170, weihte Kerzsn und den GchoB
P. C8 Is the 'brooding one' an incarnation of the t^oly Ghost as in ths poem
In eiqener Sache? Is it possible that the egg has no progenitor - that there is no ordering intelligence behind human affairs? From inside the shell only imaginative surmise about the nature of the deity and the exercise of school compositions enable the inhabitants to understand the significance of their dilemma:
Wir nehmen an, dass uir gebrutet u/erden, Uir stellen uns ein gutmutiges Geflugel vor und schreiben Schulaufsatze
ubar Farbe and Rasse der uns brllitenden Henne.
An element of Biblical parody is present throughout the poem - particularly in its allusions to the opening chapter of Geneis which describes the Holy Spirit as it 'moued upon the face of the waters' and to Exodus 20:4 ('Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image' - 'Du sollst dir kein Bildnis machen,,.'). Also in the somewhat solemn tone of the opening lines to each stanza there are shades of Amos and Obadiah. The parody is intensified by the concomitant satirising of the economists, statisticians and political forecasters of our day:
Wann schlupfen wir aus? Unsere Propheten'im Ei
streiten sich fur mittelmassige Bezahlung
Liber die Dauer der Brutzeit.
C - - U • T- V Sie nehmen einen Tag X an.
In what is a 'send~up' of the Welfare State Grass bemocks a society where sex ('Aus Langeweile') and reproduction ('und echtem Bedurfnis') all too often require a patent:
II
Aus Langeweile und echtem Bedurfnis haben wir Brutkasten erfunden.
Wir sorgen uns sehr um unseren Nachwuchs im Ei»
f". Grass,G.In eiqener Sache, Gd,P,77. Grass,G.Im Li, Gd,P.30.
P.G9 II
Gerne wurdGn wir jener, die uber uns wacht unser Patent srnpfehlen.
The egg is re-furnished in the image of the old men's hc^nva and the psychiatrist's couch:
Wir aber haben ein Dach ubsrm Kopf. Senile Kuken,
Embryos mit Sprachkenntnissen reden den ganzen Tag
und besprechen noch ihre Traume.
In the final two stanzas the speaker takes up once more the problem of writing itself and the prospect of collectiue salvation. Hope is the only principle possible in the circumstances:
Und uenn wir nun nicht gebrutet werden? Wenn diese Scheie niemals ein Loch bekommt? liJenn unser Hcrizont nur der Horizont
unserer Kritzeleien ist und auch bleibsn luird? Wir hoffen, dass uir gebrutet werden,
The forces outside the microcosm of the egg becomes an embodiment of the apprehension felt throughout the piece as the 'benevolent' hen takes on a more saturnine appearance and gives rise to an appeal to solidarity and an ultimate question-mark:
Wenn wir auch nur noch uom Bruten rsden, II
bleibt doch zu befurchten, dap jemand, ausserhalb unserer Schale, Hunger verspurt, uns in die Pfanne haut und mit Salz bestreut.- Was machen wir dann, ihr BrUder im Ei?
197. Grass,G. Im Ei. Gd. P.30. m* Grass,G. Im Ei. Gd. P..11, Grass,G. Im Ei. Gd. P.31. 100, Grass,G. Im Ei. Gd. P.31 ,
p. 70 Tlia experience of fear and death, the auareness of impotence in a world bereft of lovs are symptoms of a universal malaise which hauntn t'le imagination net only of Gunter Grass but also of all coritemporary writers who still possess the courage to look beneath the superficial hedonism of the age and bear witness to the spectre of hopelessness and decay they see there. The English critic August Closs speaks of the same phenomenon when he talks of the loss of the 'sweet language of loue':
The sparrows on the roofs are whistling out the obvious truth that with the onslaught of the nuclear age we are experiencing a neurosis, a psychological derangement on account of the changes in art, society and politics and of the new disorders brought about by such upheavals. In the horrors of reality, art is considered as something less than life yet greater, *
In spite of this 'loss' Grass is able to make use of banal incidents from daily living to portray the experience of married life. The ooeninq stanza
Ehe is a memorable piece of poetic understabement : Wir haben Kinder,das zahlt bis zwei.
Meistens gehen wir in verschiedene Filme. Uom Auseinanderleben sprechen die Treunde.
Doch meins un'd Deine Interessen beruhren sich immer noch
an immer den gleichen Stellen.
Frost und Gebiss is a superb piece of lyrical grotesquerie, a wonderfully vivid apotheosis of physical sensation in words. Grass has here earned the right to be placed in the ranks of that great tradition of artists who since Baudelaire and Cezanne have exposed the nerve-ends of their being to the rawness of things and managed to breathe life into the inanimate world. Rilke, Trakl and Heym are the spiritual ancestors of this Cubist intermezzo dedicated to frost and false teeth:
;2g>y. Closs,A.German Avant-garde Poetry. In;Universitas. A German Review of the' Arts _and Sciences.English language edition.'lulssenschaftliche Uerlagsgesell£.chaft.M.B.H.Stuttgart.Uol.12,1971 .
