luft.
In the middle of the Pacific two enormous aircraft carriers done up to look like Gothic
cathedrals stood face to face, sent up their planes and simultaneously sank one another.
The planes had no place to land, they hovered helplessly and quite allegorically like angels
in mid. (505)
328 Benjamin Biebuyck
Oskar’s reflexivity with respect to his use of language even entails the conscious
use of sociolects and the situations in which they are used.19 When the narrator
reproduces or represents critical experiences, a manifest increase in figurativeness
can sometimes be observed. This is anything but surprising. When confronted with
unexpected sensations or with extraordinary affects, with a sudden rescheduling of
the relationship between self and outside world, with moments of acute existential
density, narrators often shift to a figurative mode, signaling the inappropriateness of
language for that kind of human experience. Awaiting impatiently the homecoming
of sister Dorothea, Oskar stands on a coconut carpet and transfers the craved for
penetration in reverse direction onto his own confrontation with the carpet: “Die
Kokosfasern teilten sich meinen bloßen Füßen mit, die drangen mir durch die Haut
ins Blut” (“The coconut fibers pierced my bare skin and crept into my bloodstream”)
(676). Here it is the erotic tension of the expected meeting that psychologically
activates the figurative register, at other points it is the outburst of laughter or the
feeling of distress.20
Figurative Narration as Outbidding and Negotiating
This is not the only form in which tropes manifest themselves. As already suggested,
family romances follow the path of the real, but cover it up with new masks or
disguises. To do so, the narrator falls back on a mechanism of transference, by
means of which he can relocate evidential events. The most obvious instance of
this dynamic is the negotiation of the position of the father in the first book, but it
reoccurs for instance when the narrator compares himself with Parzifal, one of the
heroes of Germanic mythology:
Kennen Sie Parzifal? Auch ich kenne ihn nicht besonders gut. Einzig die Geschichte mit
den drei Blutstropfen im Schnee ist mir geblieben. Diese Geschichte stimmt, weil sie zu
mir paßt. Wahrscheinlich paßt sie zu jedem, der eine Idee hat. Aber Oskar schreibt von
sich; deshalb ist sie ihm fast verdächtig kleidsam auf den Leib geschrieben
Do you know Varsilall? I don’t know it very well either. All that has stuck with me is the
story about the three drops of blood in the snow. There is truth in that story because it fits
me like a glove. It is probably the story of everyone who has an idea. But Oscar writes
about himself; that’s why it’s almost suspicious how well the story fits to him. (623)
The adverb “kleidsam” re-metaphorizes the slightly amended saying that he is cut
out for the story (here: “geschrieben” [written] instead of “geschnitten” [cut out] or
“geschneidert” [tailored], as if inscribed into his body). The rhetorical gesture going
along with the use of figures of speech is thus not restricted to specific phrasings
and choices of words. It also entails the narrative act itself; the validity of this act
depends on the degree to which it fits the narrator. It is no coincidence that apart
Acting Figuratively 329
from Oskar, two other narrators come to the fore: his nurse Bruno and his friend
Gottfried Vittlar. Inconspicuously, the novel thus structures itself narratively in
terms of the card play which Oskar’s parents usually play on Mondays with Jan
Bronski — a play varied in the parallel staging of the attack on the Polish post and
the construction by Jan and Oskar of a card house during that very attack (303f.,
308, 314). “Skat” is played with three players (67), and the person who outbids the
others is allowed to choose trumps. The German word for the process of bidding is
“reizen,” which means teasing or provoking, and hints at the merging of narrative
competition, erotic attraction and political opposition, materialized by the black
(German) and red (Polish) cards.21 Furthermore, the process of outbidding makes
the reader aware of the fact that beneath the dominant narrative a weaker counter-
narrative is hidden.22
The superpositional or even allegorical dimension uncovered in this manner
enhances the symbolic potential of the novel as a whole, dense as it is with objects
that display manifold figurative references: the knotted creatures made by Bruno,
metonymically replaying Oskar’s trial (e.g. 41) (552ff.); sister Dorothea’s ring
finger, discovered by a dog called “Lux” in a rye field (741), transformed by Oskar
backwardly from an accusatory index into a relic, a synecdochic object of worship;
and most importantly, the title object, object of multiple figuralization — instrument
of separation and remembrance, phallic substitute, narrative mouthpiece, imitation
of a moth fluttering against an electric bulb, metonymically referred to as “die
Rotweißgelackte” (“red and white lacquered cylinder” (667) or “Blech” (“tin,” e.g.)
