Everything you need to understand or teach The Clown by Heinrich Böll.
Representative of Boll's literary oeuvre, The Clown incorporates many of the prominent thematic elements considered by Boll to be of fundamental significance in his work: the alienation of the individual by a dehumanizing, materialistic, and often emasculating society; the corruption of Christian ethic and spirituality; the loss of traditional familial and social unity; and the failure of mankind to accept the moral responsibilities of the age. In the novel, Hans Schnier, the son...