Interpretation of Gunter Grass’s Nursery Rhyme

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Interpretation of Gunter Grass’s Nursery Rhyme

Writer:     Gunter Grass

Born:                1927

The basis component of nursery rhyme is music or melody. It produces melody with the help of rhyme and repetition. Mostly, it is based on the rhyme scheme of aabb. Repetition has been produced through the internal rhyme. From the view point of, form, it is a nursery rhyme. Nursery rhyme is meant for children. Form is suitable to the children but what about the content?

But in terms of content, this is not a nursery rhyme. It has been written in the background of Nazies atrocities against the Jews. Laughter, tears, games, speech, silence and death are the human rights. But the Nazies caused the violation of those human rights. When people laugh, they are declared to inept. Those who do not speak anything are denounce and those who speak liars are called liars. All the human games are bannist. They are asked to scarify their lives in the name of the nation. But the poet does not agree with this mode of nationalism. He does not believe in that nationalism, which produces the declaring every death is vain.

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