independent agent in a political world, Kunigunde's continuing
independence rests on her ability to use the means available to her. The
manner in which she arranges her clothes, her makeup and her hair
constitute her female arsenal.
This concept of costuming or rather arranging a costume in a
particular manner create the illusion of gender is an idea also found in
Penthesilea. When Penthesilea renounces her title as the Amazon queen,
she rips off her jewelry as a symbolic act of changing her identity. "Indem
sie sich den Halsschmuck abreifit: Weg ihr verdammten Flittern!'" (Kleist
188) The jewelry symbolizes her role as queen as much as the breast
symbolizes women's subordinate role to men for the Amazon's first queen
who rejected this position by tearing her breast. Penthesilea, already
lacking a breast, renounces her throne in attempt to remove her further
from the realm of societal control and in some respects demonstrates her
desire to return to pre-Amazonian society. The accoutrements remain
central to understanding Penthesilea's status; in this case, her jewelry
marks her as both woman and ruler, the removal of which symbolizes
her ceding the throne.
Kunigunde presents a beautiful representation of a woman and not
the Naturschonheit that Immanuel Kant maintains as important for
beauty in his Kritik der Urteilskraft. She, cognizant of the power of
beauty, plays with representation and costumes herself to reflect the
socially generated concept of gender. Kant defines beauty as dependent
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