Opinions on Socail Differnces In his novel, Grimmelshausen speaks of the utter despair that the social differences caused among the people. He has suggested that the peasant class actually were to blame themselves for some of the ills that visited them regularly. He speaks of many derogatory things that the peasants undertook, and they received the same rewards. This behavior is characteristic of the soldiers who formed the peasant class and can be used by Historians who need to study the social class of medieval Germany. It must be remembered that sufficient mobility existed among the peasant class who could take up different professions in their social class. For gluttony and drunkenness, hunger and thirst, wenching and dicing and playing, riot and roaring, murdering and being murdered, slaying and being slain, torturing and being tortured, hunting and being hunted, harrying and being harried, robbing and being robbed, frighting and being frighted, causing trouble and suffering trouble, beating and being beaten: in a word hurting and harming, and in turn being hurt and harmed- this was their whole life (Chapter xv). Again the noble class despised the peasant class because they lacked dedication and determination in fighting for a cause. The nobility believed that peasants were not dependable, were treacherous, and would run away at the first chance in a battle. The author has narrated that it was this reason that soldiers from the peasant class were never promoted or rose to higher posts. “thou old cripple, is not true that nobly born officers be better respected by the soldiery than they that before time have been but servants? And what discipline in war can ye find where no respect is? Must not a general trust a gentleman more than a peasant lad that had run away from his father at the plow-tail and so done his own parents no good service?” (Chapter xvii) The author also speaks of Jews who he portrays as greedy and treacherous who would as well betray a friend as a foe. When the vagabond who has come to wealth seeks the services of a Jew to sell his possessions and is cheated by him (Chapter xxii) Grimmelshausen is of the very firm opinion that a person from the peasant class is destined to remain in his own social class, and it would take only the intervention of the nobility to help a peasant from his class to a higher one. He speaks of how Melchior, who was a swineherd by birth and profession, rose to be a Jester and then as a Huntsman when he ventured into the garrison town of Hanau, where he is captured by the soldiers, who want to imprison him. It is only at the intervention of the pastor that Melchior is released and given a job as a court jester in the role of a calf. The irony and the bitterness are underplay here as the vagabond realizes that a calf is always fattened up before its slaughter. His role as a jester provides him an opportunity to talk with impudence with his master, the Governor of Hanau. The jester berates the Governor and calls him the most troubled man in the town since the Governor, in addition to his work, is answerable for this misdeed of the garrison soldiers for whom loot and banditry are perfectly acceptable. The Govern