Abstract:

Grimm and Grass: The Reception of Fairy Tales in the Novels The Flounder and The Tin DrumAfter the release of Grimm’s words (2010) by Günter Grass, a ‘love letter’ to the Brothers Grimm and their dictionary, it is now possible to describe more accurately the reception of fairy tales in his novels. One of his favorite stories is Tom Thumb, the hero of this fairy tale arises again as Oskar Matzerath in The Tin Drum. Oskar has resisted against the Nazis, he did not swear allegiance to the SS as opposed to its author Grass, who deeply regrets this heavy mistake. In the novel The Flounder we see a transformation and refinement of the Grimm’s fairy tale The Fisherman and His Wife. Both novels have a political intention, they describe a kind of resistance, but also a flight into a magical world of fairy tales, but still retaining the reference to the criticized political reality. The description of such a “magical realism” as a narrative strategy represents the focus of the investigation.

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