(366).23 But even though the drum must be seen as the trope of the “outbidding”
narrative, all of these heavily charged symbolic motifs turn out to be strictly personal
means to intervene in or reorganize one’s strictly personal narrative sphere. The drum,
for instance, has for Oskar’s mother nothing to do with the “Erinnerungsarbeit”,
but rather with the opportunity to secretly meet her lover — that is why she keeps
on replacing the toys when her son has beaten them to pieces (124). And for the
visitors of the “Zwiebelkeller,” the beating of the drum offers a strangely violent
way to release intolerable existential suffering (“onion cellar”) (685ff.).
Occasionally, the different orientations of symbolical objects are conflicting
and submitted to open negotiation. This is the case when, for the first time, Oskar
shrieks glass to pieces, provoked by his father’s attempt to take away his drum,
which has a torn surface. The longcase clock is in pieces, Alfred Matzerath cries;
no, Oskar realizes, only the glass is broken (“Es war ja auch nicht die Uhr kaputt,
nur das Glas”) (79). But exactly this metonymic difference is extremely significant
both for Alfred and for Jan; the broken glass announces the imminent outburst of
330 Benjamin Biebuyck
disaster (cf. Jan’s “Miserere nobis”, 79), since the clock materializes the human
ambition to gain control over creation, whereas Oskar’s mother comfortingly falls
back on the old saying: “‹Scherben bringen Glück!› rief sie fingerschnalzend, holte
Kehrblech und Handfeger und kehrte die Scherben oder das Glück zusammen.”
(“‹Shards are good luck!› she cried snapping her fingers, brought dustpan and brush
and swept up the good luck”) (80).
A second moment of figurative disinhibition and rhetorical negotiation occurs
in the well-known chapter “Karfreitagskost” (“Good Friday Fare”). On a day that
is in itself the object of religious arbitration, the protestants go to church, while
the catholic inhabitants of Danzig clean their carpets with loud and heavy beats,
thus commemorating the nailing of Jesus to the cross (187). The Matzeraths go to
the beach with Jan Bronski for a holiday picnic. “Die Ostsee leckte träge und breit
den Strand,” the narrator ominously remarks (“Broad and lazy the Baltic lapped at
the beach”) (189). During the walk, Matzerath and Bronski cease to be amorous
adversaries, but become more and more each other’s double.24 The scene reaches its
apogee when a stevedore lifts the head of a horse with which he is fishing for eels.
The view of the horse’s head, pervaded by a slippery crowd of giant, manifestly
phallic eels, reminds Agnes of her own multiply penetrated, unwantedly impregnated
body, yearning for abortion.25 Whereas to Matzerath the eels represent a culinary
bargain (he pays much less for them than the stevedore asks), the opening of the
horse’s mouth forces Agnes to violently throw up and, later on, to cleanse herself
with a diet of “fish and eel oil” (the geminating assonance significantly also occurs
in German: “Aal” and “Öl”).
The density of tropes in this chapter simulates the intensity with which the
young protagonist experiences the scene and reinforces the hypothesis that critical
circumstances cause a figurative disinhibition. This is, however, noticeably not always
the case. In the highly dramatic chapter “Glaube, Hoffnung, Liebe,” (“Faith, Love,
Hope”) depicting the slaughter of four cats against the backdrop of the simultaneous
“Reichskristallnacht,” the pace of the narration definitely mounts, yet the emphasis
lies wholly on the narrator’s indignation about the cats and his disappointment
after the destruction of the Jewish toy store where his mother buys the drums
(259ff.). Here, the dissociation between the personal crisis and the encompassing
catastrophe reaches its climax, perpetuated in the absurd theatre performance
on the Norman war bunkers. The bunker reminds the narrator of a turtle and is
anthropomorphically named “Dora sieben” (436), a private reminiscence of sister
Dorothea and a historical reference to the Nazi-concentration camp where long
distance projectiles were manufactured. The name signals the living nature of the
Acting Figuratively 331
bunker, reinforced by the burial of a young dog in the foundations of the bunker
— “denn da muß was Lebendiges rein” (“it’s the custom to put something living
in the foundations,” 438). The almost unnoticed removal of nuns walking on the
shore (cf. the stage direction “Felix macht einen Kopfstand. Im Hintergrund fliegen
fünf Nonnen mit Regenschirmen gen Himmel”, “Felix stands on his head. In the
background five nuns with umbrellas are seen flying heavenward”) (449), betrays,
however, that the personification does not induce an empathic reaction on behalf
of the dramatis personae, but rather reinforces a strategy of dehumanization. Here
it becomes clear that the narrator is indeed able to observe, but not to understand
the rhetorical code underlying the narrative he has “outbid.”
