The Tin Drum Themes

In the 1950s, Germany was on its way to recovery from the War. There was an official policy of "de-Nazification" but many former Nazis still held positions in the new government. The Tin Drum was t...

Throughout The Tin Drum, you might notice that poor little Oskar struggles to find a sense of home. It isn't easy for the guy, considering how he's not even sure who his real father is. On top of t...

In The Tin Drum, Oskar claims he didn't even want to be born, and that his goal was to climb back into the womb. Sure, he makes a few "friends" throughout this book, but you always feel as if you s...

In The Tin Drum, Oskar gets exposed to sex at an age where he's too young to understand it—he observes lots of thrashing and moaning and sighing but really doesn't know what's happening. The adul...

Oskar's nothing if not manipulative. In fact, he probably spends the better part of The Tin Drum manipulating us, his readers. We know from the start that he's in an insane asylum. We also find out...

The Tin Drum has two—count 'em—two world wars. Before Oskar was born, his father was wounded in WWI. Europe pretty much self-destructed during the war, and his family lived through the postwar...

It's safe to say that Oskar's a vain individual in The Tin Drum. It's even safe to say he's narcissistic. He spends a lot of his time trying to convince us how superior he is to other people. We ca...

At the end of The Tin Drum, Oskar reflects on the Black Cook, a witchlike creature from German folklore, and talks about her as a sort of Grim Reaper. He claims that she (Death) was present at his...