How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
When Herr Fajngold saw the corpse […] he called his whole family, not just his wife Ljuba, into the cellar, and it was clear he saw them all coming, for he called each by name […] then explained to us that everyone he'd called lay like that before they were put into the ovens at Treblinka […] (32.9).
All the deaths of the Holocaust are captured in the small figure of Fajngold, his family's only survivor of Treblinka. He still hallucinates that his wife and children are alive. Again, Oskar describes this scene with no emotion, but it still packs a punch for the reader.
Quote #8
I have always been attracted to cemeteries. They are well-kept, straightforward, logical, manly, full of life. You can summon up courage and reach decisions in cemeteries, life takes on clear contours—and I'm not referring to burial plots—in cemeteries, and, if you will, a meaning (35.24).
Kind of reminds us of Boswell's famous comment: "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Though honestly, we don't think most people would think about cemeteries like Oskar does.
Quote #9
Those few thousand marks aside, I was hit hard by Bebra's death and was slow to recover. I locked my tin drum away and refused to stir from my room (44.36).
Of all the deaths that happen in this novel, none seems to affect Oskar as visibly as Bebra's. Bebra was the closest thing Oskar ever had to a role model, and Oskar's overcome with grief after the guy dies. The fact that Oskar locks his tin drum away shows that he doesn't know how to express his grief, since Oskar saves his deepest emotions for his drum.