The dissociation between personal and collective crisis occurs in more or less the
same manner in the chapter “Ameisenstraße” (“The ant trail”) in which the Russian
invasion of Danzig is depicted. The narrator falls back on a metaphorical register
specifically addressing his individual loss; alarmed by the approaching Russian
troops, Alfred desperately tries to get rid of his Nazi-badge, in German also referred
to as a “bonbon.” What used to be a (reduplicating) reference to the colorfulness and
the attractiveness of the badge (“bon-bon”), is reinterpreted in the suspense of this
critical moment by Matzerath as a candy and hidden in his mouth. Unmoved by the
simultaneously occurring multiple rape of one of the elderly women in the cellar,
the widow of his former neighbor Greff, the narrator gratefully observes his father
synecdochically choking on the badge, on his membership of the party the badge
symbolizes, as well as on his attempt to cover up his membership: “Während mein
mutmaßlicher Vater die Partei verschluckte und starb, zerdrückte ich, ohne es zu
merken oder zu wollen, zwischen den Fingern eine Laus, die ich dem Kalmücken
kurz zuvor abgefangen hatte” (“While my presumptive father was swallowing the
Party and dying I involuntarily and unaware of what I was doing squashed between
my fingers a louse I had just caught on the Kalmuc”) (518). Oskar’s involuntary
crushing of the louse (by means of which he indirectly declares his alliance with
the marauding Russian troops) indicates that he rhetorically wants to partake in
the death of his father and in order to do so he creates an implicit and paradoxical
metaphorical relationship between Alfred and the louse — hereby reverting the
dehumanizing denomination often used to refer to Jews.
The rhetorical dissociation diagnosed in these chapters, upon which I can
only touch briefly, clearly illustrates the protagonist’s almost autistic focus on
his own figurative register. Consequently, the narratability of Oskar’s personal
observations is only guaranteed when they suppress all other perspectives. Within
the framework of figurative behavior, this is what I mean by a narrative oxymoron.
332 Benjamin Biebuyck
Oskar is incapable of experiencing any other reality than that of his proper family
romance. This explains why he instantly understands the codex of evil the sadist
artist Lankes uses, when he is raping a young novice Agneta during a post-war
holiday in the Norman bunker and her fellow-sisters ask Oskar for help while
looking for the lost novice:
Eigentlich war Oskar froh, als seine Trommelei gestört wurde. Die Oberin, Schwester
Scholastika, kehrte mit ihren fünf Nonnen zurück. Sie sahen müde aus und hielten die
Schirme schief und verzweifelt: ‹Haben Sie eine junge Nonne gesehen, unsere junge
Novize gesehen? Das Kind ist so jung. . . . Wo sind Sie denn, Schwester Agneta?!› Mir
blieb nichts anderes zu tun übrig, als den diesmal vom Rückenwind geblähten Pulk in
Richtung Ornemündung, Arromanches, Port Winston zu schicken . . .. Die Nonnen ge-
horchten meinem Daumen, wurden auf dem Dünenkamm sechs immer kleiner werdende,
schwarzwehende Löcher
Oskar was glad when his drumming was interrupted. Sister Scholastica, the mother supe-
rior, was coming back with her five nuns. They looked tired and their umbrellas slanted
forlornly: ‹Have you seen a little nun our little novice? The child is so young. . . . Sister
Agneta where are you?› There was nothing I could do but send the little squadron now with
the wind in their stern off toward the mouth of the Orne, Arromanches and Port Winston
. . .. The nuns obeyed my thumb and gradually turned into six receding black wind blown
spots on the crest of the dune. (724)26
Whereas he metaphorically conceptualizes the six desperately searching nuns as
a military formation (“Pulk”) obeying promptly the metonymic command of his
thumb, his inability to surpass the boundaries of his figurative solipsism culminates
in the metaphor by which he multiply reduces the nuns to nothingness (“receding
black wind blown spots” or “holes” [Löcher]). Oskar remains unable to read and
interpret the suffering of the victim, whose subsequent suicide he cannot understand
otherwise than in the way Lankes has suggested: as her having a swim.27
Interpersonal Understanding
In the cases presented here, there is really no question of psychological disintegration
or decay on behalf of the narrator. On the contrary, the dominant, highly rhetorical
code of the protagonist’s experiences is delicately intertwined with the suppressed
code of historical events. As far as the narrator’s performance is concerned, this
combination suggests that the different styles of representation trace back to
an encompassing problem of rhetorical literacy. Die Blechtrommel consistently
shows that narrative is inherently violent and cannot escape the interplay between
dominance and submission. Still, the final chapter of the book seems to open a
(utopian?) prospect for interpersonal understanding.
