The Tin Drum

As a youngster, Oskar manipulates people in many ways. He repeats the grandstand trick and claims that his “task was destruction” (85). As he becomes more practiced, he can use his voice to cut “a circular section” (87) from shop windows. He opens these holes with the hope of tempting passersby to steal from the shops. When people do not steal even though they are given an opportunity to do so, Oskar is disappointed. They are too honest. In these circumstances, Oskar compares himself to the serpent who tempts Eve to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.

One evening in 1937, Oskar watches Jan pass by the window of a jewelry store. Knowing that Jan is too honest to steal for himself, Oskar wonders whether Jan might steal a “golden necklace” (90) and then give it to Agnes. Oskar watches as Jan steals the necklace from the hole in the store window. When Jan turns around and sees Oskar, he immediately knows what Oskar has done. However, he walks home without saying anything and gives the necklace to Agnes. Later, Oskar reveals, the necklace was traded for “twelve cartons of Lucky Strikes and a leather briefcase” (91).

In his room in the psychiatric hospital, Oskar mourns his “voice's impotence” (92). He can no longer shatter glass with his voice. He remembers how Jan stealing the necklace made him stop his project for a short time. He also remembers his occasional church visits at his mother's side. Oskar comes from a family of mixed religious backgrounds: Alfred is Protestant and Agnes is Catholic, so Alfred never goes to church with his wife. Oskar has vivid memories of the Catholic church. He likes the stained-glass windows and the statues. The church's crucifix is especially interesting to him, as the blue-eyed, slender Jesus reminded Oskar of Jan and himself. He also remembers a statue of Mary cradling Jesus, which makes him think of his own relationship with his mother.

The sight of Jesus's small hands and “decathlete body” (95) inspires him to start playing his tin drum. At that moment, Oskar offers a deal to Jesus: If the statue can come to life and play the drum, Oskar will become a religious person. If not, then Oskar decides that “Oskar's more Jesus than Jesus is” (97). The statue does not come to life; there is “no miracle” (98). Instead, a priest appears and hits Oskar for drumming in the church. Afraid of breaking the stained glass, Oskar does not scream. He declines to become a religious person and says that he “will never again ask for a miracle” (99).

Oskar's family closes the store on Good Friday and takes a vacation to the beach. Though Oskar is now a teenager, he still looks like a three-year-old. At the beach, the family sees a man on a rock dangling “an ordinary clothesline” (101) in the sea. As the family prepare to leave, the man begins hauling on the thick rope. The family watches, transfixed, as the man hauls in the decapitated “head of a black horse with a black mane” (102). Oskar stares at the horse's head, realizing that it is filled with writhing eels that are eating the head from the inside out.

The man begins ripping away the eels; the sight causes Agnes to vomit. The man throws all the eels into a salt-filled sack. In the sack, the eels die and the salt soaks up the slime from their bodies even though this is “outlawed by the police and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals” (103). While Agnes continues to vomit, the man takes his eel-filled sack and leaves. Jan tries to help Agnes while Alfred feels a sudden hunger for eels. He haggles with the docker and proudly purchases two eels at a discount.

That night, Alfred cooks eels. Agnes refuses to eat the eels, angering Alfred. He prepares eel soup in the kitchen while Agnes sits in the family room with Jan. Jan begins to run his hands over Agnes's body, calming her anger. Oskar is in the room, watching his uncle touch his mother in a sexual manner. Oskar cannot watch any longer. He leaves the room and goes to his parents' bedroom, where he tries to shut himself inside their wardrobe and thinks about the nurse who administers his medical tests. He leaves the door slightly ajar.

Alfred finishes preparing the soup. If Agnes does not want to eat eels, he says, then she will go hungry. Agnes is angry; Oskar hears the argument from inside the wardrobe. She goes to the bedroom while Alfred returns to the kitchen. As Agnes cries in bed, Jan approaches. He sits down beside her and puts his hand “under her dress” (107). Oskar watches from inside the wardrobe. Eventually, Jan and Agnes return to the family room. They play cards with Alfred.

The incident with the eels lingers in Agnes's mind. She struggles to look at any fish for a few days but then begins “devouring” (109) fish very frequently. She cannot stop eating fish, to the point where she is diagnosed with “fish poisoning” (110). Alfred and Jan try to help her but Agnes refuses to listen to them, even when they call a doctor. Agnes eats so many fish that she eventually dies.

