When Kleist Used The Symbol Of The Puppet in his article “Über das Marionettentheater,” it was not for the first time. He expressly referred to it in an early letter, the letter of May 1799, in which, significantly, his concern was to outline his “Lebensplan” to his fiancée Wilhelmine von Zenge:

The puppet on the strings of fate conjures a vision of the arbitrary quality of a human existence delivered over to superior and mightier invisible forces. This is also the sense of a later reference Kleist makes to the puppet, in a letter to Wilhelmine on 9 April 1801, although in this case the parallel of man and puppet is implied rather than expressly stated: “Ach, Wilhelmine, wir dünken uns frei, und der Zufall führt uns allgewaltig an tausend feingesponnenen Fäden fort” (2:642).

Both references to puppet symbolism occur at crucial stages in Kleist’s early life. In the former instance, Kleist was establishing a plan for his life in order to keep those very incalculable forces at bay whose ascendancy he keenly sensed in his life. In the second instance, the vision of the puppet reassumes its immediacy as Kleist was emerging from the trauma of an intellectual and emotional crisis. The puppet therefore vividly expressed what had troubled Kleist throughout these early years of his life — namely, a deep sensing of man’s powerlessness in the face of overwhelming chaotic forces that usurp his freedom of action. The young Kleist erected his “Lebensplan” in order to stake a claim for the freedom of the self and to do battle with those forces that eroded the sanctity of self. It is hardly surprising that such an image regains its appositeness once the basis underlying this plan is exposed as illusory.