Acting Figuratively 333
This chapter, entitled “Dreißig,” (“Thirty”) starts off with a paradox between
the narrated “surrender” or “arrest” of Oskar in Paris and his imminent release from
the mental hospital, on his thirtieth anniversary, since it has been established that
he is not the murderer of sister Dorothea. It is no coincidence that the summit of
figurative disinhibition comes about exactly when Oskar is believed to be sane enough
to leave his cell. The instigations leading up to this are distributed symmetrically
on two levels: when the narrating Oscar turns thirty, his stepmother/lover Maria
advises him to become “sensible” (“vernünftig”) (764), which is paralleled by the
narrated Oskar’s decision to leave Germany and to abandon his drum.
The perspective of change and possible redemption is first and foremost linked to
a generalization of communicative partners. Particularly the means of transportation
which Oskar uses on his escape to Paris are not merely carriers away from the place
of doom, but rather the voices of a suppressed past. The general overtone of this
transportational communication is initially not grim: “Waren es die Schienenstöße,
war es das Liedchen von der Eisenbahn?” (“Was it the rhythmic thrusts of the rails,
the rattling of the train?”) (768) — Oskar conceived of his escape as a kind turn to
his friend Vittlar, yet gradually he claims to put anxiety into his own head, which
opens the door to a real exchange: “o wie fürchtete ich mich in Belgien, als die
Eisenbahn sang: Ist die Schwarze Köchin da? Jajaja! Ist die Schwarze Köchin da?
Jajaja. . .” (“Oh, what a fright I was in when the rails sang: Where’s the Witch black
as pitch? Here’s the black wicked Witch! Ha ha ha!”) (768; cf. also: “Jajaja! sagte
die Eisenbahn, die den flüchtenden Oskar nach Paris trug,”) (“Ha ha ha, said the
train carrying Oskar the fugitive to Paris,”) (769). The generalized identification
with the black cook (the subway and its passengers) can be interpreted on the one
hand as the ultimate outburst of insanity for Oskar, and on the other hand as an
indication of him becoming abruptly literate in the language of guilt and error.
That the latter reading actually presupposes the former, becomes clear when the
protagonist takes the escalator; this reminds him of Dante’s climb from the inferno
or of the “Himmelsleiter,”(“ladder to heaven”, “Jacob’s ladder”) seen by, among
others, E.T.A. Hoffmann as an instrument of transgression and surpassing.28 The
escalator is the moment of Oskar’s psychological rebirth and his way to peace and
quiet, under the auspices of the forgiving mother: “Wenn Maria schläft, schlafen
auch alle Möbel um sie herum. . . . Ich jedoch wünsche mir eine Scheibe von Marias
Schlaf, denn ich bin müde und habe kaum noch Worte” (“When Maria sleeps the
furniture round about her sleeps too. . . . But what I wish myself is a slice of Maria’s
sound sleep for I am tired and words fail me”) (772f).
334 Benjamin Biebuyck
But the generalized communication is not the only indication; for the first time
in the novel Oskar develops through his figures of speech an attitude of reciprocity:
“Was meinte Herbert, wenn er das Holz berannte?” (“Whom was Herbert after when
he assaulted the wooden statue,” 778)29 Here Oscar not only sees the perspective
of another character, but he is able as well to question the rhetorical stance behind
Herbert’s half metaphorical, half metonymic act.30 And he goes beyond that:
he observes figurativeness in the outside world, which is not the result of his
rhetorical attribution: “wo der Rolltreppe die Luft ausging” (“where the escalator
ended,” 776); “Die ausgeknipste Zigarette ließ ich fallen. Zwischen den Latten des
Rolltreppenstufenbelages fand sie Platz.” (“I threw away my cigarette. It fell in one
of the grooves in the escalator step,” 777)31 All these examples show that Oskar’s
proper family romance here derails, yet for the better; what he had conceived of as
an escape, now turns out to be a new beginning. Hence, the protagonist re-enacts
his entire narration, concisely, but interacting with the “real” world.32 The petting
couple on the escalator is clearly reminiscent of Oskar’s parents — although it
remains indistinguishable who the real father is, Jan or Alfred. And the old lady
behind his back, with the fruit decorations on the hat, is a recollection of Oskar’s
grandmother, with whom the family romance began. Of course, they may be
camouflaged policemen as well, but since every little instance of Oskar’s narrative
universe has become figurative, everything is and has always been the black cook.