By the time of her death, she is three months pregnant. Her death emotionally devastates both Jan and Alfred. Oskar is also sad, but less so than his uncle and father. At the funeral, Oskar spots the toy store owner, Sigismund Markus, “dressed in black and embarrassed” (112). The other attendees at the funeral gang up on Markus and try to have him removed from the cemetery. After, Oskar talks to Markus. Though he did not know it at the time, Oskar now understands that Markus is Jewish. During the mid-1930s in Germany and Poland, Jewish people are being increasingly persecuted. Also present at the funeral is “Crazy” Leo, a local man who makes it his business to attend every funeral “in a professional capacity” (113).

After the funeral, Oskar's family members sit down and play the card game skat, the same three-player game that Jan, Agnes, and Alfred played together. The sight of the game of skat without Agnes makes Oskar realize that “poor Mama is gone” (114). He runs to his grandmother, trying to hide beneath her many skirts. Back in the hospital, Oskar speculates as to whose skirts he can now hide beneath. Now, he concludes, he has no one. He has no one to comfort him when the memory of his mother's death makes him sad.

Following his mother's death, Oskar spends more time outside his house as he “love[s] solitude” (115). On one walk, he reunites with Bebra and again declines his offer to “perform in Bebra's Miracle Show” (117). He explains that his mother has recently died, but he is also fearful of Bebra's growing involvement in the Nazi party.

Oskar visits his neighbors. He occasionally plays along with the trumpeter Meyn but finds no satisfaction in it. He frequently visits a neighbor named Mrs. Truczinski. Her son Herbert is a waiter who spends most of his day lazing around the house, often after being forced to end a fight in the bar where he works. Oskar appreciates Herbert's undemanding nature. When he sees Herbert changing shirts, Oskar notices that his back is covered in scars. He asks Herbert about the scars and Herbert says that—as a waiter—he is frequently called upon to break up physical altercations, so each scar represents a story. When stopping some of these fights, the fighters turn on him and stab him. During one such incident, Herbert accidently kills a Latvian sea captain. Though he is acquitted of murder, Herbert decides that he no longer wants to work as a waiter, as the guilt weighs on him “like a ton of bricks” (123).

By 1938, international diplomatic tensions reach an impasse. Borders close and certain products are difficult to obtain. After briefly embarking with Oskar on a “life of crime” (124), Herbert finds work at the local maritime museum. He works as a watchman and appreciates the boring nature of the job. Oskar accompanies him to work on his first day and then continues to attend the museum while Herbert works.

One of the exhibits at the museum is the figurehead which was once placed on the front of a ship. The figurehead is named Niobe, and she is in the shape of a “voluptuous wooden woman“ (126). Niobe is said to be “supernatural“ (128), her curse causing seemingly dozens of deaths. Herbert is not afraid of her and Oskar is intrigued by the story of the curse.

After two uneventful weeks, Oskar's father writes to the museum director and asks that Oskar not be admitted to the museum. Oskar lingers outside the museum, then sees police cars and ambulances “rushing” (132) into the museum. Herbert is dead. Oskar sees that his friend removed his clothes and tried to climb on top of Niobe, presumably with sexual intentions. Oskar promises Bruno that his next memory will be a quieter one.

Oskar begins a story about a “musician named Meyn” (133) who plays a trumpet. He repeats the first line of this story throughout the chapter, modifying it slightly each time. Meyn is Oskar's neighbor and is deeply affected by Herbert's death. At Herbert's funeral, Oskar notices Meyn behaving strangely. “Crazy” Leo arrives at the funeral. Leo has a reputation for attending every funeral in Danzig. After the funeral, Meyn returns home and—overcome with emotion—kills his four cats. When he tries to stuff their bodies in his trash can, he realizes that one of the cats is not quite dead. The sound of the dying cat attracts a neighbor, who reports the incident to the authorities. Meyn, a member of the Nazi SA, loses his job. After losing his position, Meyn gives up alcohol for the rest of his life.

That day, Alfred closes the family store early and takes Oskar into the center of the city because “something is going on in the city” (136). Nazis are burning the synagogue to the ground while other people smash store windows and loot the contents. Oskar notices that the rioters are only breaking into shops owned by Jewish people. The incident that took place on November 9-10, 1938, is historically referred to as “The Night of Broken Glass” or Kristallnacht.

Realizing what is happening, Oskar runs to the toy store owned by Sigismund Markus. By the time he arrives, the shop is completely looted. Soldiers have defecated on the broken toys. Inside the office, Oskar discovers Markus's body. He has died by suicide. Oskar's concern is not for Markus, he confesses—he had hoped to find a few tin drums before the store was completely ruined. To Oskar, the people who believe in Nazi ideology are like children who believe “in Santa Claus” (137), with the ideology resulting in violence and death.