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| The narrator describes the character "The Great Mahlke" from their youth together through to Mahlke's disappearance near the end of the Second World War. Much of the action of the story is on a half-submerged sunken ] of the ], on which the narrator, Mahlke, and their friends meet each summer. Mahlke explores the ] by diving through a hatch, and with his ever-present screwdriver ]s various items (information plaques, objects left behind by the crew, and even a ]) to sell or collect for himself. | The narrator describes the character "The Great Mahlke" from their youth together through to Mahlke's disappearance near the end of the Second World War. Much of the action of the story is on a half-submerged sunken ] of the ], on which the narrator, Mahlke, and their friends meet each summer. Mahlke explores the ] by diving through a hatch, and with his ever-present screwdriver ]s various items (information plaques, objects left behind by the crew, and even a ]) to sell or collect for himself. | ||
| Over the course of the novella Mahlke steals an ] from a visiting ] captain, and is expelled from school. He joins a tank battalion of the ] and himself receives an Iron Cross thanks to his successes in battle. Returning to the school from which he was expelled, however, the principal forbids him from making a speech to the students, on the grounds of his former disgrace. | Over the course of the novella Mahlke steals an ] from a visiting ] captain, and is expelled from school. He joins a tank battalion of the ] and himself receives an Iron Cross thanks to his successes in battle. Returning to the school from which he was expelled, however, the principal forbids him from making a speech to the students, on the grounds of his former disgrace. | ||
Revision as of 01:06, 10 February 2006
- This article is about the German book. For other meanings, go to Cat and Mouse (disambiguation).
Cat and Mouse, published in Germany in 1961 as Katz und Maus, is a novella by Günter Grass, the second book of the Danzig Trilogy. It is about Joachim Mahlke, an alienated only child without a father. The narrator Pilenz "alone could be termed his friend, if it was possible to be friends with Mahlke" (p. 78); much of Pilenz's narration addresses Mahlke directly. The story is set in Danzig (now Gdańsk) around the time of the Second World War and Nazi rule.
Plot
Template:Spoiler The narrator describes the character "The Great Mahlke" from their youth together through to Mahlke's disappearance near the end of the Second World War. Much of the action of the story is on a half-submerged sunken minesweeper of the Polish Navy, on which the narrator, Mahlke, and their friends meet each summer. Mahlke explores the shipwreck by diving through a hatch, and with his ever-present screwdriver salvages various items (information plaques, objects left behind by the crew, and even a gramophone) to sell or collect for himself.
Over the course of the novella Mahlke steals an Iron Cross from a visiting U-boat captain, and is expelled from school. He joins a tank battalion of the German Army and himself receives an Iron Cross thanks to his successes in battle. Returning to the school from which he was expelled, however, the principal forbids him from making a speech to the students, on the grounds of his former disgrace.
Mahlke, with the help of the narrator, returns to the shipwreck. While the ostensible reason for this is to use an unsubmerged room on the ship as a hiding place so that Mahlke can avoid returning to war, the novel is ambiguous as to whether this is the case, or whether he is hiding instead to excise the affront of being forbidden to speak at his old school. Mahlke dives into the wreck once more, and the narrator never sees him again. Mahlke's final fate is also left ambiguous, however it is implied that he has died in the wreck.
Interpretations
The title relates to the central metaphor, in which Mahlke is the mouse and society is the cat. Mahlke's large larynx is the leitmotif:
...Mahlke's Adam's apple had become the cat's mouse. It was so young a cat, and Mahlke's whatsis was so active — in any case the cat leapt at Mahlke's throat; or one of us caught the cat and held it up to Mahlke's neck; or I ... seized the cat and showed it Mahlke's mouse; and Joachim Mahlke let out a yell, but suffered only slight scratches. (p. 6)
The anthropomorphism and metaphorical embodiment of gross social forces is common in Grass's work; here the sentence "It was a young cat, but no kitten" describes the German state in the 1940s — young but by no means innocent (p. 5). The narrative style — the evasion, self-justification, and eventual, chatty disclosure of the truth — is also characteristic.
Trivia
Oskar Matzerath, protagonist of The Tin Drum, makes an appearance as "a little brat, who must have been about three, pound monotonously on a child's tin drum, turning the afternoon into an infernal smithy" (p. 17). He appears later in reference to the "Dusters" as "a three-year old child whom the gang had cherished as a kind of mascot" (p. 86).
In 1961 an attempt was made to put the book on the index of Germany's Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons, particularly due to a scene of group masturbation, in which Mahlke displays his enormous penis and remarkable sexual endurance. After protest from both the public and other writers the request was withdrawn.
References
The quoted English edition is:
- . ISBN 0-14-002542-1.
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