The Adventures Of Simplicissimus Essay

“The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus” is a novel about one farm boy’s experience of living in German lands during the Thirty Year’s war. It highlights many of the main aspects of the war on German lands and it’s people.
The first aspect portrayed in the novel is the most common. The novel opens with Simplicius living on a farm with his abusive parents, when a cavalry arrives and ransacks their home. His father is tortured and the women are raped. The scene perfectly captures how a sleepy farm in the countryside would be overwhelmed by sudden and total violence, and then left with nothing left to their name during this time. The second aspect portrayed in this novel is the utter chaos all life was like during the Thirty Years War.

A Swedish inspector comes and Simplicius has to pretend to be a drummer boy so there won’t be any problems. Simplicius has to wear armor that seems to benefit his enemy, rather than himself, because it was required. Many of Simplicius’ interactions are filled with mistrust and pettiness. Simplicius also notes how hereditary nobility, especially in military ranks, seems dumb to him as who parents are and their good qualities don’t automatically pass down to their children. One main point of how petty this war was, is the fact that the opposing sides are all depicted as basically one big mess of violence and not all that different from one another. In conclusion, “The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus” is a novel about one farm boy’s experience of living in German lands during the Thirty Year’s war. It highlights three main aspects of the war on German lands and it’s people. The first, is how innocent, small farms and people would be devastated by sudden violence for no real reason during the war. Second, how there was no escaping the pillaging and destruction this war caused at the time. Lastly, how the whole war was built on pettiness that had devastating