The “formalist” approach to literature says, among other things, that the author's opinion of what a piece of writing means is no more or less accurate than anyone else's.
That's kind of contrary to common sense; who should know better what a piece of writing means than the person who wrote it? But nope. Under formalism, there may be hundreds of incorrect interpretations of what a work of fiction wants us to learn, but there may be dozens of correct ones, of which the author's is only one, and the author's interpretation may not even be the most correct.
I bring this up with reference to “Michael Kohlhaas” because I found it very difficult to determine what Heinrich von Kleist's intention for it might be. (Not that von Kleist's interpretation is of any critical interest under formalism.) And on top of everything else, I suspect that the correct interpretation of the work might have changed over time – it's well over 200 years old by now, having been published in 1810. Quite a lot of uncertainty for what is, after all, a fairly simple story. Hold onto your hat and let's dive in.
First of all, although the story takes place in Germany, there was no Germany back then. The area was called the Holy Roman Empire despite the fact that, as Linda Richman on Saturday Night Live's “Coffee Talk” pointed out, it was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire. It consisted of a large number of small states that had little in common besides the German language. As usual during any period of history, the people who lived there adapted as well as they could to the circumstances, such as the confusion of borders all around them. Unfortunately, though, crossing those borders could lead to a lot of problems. This is what happens at the story's beginning to Michael Kohlhaas himself – he's a breeder and seller of horses. As he travels to a nearby market to sell some animals, he finds himself crossing into another state and is told that he needs certain paperwork to continue on his way. So he leaves two black horses behind him in the local nobleman's stables, as a guarantee of his return with the documents he needs, along with a groom to care for them while he's away.
This is fine and dandy, but when Kohlhaas gets back he finds that his animals have been forced to work so hard in the nobleman's fields that they're down to skin and bones. What's more, the groom has been beaten to within an inch of his life. And on top of everything else, he learns that there never was any law requiring the documents he was told about. None of which would necessarily cause enormous problems, according to the story's narrator – in confrontations like this the ordinary citizen will usually take his lumps and go about his business. Too bad that Kohlhaas has an unusually strong sense of justice that won't allow him to swallow this stuff.
So he gathers up a small but growing group of discontented citizens, goes in search of the nobleman who damaged his property, lets it be known that (1) he wants that nobleman turned over to him so he can take the nobleman to be tried and (2) he wants his horses cured and made healthy at the nobleman's expense, and when those demands are not met he sets fire to the towns of which he made the demands. Most of the rest of the novella consists of Kohlhaas' search for justice, the discussions of those in power regarding what is to be done about him, and of course Kohlhaas' eventual fate.
Of particular interest to today's mind, I suspect, is that among the nobility there are some who insist that Kohlhaas must be captured and punished (many of those who say this are relatives of the nobleman who damaged Kohlhaas), while others insist that the demands of law and justice demand that the nobleman who damaged Kohlhaas be punished himself.
Without giving away too much, Kohlhaas eventually faces both fates, and he's actually contented with that because he gets a chance to hurt the nobleman so severely that the nobleman has a stroke. You have to admit that there's a certain satisfaction in that. It brings us to the question of what von Kleist intended us to get out of this tale.
Are we supposed to come away from this story furious at the German nobility of the time and their entitled notions? Angry at Kohlhaas for practically destroying his whole life, including his family, out of his insistence upon taking the law into his own hands? Convinced that the whole German society and Michael Kohlhaas can go straight to Hell? That's what can frustrate us about the formalist approach that I mentioned before; there's no telling which of those intentions von Kleist had in mind, and if we could tell which one von Kleist emphasized, it wouldn't matter anyway, because his intention for his story is no more important than anyone else's.
At least we can say that the questions surrounding “Michael Kohlhaas” have not been definitively answered to this day. E.L. Doctorow raised those questions again in 1975 with the publication of his novel “Ragtime”. One of the focal plots of that novel tells the story of Coalhouse Walker Jr., a black man in pre-World War I New York City who faces some of the same injustices as Michael Kohlhaas does (notice the similarity of names) with the addition of racism thrown in for good measure. Heinrich von Kleist, an important playwright in German romanticism, committed suicide at the age of 34 to join his dying girlfriend, but at least he now has the satisfaction of having produced a work that has lasted this long.
Benshlomo says, Simple stories can open up some pretty complex ideas.
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