5CJ2. Grass,G._Ehe_. Ag.P.20. 2 0 3 . Grass,G,E_he_. Ag.P.20.
p.71. Mit blauen Wangcn,im kurzen HerndchGn,
der Atem ein Shawl,fllir wen QHstrickt? Hit b.lapen FujSen uber die Fliesen, auf denen der Husten.das Einbein hupft, daruber die Orgel weht,
J? 05:
eisige Klingel,kein Amen,
The condensation of dream-images amalgamates the attributes of the body and its physical functions with a chance but strikingly apt association: blue cheeks wrapped in short shirts, breath an anonymous shawl, a
one-legged cough and an organ too cold to say amen. In the following stanza there appears what is perhaps the most striking image in all of Grass's poetry- the frosty resurrection of a jellied pig:
Ein Schwein,nun auferstanden in Sulze, zittert klappert,
weil noch zwei Zahne einander finden, tief im Gelee.
The metaphor of copulating teeth is continued in stanza 3 where Uie hav/e the mechanical, bony but abortive union of two machine guns who can only dream of execution. The whole stanza is a lyrical counterpart to Picasso's
'Guernica':
r^aschinengewehre liegen im Bett, konnen nicht schl-'afen,
tasten mit knochernen Salven
die Nacht und die Rollbahn zum Traum ab, stellen ihn an die Wand,
den bleichon uerurteilten florgen.
The culmination of this confession of depersonalised sexuality and aborted creativity comes in the concluding six lines where the central theme of inner decay and crass exterior function is conveyed in a sequence of aggressive images. The poem closes - appropriately - with a metaphor of chattering teeth:
205-.
GrasG ,G.Frost und Gebiss. Gd.P.70. Grass ,G.Frost und Gebiss, Gd.P.70.p. 72 Ein Schutzblech hat iiich gelost:
Frost und GcbiO, Deckal und TopT, die Uhr kotzt in den rj.mer,
dsr Eirner wird nie satt: Zahneklappern, so heiBt
das erste und letzto Gedicht.
The v/elled Biblical allusion to the Last Judgment recalls the image of the resurrected pig, the missing amen and the 'condemned' morning of the previous stanzas. The kaleidescope of vulgarity reminiscent of Bosch reaches its peak of absurdity in the depiction cf the eternally vomiting clock and the insatiable bucket with the false teeth chattering out an accompaniment. In all its extreme sensuality and nightmarish immediacy Frost und Gabiss may well be for Gllinter Grass 'das erste und letzte Gedicht'.
The whole macabre episode is a carnival of the senses example cf what r-lihail Bakhtin has named the 'grotesque of the body', a form of the grotesque which is 'essentially physical, referring always to the body and bodily excesses and celebrating these in an uninhiDited, outrageous but essentially joyous fashion.^^^Inventar oc&r die Ballade von der zerbrochenen Uase^^^is also grotesque but its frivolity is much less riotous than that which pervades Frost und Gebiss. It contains a strong element of the 'comic-grotesque' and approximates to the definition of Michael Steig:
The grotesque involves the managing of the uncanny by the comic...In what is usually called the comic-grotesque, the comic in its various forms lessens the threat of identification with infantile drives by means of ridicule; at the same time, it lulls the inhibitions and makes possible on a pre-conscious level ths same identification that it appears to the
conscience or super-ego to prevent,
Inventorisation is for Gunter Grass(as for other writers of the war
generation such as Gunter Eich and Helmut Heissenbuttel) quasi-therapeutiCo XC^o Grass.G.Trost und Gebissc Gd,P.70o
Bakhtin,n.Rabelais and his lu'orld. Translated by Helen Iswolsky .il.I .T. Press.1958.Ch.5.The Grotesque Image of the Dody and its SourceSc ^^JCi.Thomson,P.The Grotesque.No. 14 in ths series The Critical Idiom.General
EditorsDohn D.Dump-Tiethuen,London,1972.P.55.
Zif, Grass.G.Inventar oder die Ballade von dsr zerbrochensn l/ase,
2,/SteiQ,n.Defining the GrotosguotAn Attempt at Synthesis.In:3ournal of Aesthetics and Art i^ritj cism.Summex- 1 970,Pp.259-260.Quoted in: T horn so n. i-ip, Ci r.. P, bO «
p.73 It allows him to dispel tensions and inhibitions within the poem itself (i.e.at a subconscious level) by a careful stocktaking of elements in the poet's personal unconscious (in Dung's sense). The identification with household objects is a means of orientation which allows the poet to adapt to an uncanny environment by caricaturing its features. In this poem the objects reflect the cataclysm from which the observer has emerged:
Uom Fenstersims rollen die Augen, ein Buch zer fallt im Spagat; von Seite zu Seite boser verlangen die Brillenglaser Andacht und sundigs L e s e r .