Due to the generalization of the figurative, which does not substitute the real for an
imaginary alternative, but supplements it with an interactive counterpart, the closing
chapter succeeds in sketching the outline of an overall restoration, an apokatastasis
pantoon, yet not without a preceding overall destruction. “I am Jesus”, Oskar says
in three languages (777). The final chapter shows the inescapability of negotiating
figurative codes. In this state of imminent madness, Oskar is indeed figuratively
disinhibited, but his unceasing rhetorical creativity does not merely rely on projection
and overwriting, but actively seeks support and affirmation from other speakers. His
madness is the door to sanity. Already in the penultimate chapter, Oskar abandons
his outbidding rhetorical code, calling it “Allegorisches Geschwätz” (“Allegorical
rubbish,” 743). At the end of the day, he cannot but detect that he is out of words:
“Fragt Oskar nicht, wer sie ist! Er hat keine Worte mehr. Denn was mir früher im
Rücken saß, dann meinen Buckel küßte, kommt mir nun und fortan entgegen.”
(“Don’t ask Oskar who she is. Words fail me. First, she was behind me, later she
kissed my hump, but now, now and forever she is in front of me coming closer,”
779) We may thus conclude that in Die Blechtrommel communicative failure, as
ominous and threatening as it may be, ultimately becomes the precondition of
Acting Figuratively 335
communicative success, or at least, a prospect of a new (communicative) start.
The fact that the situation described at the end of the novel, is exactly the moment
from which the entire narrative action has emerged, indicates the perspective of at
least an aesthetic deliverance.33
Conclusion
Oskar’s spyhole perspective and his selective memory are obviously two important
factors that influence the narrative style so typical of Grass’s novel. Unlike
his precursors in the representation of insanity in modern German literature,
Grass does not deploy apparent figurativeness in the context of the abolition of
communicative norms and the liberation of strictly personal exchange. In Die
Blechtrommel figurative processes appear to be rhetorical impulses to negotiation
and interaction, not only on the level of the individual utterance, but also — in the
sense of a figurative behavior — on the level of the narrative act itself. Although the
metaphors, metonymies, synecdoches and oxymora operate predominantly within
the framework of provocation, dominance and suppression, they in the end also
leave room for the ultimate discovery of reciprocity and exchange.
Notes
1 The author wishes to thank Kirsten Kumpf (University of Iowa) and the
editors of this volume for their valuable comments.
2 Cf. Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s dictum: „Dieser Mann ist ein Störenfried“
(in: Loschütz 8) and the outrage of the reviewer in the periodical Unser Danzig:
“Von der Kinderschändung bis zur allerübelsten Pornographie“ (in: Loschütz 26).
See also Preece 47-48.
3 Delaney identifies over 860 metaphors in the entire novel (63); she gives
no details about their distribution, yet indicates a decrease in metaphor density in
Book III (148).
4 See also Gunther Martens” article in this volume and his discussion of
“rhetorical narratology” in Martens 96-97.
5 Particularly by Gilbert Ryle; cf. Turbayne 11-13 and Biebuyck (1998) 195-
196.
6 Jongen, for instance, explains metaphor as an instance of polysemy; cf.
Steen 17.
7 Cf. Biebuyck (1998) 168-173.
8 Cf. Dolgin, Kemnitzer & Schneider.
336 Benjamin Biebuyck
9 Cf. with respect to the paradoxical nature of the “Brausepulver”: Johnson
84.
10 Cf. Leroy 48-54.
11 Cf. e.g. Roberts 70: “His life is the symbol of the journey of a nation into
collective schizophrenia, guilt and denied guilt”; see also Brode’s political-allegorical
interpretation (72-81) and Schneider (38-116).
12 Roberts develops this interpretation from a Jungian point of view (55ff.).
Cf. also Devreese 5-23 and Biebuyck (2006) 232-234.
