Gunter Grass and Victor Hugo: An Analogy Between Their Narratology and Characters

Narratology, or narrative theory, is a field of study focused on the analysis of narratives and their structures across various forms of media, including literature, film, and video games. It explores how narratives shape our understanding of the human experience, encompassing essential elements such as time, space, and change. Narratology distinguishes between two main components of a narrative: the "story," which refers to the events and characters within it, and the "discourse," which pertains to how those events are conveyed to the audience. This article compares the people characterized by noted German author Gunter Grass and classic French novelist Victor Hugo.

I bought a copy of Cat and Mouse by Gunter Grass (1927—2015) around four years ago from Aziz Super Market, Dhaka and while going through the moving novel Gunter Grass seemed to me very close to Victor Hugo in terms of characterization. The bizarre physical and mental features of his protagonists in The Tin Drum and in Cat and Mouse reminded me of some of the people Victor Hugo portrayed in his novels Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Man Who Laughs taking into account the inevitable pathos that underpin the frisky narrative mode of the author. Another notable point about Gunter Grass is most of his fictional works are discourse novels due to frequent shifts in point of view while telling the story. The ambience of World War II is strongly felt while reading most of his books. He was awarded Nobel Prize for literature in 1999. In 1993 he became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Britain.

Narrated by Oskar Matzerath, a dwarf and the protagonist of the massive novel, The Tin Drum intertwines components of German folklore and exposes the socio-political condition of Germany from early twentieth century through World War II and the resurrection of Germany from the rubble of the war. The story of The Tin Drum is a fictional patchwork of the gloomy and precarious times Oskar and his family had to undergo during the rise and fall of Nazism. Oskar recalls his memories while writing about his own life during his confinement in a mental asylum and through his words, the tattered lives of millions of people in war-torn Germany get exhibited. It’s an evidential book for a deeper understanding of the hazards caused to humans by war and the title of the book refers to a tin drum received by Oskar on his third birthday which he beats in moments of dismay and mental tumult. His drum echoes the sound of the unexpressed grief and dissatisfaction buried inside the hearts of countless people. Oskar performs textual trips with the readers by taking them back to his childhood and then again returning to his room in the loony bin. Subjective things like his mother’s victimized and bedraggled quandaries under the exasperation of two different men are also depicted in this novel.

In Cat and Mouse, the mouse allegorically refers to the dreary state of ordinary men and women in society while the cat symbolizes the vicious role of a predator taking advantage of the unprotected plight of naïve and vulnerable people. In Cat and Mouse, Joachim Mahlke, a teenage German boy grows up with the freakish desire of becoming a clown. He and his friends used to dive into the sea to look for treasures in the relics of sunken ships. One day a German submarine captain visited his school and delivered a speech on the glory of war. It was the time while the winds of World War II just started to blow across Europe. Joachim Mahlke had been mischievous since his childhood. He stole that captain’s iron cross, even though he was later on caught and rusticated from the school for this offence. However, he received training in a German military academy and joined World War II. He proved his worth by destroying a large number of enemy tanks by means of which he secured his own iron cross for courage under fire. He had an unusually big Adam’s apple (larynx) which clearly differentiated him from his fellow soldiers. When he returned to his boyhood school, the principal didn’t allow him to speak to the audiences on his war experience because of the theft he had committed several years earlier. This incident upset Joachim Mahlke and he left his military job. The novella ends with Joachim Mahlke diving once again into the sea to search for wreckage but he doesn’t return any more. Naturally, it seems to the readers that Mahlke disappeared because of the school principal’s denial to recognize his achievement as a brave soldier. The principal’s stony attitude may be considered the ‘‘cat’’ in this context while Mahlke is the victim of the cat’s repugnance.

Gunter Grass to some extent stands on equal terms with the finest ever French novelist Victor Hugo keeping in view the absurdities both these authors depicted in their fictional figures. Les Miserables is Victor Hugo’s masterpiece. However, in Victor Hugo’s another widely perused novel Hunchback of Notre Dame readers come across a physically deformed man called Quasimodo who is the protagonist of the novel. Quasimodo is found saving a girl named Esmeralda from execution. The unavoidable contrast between the physical deformities of Quasimodo and the beauty of Esmeralda underlines the focal theme of the novel that denies the differences between humans in terms of physical merits and demerits. Oskar Matzerath in The Tin Drum is a dwarf with great drumming skills and he can be compared with Quasimodo in Hunchback of Notre Dame in light of the physical shortcomings they were born with but these corporeal handicaps did not prevent them from doing extraordinary things in these novels. The value of humanity cannot be underrated just for the matter of looking fine or odd—that’s the message we receive from both The Tin Drum and Hunchback of Notre Dame.

In another much acclaimed novel The Man Who Laughs, Victor Hugo illustrated a boy whose face was mutilated by a gang of thugs who maimed stolen children and forced them to beg on the streets of French towns and countryside. The boy’s face was distorted by the gangsters in such a way that it seemed that he was laughing all the time. He performed various tricks for a circus band owned by the gang. The forcibly incised smile on his face to entertain the audiences who had no idea what a horrendously inhuman story was hiding behind the grotesque face of that boy. So, physical malformations once again get Victor Hugo close to Gunter Grass when we look at the portrayal of that ill-fated boy in The Man Who Laughs and the dwarfish appearance of Oskar in The Tin Drum and also Joachim Mahlke’s abnormally huge Adam’s apple in Cat and Mouse.

Gunter Grass portrayed the circumstances of Germany before and after World War II while Victor Hugo showed the social standings of French people before and after French Revolution. So, these two authors are comparable from a historic point of view too.

According to Aristotle, authors and poets should aim to simultaneously entertain and educate the people who listen to their verses and read their stories. Standing beside the downtrodden class of people in society is the greatest responsibility of mankind and litterateurs are gifted with the power to play this role in a more comprehensive way than those belonging to other avocations.


Mahfuz Ul Hasib Chowdhury
is a contributor to different
English newspapers and
magazines.