Der. Schrank springt auf und erbricht die Hute, erwurgte Krawatten,
die Hemden, wechselnds H a u t ,
auch Hosen mit brauchbarem Schlitz; ein Bein ist des anderen W i t z .
Michael Steig's comments beautifully elucidate the resources of the comic situation and the anxiety encountered by reader and author alike:
When the infantile material is primarily threatening, comic techniques, including caricature, diminish the threat through degradation or ridicule; but at the same t i m e , they may also enhance anxiety through their aggressive implications and
% I
through the strangeness they lend to the threatening figure^ Gradually tensions are overcome and the inventory loses its early stark- ness as the objects are divested of their gruesome immediacy. The grotesque
now becomes the 'defeat, by means of the comicj of anxiety in the face of the i n e x p l i c a b l e ' : ^ ' ' ^
Der Tisch,
nun zur Ruhe gekommen, vier Stuhle treten sich t o t ,
die Flasche schnappt nach dem Korken,
1 Grass,G. Inventar oder die Ballade von der zerbrochenen ^ase. Gd.P.2a. StBig,ri.Op.Cit.P, 2 5 0 , Quoted in :Thomson, P. O p . Cit. P . 5 0 ,
Cramer,T.Das Groteske. bei E.T.A.Hoffmann.iitlnchen.1 966.Translation Stei- g ' s . O p . C i t . P . 2 b . Quoted in:Thomson,P.Op.Cit.P.60,
p.7A der Korken halt dicht und halt still;
Gin Korken macht was er will.
Dsr Tiontag kornmt wie die fiegel; des Sonntags peinlicher Rest in alte Zeitung gewickelt;
wir trugen das Packchen nach Hause, ein jeder des anderen Pause.
Nou the inventory is completed the house can be sold, the nightingale's song may be liberated from the yellow wall-carpets and the cupboard can be 'forgiven' its contents. The family will move to another neighbourhood with the prospect of domestic contentment and peace of mind:
Uir haben uns wieder uertragen, das Bett zum Abschied zerschlagen;
du hast zwar die Uase zerbrochen, doch ich hab zuerst dran gerochen- 80 kam unser Gluck in die Wochen.
Grass,G.Inventar oder die Ballade von der zerbrochsnen I'ase. Gd.P„29» Grass^G. Inventar oder d-'e Ballade von der z e r b m c h e n e n viase, Gd.P,29,
p . 75
p.76 Gunter Grass is uery much a uriter committed to German society of the past and present. In what may be now seen as a conscious attempt at
'role-playing' in various situations Grass has donned the mask of different trades and professions and entered the world of the child and the nun, the guilt-ridden parent and the student protester in order to confront his contemporaries with their own society. liJriting in the literary periodical Akzente in 1956 Gunter Grass defines his literary task in terms which indicate that he is well aware of ttie writer's essential insignificance:
Es gibt keine persBnlichen Berater, es gibt keine Hofnarren, Ich sehe nur-und mich eingeschlossen-verwirrte, am eigenen
Handwerk zweifelnde Schriftsteller und Dichter, welche die winzigen Moglichkeiten,zwar nicht beratend,aber handelnd auf die uns anuertraute Gegenwart einzuwirken, wahrnehmen oder nicht wahrnehmen oder halbwegs wahrnehmen. Dieser in sich gem.usterten, von Ehrgeiz, Neurosen und Ehekrisen geschuttelten Uielgestalt gegenuber hat es keinen Sinn, uom Uerhalten der Schriftsteller in der Gesellschaft zu sprechen. Hofnarr oder personlicher
Berater, beide sind Strichmannchen, wie sie auf den Notizblocken gelangweilter Diskussioosredner entstehen.
As a footnote to these remarks Prophetenkost offers a humorous lyrical statement of the essential absurdity of writing today:
Als Heuschrecken unsere Stadt besetzten,
keine Milch mehr ins Haus kam, die Zeitung erstickte, Kffnete man die Kerker, gab die Propheten frei.
Nun zogen sie durch die Strassen, 3800 Propheten. Ungestraft durften sie reden, sich reichlich nahren von jenem springenden,grauen Belag,den wir die Plage nannten.
n 2 ' liJer hatte es anders erwartet.-
Writers, like prophets are governed by the law of supply and demand: Bald kam uns wieder die Milch, die Zeitung atmete
auf,
Propheten fullten die Kerker."
