Heinrich Böll uses his novel, The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, to attack modern journalistic ethics as well as the values of contemporary Germany. The structure of this novel is important to conveying his message. He uses a police report format, differences in chapter lengths, narrator or author intervention, a subtitle, and the extensive use of the ‘puddle’ metaphor. All these things contribute towards the message in the text. The puddle metaphor is the …showed first 75 words of 1124 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1124 total…show how Heinrich Böll is attacking the modern journalistic ethics and contemporary Germany, that is all in the text of the story. However the structure that Heinrich Böll has put the text in is flawless, there can be no misinterpretation of the facts, unlike in newspaper reports. It is typically German in its style, every single detail given, so the reader can find out what the lost honour of Katharina Blum really is.