Kleist Importance Of Consciousness

Kleist and Consciousness A few short years before his death in 1811, Henrich Von Kleist finished writing some of his last great works including The Prince of Homburg. Although The Prince of Homburg was not the only play Kleist had written, it emphasizes an idea that he carries throughout the play in addition to The Chilean Earthquake, and The Puppet Theater, two of his short selected writings. The way that Kleist writes is sophisticated, eloquent, and philosophical. He is able to maneuver his words to bring together the idea of consciousness.
Consciousness is defined as “1.) A sense of one’s personal or collective identity. 2.) Special awareness of or sensitivity to a particular issue or situation” (The American Heritage Dictionary). Kleist’s
works The Prince of Homburg, The Chilean Earthquake, and The Puppet Theater are all different in their own ways but one. Consciousness ties to the writings through action or morals of the story itself, which is represented in all three works. The play The Prince of Homburg begins with Prince Frederick Arthur of Homburg falling asleep into a dreaming state similar to a trance and sleepwalking, when he begins to weave a crown out of nearby laurel leaves. When he awakes he tells the Count about the strange dream he had. The dream that the Prince had sets the stage for the rest of the play in the events that follow. While he was unconscious, the dream could be interpreted as the Prince envisioning his military plans, gaining victory, glory, honor, and becoming a celebrated hero. The importance of consciousness is also connected to unconsciousness and actions or emotions.
Sub-consciousness and unconsciousness work together and must have unity. Since Kleist was born in an era when Freudian concepts were just then coming together, dream analysis and meaning of our actions were new and being observed through scientific investigation. Kleist looks into the information that we synthesize and process as our surroundings by our five senses and makes the connection with our perception. In his writings, Kleist manages to subtly explain the reasoning for our conscious and actions. In Kleist’s The Puppet Theater, two men are talking about the marionettes in the puppet show and they lead into a deep discussion about the grace and elegance of the marionettes as they dance and question why people do certain things. While the two gentlemen continue to talk about self-consciousness one mentions the story of a boy pulling a thorn out of his foot and how he couldn’t repeat the movement he once did and how it slowly changed his character over time. The awareness of this consciousness leads into the concept of affectation, when adults lose their innocence and spontaneity such that children
have. Affectation can be also be read in Kleist’s The Chilean Earthquake, which touches on the various points of consciousness. The story involves a man and a woman who have a love affair and a child that is born as a result. The couple carried out the act in nature away from society without consciously thinking about the consequences that could possibly result, or in other words, conceiving a child out of wedlock, especially when one is already married. Taking place in the city of Santiago, the conventions of societal structure, community, and civilization give more reason as to the events that take place next. The church holding the authority, deem the scandal as evil, being a sin of lust, and say justice must be carried out in order to resolve the conflict and restore peace. In the midst of the confusion of a crowd attempting to alleviate the situation, the woman is clubbed to death and the man’s child from his own marriage is brutally killed as he watches, in the end is left with the child from his affair and adopts him with his wife. Whether or not the reader views the end of story of The Chilean Earthquake as justifiable or rightly deserved, all actions have consequences.
Kleist craft fully is able to touch on all aspects of consciousness in such depth throughout his works The Prince of Homburg, The Puppet Theater, and The Chilean Earthquake. Kleist’s ability to give the reader a look into the mind of how and why we do things is unmatched in his creativity to describe reasoning. Although Kleist took his own life, he certainly was influenced by his times and the world around him. Kleist was able to see and understand this reasoning and perfectly describe these ideas in his writings that many today still enjoy to learn and
read.