1 •Grass,G.Uom manqelnden Selbstuertrauen der schreibenden Hofnarren unter I ! i r Berucksichtiounq nic^it vorhandener Hofe.In:Akzente,Zeitschrift
It I I fur Dichtunn.Carl Manser Werlag.Munchen.13.Dahrgang,1966.P»19a. 2.Grass.G.Prophetenkost. UW, P.45.
p.77 In IM^chtliches Stadion the writer sees himself as a footballer before the 'grandstand' of public opinion:
Einsam stand der Dichter im Tor,
4 doch der Schiedsrichter pfiff : Abseits,
The awareness of alienation and the concern with the individual in his social environment are Grass's strongest assets as a writer and poet. In the course of this chapter I shall look at a number of poems where the encounter between the man and his society are most in evidence.
The eyes of children mirror the world of adults. With Gunter Grass childhood is portrayed in an ambiguous light. Some poems are obviously
5 composed for children themselves - as in Aus dem Alltag der Pupoe Nana,
6 7
Advent, nein Schutzenqel - and give voice to a naive wonder and a delight in playing with words and syllables. Others are miniature indictments of
8 9
the society of grown-ups Ausqefraqt and Schulpause for example - whilst
10 11 two of Grass's best known poems - Kinderlied and Dreht euch nicht um -
grow from an experience of personal fear. The form of a children's rhyming game lends itself to the expression of an anxiety which the child feels in a totalitarian society. In Kinderlied the imperatives of an authoritarian world are incorporated into the rhyming scheme. The events of the poem are seen through the eyes of a child but described for the reader in ambivalent terms:
Wer lacht hier, hat gelacht? Hier hat sich's ausgelacht, Wer lacht, macht Uerdacht,
12 dass er aus GrCinden lacht.
By variations in the form and tense of the verb 'lachen' the information of the poem undergoes a number of permutations which serve to hammer home the banality and hollowness of laughter in such a world. Mirth itself seems to lose all spontaneity. Gutturals and short 'a' sounds become the vocal vessel of an authoritarian attitude which indulges in the categorical statement and the dogmatic phrase.
4.Grass.G.Nachtliches Stadion, I'U. P,43.
5.Grass.G.Aus dem Alltao der Punpe Nana, '"d. Pp.41-44, 6.Grass.G.Advent. Ag. Pp.22-24.
7.Gras.G.f^iein Scnutzengel. Ag,P,46. 8.Grass.G.Ausqefraqt, Ag, Pp,6-7, g.Grass.G.Schu]pause. Age P.O. 10.GrasstG.Kinderlied, Gd, P.9,
11 ,Grass.G.Dreht nucn nicht um, Ag, P.40. 12.GrassyG.Kinderlied. Gd. P,9.
p.78 The poem is a good example of the question-and-ansuer technique Grass is fond cf using to represent the human condition in an oppressive society. This device is useful in eliciting a response from the reader who is thereby involved in the situation depicted as a juror in a court-room trial. Each stanza of Kinderlied begins with a line which displays significant moments in the life of a child - moments which are called into question by the lyrical speaker. Laughing, crying, speaking and keeping silent, playing -- and finally dying are aspects of existence projected against a backdrop of oppression. The uncertainty of life in an environment where the individual is continually invaded from without by questioning voices which intrude into his privacy is scarcely mitigated by the official-sounding replies to each question. The very rationale of existence is challenged in a language akin to Orwellian 'Newspeak':
Wer weint hier, hat geweint? Hier wird nicht mehr geweint. Wer hier weint, der auch meint, dass er aus Grunden weint,
Uer spricht hier, spricht und schweigt? Wer schweigt, wird angezeigt.
liier hier spricht, hat verschwiegen, wo seine Grunde liegen.''^
Allusions to games such as Blindman's Buff mask other, more sinister- connotations :burnt fingers and gas ovens, sand-castles and mass-graves, walls and firing-squads. Play itself becomes a grotesque charade of death:
Wer spielt hier, spielt im Sand? Wer spielt muss an die Wand, hat sich beim Spiel die Hand
II ^ A
grundlich verspielt, verbrannt.
The initial question of each stanza is both a^direct attack on the fantasy world of the child and an open address to the reader who is summoned to reflect on what is being said. In the final four lines death itself is
13.Grass,G, Kinderlied. Gd.P.O. 14.Grass,G. Kinderlied. Gd.P,9.
p.79 depriued of its definitive aspoct and serves to recruit the children for some otlier hideous enterprise once their innocence has been spoliated:
Uler stirbt hier, ist gestorben? Uer stirbt, ist abgeworben, Uler hier stirbt, unuerdorben
1 5 ist ohne Grund uerstorben.