Gunther Grass:The reality of idealism To live in an idealistic society is one that can only be dreamed. Many people want have the perfect world but do not realize that the world is not a perfect place because there are so many different personalities, cultures etc Gunther Grass (1999 Laureate) in his Noble Lecture: To be Continued explains that he himself cannot be idealistic because of family history. Second, we live in a world where poverty exists. Finally, the Nobel Prize has ties to dynamite.Grass first explains that idealism is not feasible because of the history of his people. He states I come from a family of refugees, which means that in addition to everything that drives a writer from book to book I had the irreparable loss of my birthplace.(19) Grass realizes that he cannot be idealistic because in reality he is suffering and he knows the truth of life. Grass feels that idealism has no part in literature because there is no way to separate reality from your writing. This is evident when he says There were extenuating circumstances: mountains of rubble and cadavers, fruit of the womb of German history. The more I shoveled, the more it grew. It simply could not be ignored.(19) Grass is saying that when he writes it is to hard for him put out the realities of life and writes in an ideal fashionNext, Grass explains that if we live in a world were poverty exist how can we be ideal. This is evident when talks about The Rat, a book in which a laboratory rat wins the Noble Prize. Grass is reminded how few prizes have been rewarded to projects that would rid the world of the scourge of mankind: hunger. (21) Grass feels that if we live in world were anyone who can pay the price can get new pair of kidneys. Hearts can be transplanted People should not have to be starving when there are resources in the world to sufficiently help with this problem.Another way Grass shows that Idealism is not feasible occur, when he ta...
