On the day of his third birthday the main character, Oskar Matzerath, decides to stop growing. The same day he receives his first tin drum, which will be with him as he travels around Europe. He works as an artist's model, enrolls in a troupe of traveling musicians, deals in the black market, and becomes a leader of a group of anarchists. the drum will be the key to all Oskar's memories, even when some time after the war he is confined to a mental institution convicted of a murder he did not commit.