[Grass's works] deal with the question of guilt, specifically Germany's guilt, but more importantly, universal existential guilt.

The picture he paints, to use his own words, is gray, perhaps depressing to some of his readers, but the reason for the gray is because this color is mid-way between black and white, and therefore closer to the reality which Grass knows is somewhere between evil and good. (p. 436)

"Where's the witch, black as pitch?" sing the unknowing children of Grass. A chorus too aware of this figure's significance chants a response whose mocking echo—Ha, Ha, Ha!—lingers long after the reader has put aside the work in which this character is found, Although she appears in this form only in The Tin Drum, this enigmatic figure does not confine her activity to this one novel, but rather casts a menacing shadow over all of her creator's work….

Those...