Themes in Kleist's short stories

Some themes running through the short stories of Heinrich van Kleist include: the wrath of the church and the established order against any unmarried woman who becomes pregnant or gives birth (The Earthquake in Chile in which an unmarried pregnant woman is to be beheaded by the state, The Marquise of O... in which the pregnant daughter is banished from the family), riotous mobs run rampant and driven by blood lust and destruction (Earthquake: children smashed to death by a mob, Power of Music in which a group of riotous anti-Catholics storm a convent, Betrothal in San Domingo in which rebellious slaves roam in bands killing white people, Marquise in which Russian soldiers assault a young woman). In short, his stories are full of action, violence, and destruction, more so than almost any other literary writer - but weirdly his stories also have a sense of redemption: the Marquise, after years of torment and abuse, seems to settle into a successful, possibly happy, marriage; the brothers who lead the attack on the convent in Power of Music become religious devotees (confined to a madhouse), at least one child is spared at the cease of violence in Earthquake, and even in Betrothal, where the interracial couple die in a murder/suicide, at least the man dies in despair but knowing that the woman he loves had not betrayed him but had tried to save him. In Kleist's world, salvation is achieved, if at all, only after great suffering, loss, ostracism, mayhem, and destruction.