Tin Drum-JK

            “You’ll have to take my word for it…”(34) This line captures the tone of the work, the reader is totally dependent on a man with a Peter Pan-like obsession, who is locked up in an insane asylum. The immense level of detail given to us is undermined by the idea that the stories are contained within a tin drum. What is real and what has simply been created is unknown, we have to simply trust the author and try to follow the scrambled sense in which he presents himself.

            This leads to a slightly deceptive nature within Oskar’s family story. It seems as if the story being told is one that could be altered by Oskar on a whim, for he constantly alludes to the nature of storytelling, and how some stories may have different endings, yet he chooses the ones that he believes. The action of cutting up photos of himself and his friend in hopes of “creating new, and we hoped happier, creatures” captures this idea of an altered past.  The fact that he is locked within an insane asylum also begs to question the legitimacy of his stories, his wish to remain a child affects how he presents the what has happened to him and those who came before him. 

            .Koljaiczek embodies the deceptive that is mirrored by Oskar. Koljaiczek, when marrying Ana took over the life of the deceased Wranka, left behind the days of arson. The presentation of the two sides of the same man is slightly confusing for Oskar portrays them as two completely different beings, as if he really did change. Koljaiczek once burned down a mill, and now as Wranka he throws away matches leaving his family in darkness. This can be compared to the way the point of view within the story flips back and forth in a dizzying manner with the narrator and the author intermingling, leaving the reader wondering who is presenting the story.