Tangible Representiation of the Memory in Günter Grass’s Novel “Peeling the Onion”

The subject of analysis in this work is the autobiographical novel “Beim Häuten der Zwiebel” (Peeling the Onion) of the German writer Gunter Grass. In this novel, the author talks about the events that he experienced from 1939 to 1959: about his childhood and youth, about the war, about post-war Germany and about his artistic career. The aim of the work is to identify literary devices that allow Gunter Grass to recreate the mechanisms of memory in a fictional autobiography. To achieve this goal, the biographical and historical material, that served as a basis for the novel, was studied, the functions of metaphor in the literary text were determined, the concept of individual memory was analyzed, the main characteristics of personal memories were revealed, and the system of metaphorical images in the novel was thoroughly examined. In this paper it was identified what characteristics of personal memories are embodied by each of the metaphorical images. In addition, it was concluded that the combined use of these images allows to recreate the mechanism of the memory of a person who strives to reflect on his traumatic past and to free himself from the guilt.