13 Cf. also: Just 180-182.
14 Cf. the manifold references to Grass’s combination of “realism” and
fantasy: e.g. Brode 68 and Stolz 128 (“seine wirklichkeitsgesättigte und zugleich
hochartifizielle Lebensgeschichte”).
15 Preece 8-10.
16 Cf. Astic 130: “la figure d”Oskar, douée d”une vraie fausse omniscience”;
Neuhaus (1982) 23.
17 Cf. in general Prince 1-8, and with respect to Grass: Moser 35-36. Oxymora
are usually defined as the combination of two contradictory predications (e.g. Celan’s
famous “black milk”). In the light of the proposed extension of figurativeness
to behavior or activity, I would suggest to define a “narrative oxymoron” as a
(linguistic or extra-linguistic) act that cannot be fully realized unless it is interrupted
or retracted.
18 Cf. Oscar’s remark when coping with his first “sexual” experiences with
Maria: “Merkwürdigerweise erwartete ich von der Literatur mehr Anregungen als
vom nackten, tatsächlichen Leben” (“Strange to say I expected more inspiration
from literature than from real naked life,” 362).
19 See for instance: “Auf der Hauptwand hob sich erhaben das ab, was die
Steinmetze einen Korpus nennen” (“a large richly carved slab featuring what is
known in the trade as a corpus,” 574f.).
20 Cf.: “als das Lachen in ihm ausbrach, herausfand und gegen die Zimmerdecke
schlug” (“when laughter burst out of him and dashed against the ceiling”, 668).
21 Interestingly, the two erotic competitors are referred to as “Skatbrüder” (“skat
brothers,” 528); Johnson does not pursue this aspect of the sexual metaphors in the
novel. Cf. also: Just 183f. and Neuhaus (1993) 45-46.
Acting Figuratively 337
22 Another fascinating instance of this kind of hidden narrative are the story-
telling scars on Herbert Truszinski’s back (228ff.); cf. von Schilling 46-48.
23 See also: Ferguson 91-94 and 212-217.
24 Conspicuously, they end up being buried on the same churchyard,
“Saspe.”
25 Cf. also Ferguson 114 and Neuhaus (1993) 50. In this respect I do not agree
with Johnson’s reading of the horse’s head as a “helpless and pathetic” symbol of
male virility (81).
26 The point seems to be that sister Agneta turns up as a reminiscence of Oskar’s
mother, both onomastically and behaviorally (since she starts eating fish after she
gets out of the bunker). Cf. Engels 92ff. and von Schilling 64.
27 “‹Wahrscheinlich will sie baden gehen, wegen der Abkühlung.› . . . Sie
schwamm, schwamm geschickt, übte sich in verschiedenen Stilarten und durchschnitt
tauchend die Wellen.” (726) [“‹Probably means to go swimming. Wants to cool
off.› . . . She swam, she swam, well practicing several different strokes and dove
through the waves.”]
28 For instance in his novella Die Irrungen (Hoffmann 90).
29 An earlier, but chronologically almost simultaneous indication of this kind
of reciprocity occurs already at the end of the first book: “Heute weiß ich, daß alles
zuguckt, daß nichts unbesehen bleibt, daß selbst Tapeten ein besseres Gedächtnis
als die Menschen haben.” (“Now I know that everything watches, that nothing goes
unseen and that even wallpaper has a better memory than ours,” 247)
30 The metaphoric part lies in the transposition of Herbert’s rapidly approaching
the statue with a military assault (“berennen”) as well as in the blending of this
assault with aggressive sexual advances; the complementary metonymic dimension
emerges from the shift from the Niobe-statue to the material from which it is
produced (“Holz”). See Johnson 82 with respect to Herbert’s storming the Niobe
as a “reverse rape”.
31 In both cases, the metaphors have dissolved in the translation. See also with
respect to the motif of “finding one’s place”: “Alle zusammen hätten in unserem
Bunker kaum Platz gefunden,” (“There would hardly have been room for all of
them in the pillbox,” 724).
32 Earlier in the book, Oskar refers to this kind of mutuality to motivate his
dislike for the paedophile greengrocer Greff, who embarrassed his customers with
338 Benjamin Biebuyck
the words: “Ich liebe die Kartoffel, weil sie zu mir spricht!” (I love a potato because
it speaks to me,” 380).
33 Cf. von Schilling 75.
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