Drumming Up Memories: Post-War Identity and Trauma in Borchert, Dazai, Grass, and Kurosawa (2008)
Undergraduate: Tabitha Disher
Faculty Advisor: Inger Brodey
Department: English & Comparative Literature
Drumming is often connected to militaristic or martial pursuits, but in Borchert’s Draussen vor der Tür, Dazai’s “The Sound of Hammering,” Grass’ Die Blechtrommel, and Kurosawa’s Dodesukaden, the authors all explore how this motif occurs in the lives of German and Japanese citizens after World War II. Percussion in literary and cinematic outlets provides an aesthetic aural experience that can imitate the harshness of battle, recreate a lost sense of unity, or signal the construction of a new society. Dealing with issues of paternity, familial structure, national glory, personal and public identity, violence, and power dynamics, the people sought to redefine themselves and their nations.
Percussion becomes both an expression of and a voice for the experiences of the traumatized characters, and how they interact with the percussive elements speaks volumes about their experiences and national identities in their defeated, post-war societies. In Borchert and Dazai, the characters are both former army soldiers, freshly returned from the war. They hold no control over the percussion, which serves as an aural marker of trauma, and it stunts their personal development. In the later works of Grass and Kurosawa, the characters are already physically and mentally stunted, but they retain control over the percussive elements.
My presentation and honors thesis explore why and how percussion is utilized in four post-WWII German and Japanese works to express a common problem: the inability to mourn cultural trauma and reconcile the nation’s past, present, and future. Utilizing close readings, original translations, historical, and legal documents, I explore the issue of percussion as a trans-national and cross-generic motif, symptomatic of a deeper national issue connected with the trauma of war within these societies.