Fear of Social Change in Kleist’s “Erdbeben in Chili” Rosear H. BRows Berkeley, California Ina Hindw parable, several blind men try to describe an elephant. [After feling the animal's trunk, one decides thatthe elephant sa snake. ‘Another concludes from the animal's massive leg that the elephant is tee. A third grasps the tail and argucs that the elephant isa roap, and ‘soforth, Drawing on limited experience, each blindly (and wrongs) infers ‘what the elephant i ‘Keis's "Erdbecben in Chill” (1806) contains a similar parable on the problem of interpretation. Every interpretation of evens in the story is confounded by aarative technique of anew turn of events. The pre- ictable punishment atthe story's outset of those who break social and Sexual ius is suddenly reversed by the earthquake, which demolishes (ld expectations in an “Umkchrung aller Verhalnisse." When Jeronimo land Josephe interpret the new state of affairs as designed by Providence for their benefit, they are consumed by mob passions ignited by an op- posite interpretation ofthe same evems. Even the opsimism of the last Sentence (“und wenn Don Fernando Prilippen mit Juan vergich, und ‘wie er bode erworben hatte, so war es ihm fas, als mut er sich even”) is muted by the phrases “so war es thm fast” and “als mi,” which imply that Don Fernando may not really interpret his acquisition of is ‘adoptive son inthis way at all Like the elephant parable, Klis story reveals the ambiguity of experience and the blindness of those who draw facile conclusions from it ‘Many critics have insisted that in heroic figures such as Don Fer- nando, Kleist reaserts higher moral truths “as if absolute? A weakness {in most ofthese studies i that they concede the collapse of moral and teleological certitude in Klis’ “Erdbeben,” then read it back into the story. Contemporary teleologies (interpretations of the earthquake as de- ‘Signed for human benefit or as divine judgment), the “Classica” notion ofthe autonomous moral subject transcending Socal and historical lim- itations (Don Femnando as hero, Josephe as exemplary mother) and the Monatshefte, Vol. 84, No, 4, 1992 “7 ‘saree? $1 8/0“8 Brown “Romantic ideal of combining disparate elements in harmony (the na- ture iy) are at once negated and preserved in Kleist’ story in a way reminiscent of sublation. As Werner Hamacher points out, the sory shows the impossibility of representing “cine oberte ciate und be ‘deutungstiende Instanz.”> ‘Hamacher goes on to argue that in establishing the ambiguity of| representation, Kleist’ text teelf undermines any attempt to examine t in terms of its Socal or hstorial context, ori any terme other than the