SOURCE: "The Tin Drum," in Günter Grass, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. Inc., 1985, pp. 19-40, 153-56.

Lawson is an American educator and author of several books and articles on German literature. In the following excerpt, he discusses the plot and characters of The Tin Drum, and explores Grass's use of symbolism throughout the novel.

There is some suggestion that Grass, piqued at his extremely modest success, or actually lack of success with his early dramas, set to work on The Tin Drum in something of an "I'll show them" spirit. If so, he surely succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations. The dubiously successful dramatist, the poet whose verse, however meritorious, had failed to find much public acceptance, became a hugely successful novelist with The Tin Drum. Public acceptance of the novel when it appeared was decidedly not unanimous. In the fifties and early sixties charges of blasphemy and...