Die Verlobung in St. Domingo : a critique of European colonialism?
Sasha Strigo
Heinrich von Kleist’s novella Die Verlobung in St. Domingo details the tragic tribulations of Toni and Gustav’s interracial relationship blossoming during, and ultimately destroyed by, the violence of the Haitian Revolution of 1803. Within any literary representation of this remarkable epoch, the reader is invariably confronted with a depiction, and explicit or implicit judgement of, European colonialism. Prior to examining any notion of authorial intent or textual criticism, we must first clarify what ‘European colonialism’ means in the context of early nineteenth-century St Domingo. As we learn that Port au Prince ‘war der letzte Stützpunkt der französischen Macht auf der Insel’ 1 (4) by the events of Die Verlobung – and thus that the formal period of French colonial rule was over, we can understand European colonialism primarily as a colonial attitude , harboured by colonizers and imposed on the (formerly) colonized. This attitude can be seen as the perpetuation of a worldview based on the system of differences, stratifications and hierarchies that propped up colonial societies. In order to examine Kleist and Die Verlobung ’s critique of colonialism as a whole, we must interrogate the portrayal of the various constituent parts of the colonial attitude’s imposed hierarchies, namely (although not exclusively) race, morality and humanity. Die Verlobung can ostensibly be read as a text that does not at all offer a robust critique of European colonialism. This is most explicitly demonstrated in the narrator’s and the white Swiss mercenary Gustav’s racist and colonialist views dominating the narrative, without any substantial challenge, and thus colouring our interpretation. The importance of the narrative voice’s role as interpretative intermediary of events cannot be understated. Thus, its dismissive vilification of the slave uprisings of St Domingo – and particularly the dehumanization of the vengeful black revolutionary Congo Hoango, as his alleged ‘unmenschlicher Rachsucht’ (4) suggests – certainly does not represent a critique of colonialism; indeed, it represents the perpetuation of the destructive racism that characterized colonial attitudes. Gustav, eventually Toni’s lover, mirrors this depiction of slave uprisings as irrationally destructive violence. This is conveyed in the contrast between his passionately emotive language condemning the uprisings – ‘das Gemetzel . . . die Bosheit’ (13) – and the placidly exonerating generality of his description of slavery as ‘das allgemeine Verhältnis’ (14) practi s ed only by ‘einigen schlechten Mitgliedern’ (14) of the white race. Gustav’s stratified moral izing of skin colour represents a further perpetuation of destructively hierarchical colonial attitude, as, although Toni’s sexual appeal is key, the main reason Gustav cites for trusting the ‘alte Mulattin’ 2 (3) Babekan and entering her home is his assertion that ‘aus der Farbe Eures Gesichts schimmert mir ein Strahl von der meinigen entgegen.’ (8) This attribution of moral qualities to skin colour – with white signalling trustworthiness, black an inverse suspicion, and mixed race a fluctuating ambiguity – epitomizes the wider aesthetic-moral
1 All direct textual quotes from: Heinrich von Kleist, Die Verlobung in St. Domingo, Das Bettelweib von Locarno, Der Findling (Ditzingen: Reclam, 2002). 2 ‘Mulattin’ is a pejorative term referring to a woman of half white European and half black African descent.
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