Roland Heinze

Reflection Paper over �The Earthquake in Chili”

Heinrich Kleist’s tragic short story is set in the city of Santiago, Chile in 1647. The main characters, Jerónimo and Josefa, are being punished for sinful acts of fornication and blasphemy. Jerónimo awaits his fate in a prison cell for having impregnated Josefa while, at the same time, a procession leads Josefa to her beheading for having collapsed on the steps of a church from labor pains during a festival. As they are both about to suffer their fates, Jerónimo by hanging himself in his prison cell, unable to bear the sounds of the bells marking the procession, and Josefa by being beheaded before a crowd eagerly awaiting divine justice, an earthquake strikes the city and burns much of it to the ground. The convent, palace, law court, churches, and other places of worship and power are destroyed and many people are killed. Through the ruins, Jerónimo is able to find Josefa and his son. They go on to reconcile with many surviving families and decide to return to the last church that remains standing to give thanks to God for sparing them. During the service, however, the pulpit denounces their sins, whereupon they are recognized and killed by the angry mob within the church.

The text presents situations that emphasize the irrationalities and unpredictability of man’s behavior, giving insight to the epistemological obsession that Kleist developed after reading works from Kant. Kleist, who believed in man’s ability to plan out and control his destiny, to eliminate randomness, and in the educability and rationality of man, assesses man’s behavior through his conduct in society. For example, it is hard to grasp the motivation behind laws and standards making it impossible for a couple such as Jerónimo and Josefina to find happiness while maintaining a place in a society such as this one. It is also difficult to understand how, even upon the Abbess’ request to reduce Josefina’s sentence, that it is only possible to have it reduced from burning at the stake to beheading, emphasizing the obstinacy of those in power.

Kleist also highlights the paradoxical and irrational behavior of man through the survivors of the earthquake. During the tremors, exhibitions of courage and heroism were seen. Those that survived the disaster then display only reconciliation and gratitude towards each other, seemingly having expelled all feelings of hatred and having cleansed society of its wickedness. However, within the church we see that the sinister side of man has not been totally destroyed, as the grief-stricken mob searches for a scapegoat. They hold Jerónimo and Josefa responsible and kill them inside church. The savage and unexplainable behavior of man is further displayed as Master Pedrillo angrily seizes a child from the arms of one of the men and thrusts his head into a column, spilling his brains on the floor of the church. It is perplexing to see that the main characters, themselves, also exhibit irrational behavior. Only the day before had their fellow citizens ached to eradicate them, and yet they resolve to return to give thanks and to be surrounded by those that had awaited their demise. This situation in the church signifies Kleist’s belief in the existence of a God that cannot be understood and that nothing was predictable, that human nature was a riddle, as baffling as the rationalities of the mob within the church after the earthquake. Thus the church and other officials in this story are presented in a dim light, all perishing in the earthquake and fires, emphasizing Kleist’s conviction that neither the government nor the church is able to explain the acts of nature around us.

Throughout the text, Kleist parallels and seemingly communicates his thoughts with those that are portrayed through the characters. After Kleist read works by Kant, which shook his foundation of assumptions about life, he entered into an intellectual crisis and began to despair, just as Jerónimo does in his cell: “Hating his life, he began to toll, and despair overcame him. Hating his life, he resolved to put an end to it by means of a length of rope which by chance had been left in his cell.” (Kleist 52) This description, like many others, reveals information about Kleist’s issues with philosophy and perhaps his future plans of suicide.

The story was written in such a way that Kleist never comments on any of the situations that he presents to the reader and allows the reader to interpret the actions in the story as he sees fit. However, Kleist invites the reader to exhibit feelings of sorrow and sympathy for the lovers, who through their own faults and the irrationality of those around them are brought to their demise.

Some important questions to consider:

∙ What explanation, if any, can the reader find as to why God punishes the unjust with the earthquake yet later provokes the angry mob through the words of the priest in His last house of worship to kill the main characters? What does this say about Kleist’s view about religion and government? What does this say about the reasoning and rationality of man?

∙ What connection, if any, is there between the earthquake in Chili and the earthquake in Lisbon in 1755, which shook the foundations of the Enlightenment?

∙ What other irrationalities are displayed in the characters of the story? What might have Doña Isabel said to Don Fernando before their departure for the church? Why is the infant also killed?

∙ What evidence (quotes) is given in the text to stress Kleist’s inner conflict between the ability of man to control his destiny and the randomness which Kant writes about?