"The Sandman" () is a short story by . It was first published in the 1816 book of stories Night Pieces. It is a story of mistaken identity resulting from the love affair between the protagonist Nathanael and an automaton. It addresses themes of possession, hallucination, and breakdown.
Plot summary
The story is told by a narrator who claims to have known Lothar, the brother of Nathanael's fiancée, Clara. It begins with three letters between Nathanael, Clara, and Lothar.
In the first letter, from Nathanael to Lothar, Nathanael enigmatically tells of a visit from a barometer merchant which has deeply disturbed him. To explain why, he recalls his childhood fear of the "Sandman", a folklore character whom he believes is the mysterious nightly visitor to his father. One night, he hides in his father's room and discovers that the visitor is Coppelius, a sinister lawyer. His father and Coppelius are undertaking an unknown project with a secret workshop. Nathanael is discovered after seeing Coppelius take a face-like, eyeless shape from the hearth to begin hammering it. Coppelius intends to pour embers into Nathanael's eyes, but his father pleads his eyes be spared. Coppelius instead grips Nathanael's hands and feet, twisting them painfully until he loses consciousness. A year later, another night of experiments caused his father's death in the presence of Coppelius, who then vanished without a trace. His father having died of some sort of flaming explosion, is found with his face unmarked before being laid in his coffin. Nathanael believes that a barometer-seller who arrived recently at his rooms under the name Giuseppe Coppola is none other than the hated Sandman, and he is determined to seek vengeance. A letter from Clara to Nathanael, explaining that Nathanael had addressed the previous letter to her instead of to Lothar. She was touched at the account of Nathanael's childhood trauma, and discussed it with Lothar, but she is convinced that the terrors are of Nathanael's own imagining and urges him to put Coppelius/Coppola out of his mind. A letter from Nathanael to Lothar, in which Nathanael declares that Coppola is not, after all, Coppelius: Coppola is clearly Italian, while Coppelius was German, and Coppola is also vouched for by the new physics professor, Spallanzani, who is also Italian and has known Coppola for years. Nathanael adds that Spallanzani has a daughter, Olimpia, whose brief presence has made a lasting impression on him.
Shortly after this third letter, Nathanael returns to his home town from his studies to see Clara and Lothar, and in the joy of their reunion Coppelius/Coppola is at first forgotten. Nevertheless, the encounter with Coppola has had a profound effect on Nathanael, driving him toward a gloomy mysticism which bores Clara and leads to their gradual estrangement. He writes a poem about Coppelius destroying his happiness in love, in which Coppelius appears at his wedding to touch Clara's eyes and then throws Nathanael into a circle of fire. After he emotionally reads this poem to her, she tells him to throw the insane poem into the fire. Nathanael's frustration with this leads him to call her an "inanimate, accursed automaton", which so enrages Lothar that he in turn insults Nathanael, and a duel is only narrowly averted by Clara's intervention. Nathanael pleads for Clara's forgiveness, and declares his true love for her, and the three then reconcile.
Nathanael returns to complete the final year of his studies, after which he intends to return to his hometown indefinitely. He finds his student lodgings destroyed by fire, though his possessions were rescued by his friends and moved to a new house which is opposite that of Spallanzani. His window now looks directly into that of Olimpia, and he is again struck by her beauty. Coppola calls to sell his wares, and offers "pretty eyes, pretty eyes!", which reawakens Nathanael's childish fear of the Sandman. However, it turns out that Coppola has lenses and spectacles to sell, and also small telescopes, and Nathanael purchases one, hoping to calm his lingering paranoia. As Coppola leaves, Nathanael becomes fixated on watching Olimpia through his telescope, although her fixed gaze and motionless stance disconcert him.
Spallanzani gives a grand party at which it is reported that his daughter will be presented in public for the first time. Nathanael is invited, and becomes enraptured by Olimpia, who plays the piano, sings and dances. Her stiffness of movement and coldness of touch appear strange to many of the company. Nathanael dances with her repeatedly, awed by her perfect rhythm, and eventually tells her of his passion for her, to which Olimpia replies only "Ah, ah!". During the following days, he visits Olimpia repeatedly, reading her the poems and mysticism that had so bored Clara, and Olimpia listens to it all and replies only "Ah, ah!", which Nathanael interprets as understanding. Most other people consider her dull and stupid, although pretty, and with strangely mechanical actions.
Eventually Nathanael determines to propose to Olimpia, but when he arrives at her rooms he finds an argument in progress between Spallanzani and Coppola, who are fighting over the body of Olimpia and arguing over who made the eyes and who made the clockwork. Coppola, who is now revealed as Coppelius in truth, wins the struggle, and makes off with the lifeless and eyeless body, while the injured Spallanzani urges Nathanael to chase after him and recover the automaton to which he has devoted so many years of his life. The sight of Olimpia's eyes lying on the ground drives Nathanael to madness, and he flies at the professor to strangle him. He is pulled away by other people drawn by the noise of the struggle, and in a state of insanity, is taken to an asylum.
Spallanzani recovers from the encounter, but is forced to leave the university because of the sensational revelation of the trick he had played in trying to pass off an automaton as a living person. Coppelius once more vanishes without trace. The narrator adds that the story of the automaton had a widespread effect on society, with many lovers taking steps to ensure they were not enamoured of puppets but of real flesh and blood.
Nathanael appears to recover from his madness and is reunited with Clara and Lothar. He resolves to marry Clara and move to a pleasant estate near his home town. On the way to visit the place, they pass through the town and climb the high steeple to look out at the view. Clara points out a bush that seems to be striding towards them. Nathanael automatically withdraws Coppola's spyglass and, looking through it sideways, sees Clara through the lens. With Clara in place of Olimpia as the subject of the spyglass's gaze, madness strikes Nathanael again, and he tries to hurl Clara from the steeple. She is saved by Lothar, but in the crowd that gathers below Coppelius appears, and upon seeing him Nathanael cries "pretty eyes, pretty eyes!" and leaps over the railing to his death. Coppelius disappears into the crowd.
Many years afterward, the narrator concludes, it is said that Clara was seen with a kind-looking man sitting before a country house with two lovely boys, and thus found the domestic happiness that Nathanael could never have provided.
Characters Nathanael: Narcissistic protagonist with a manic sense of mission. Clara: Nathanael's fiancée with a peaceful, judicious, yet determined temperament. Lothar: Clara's brother and Nathanael's friend. Nathanael's father: Alchemical experimentalist whose dealings with Coppelius during Nathanael's childhood lead to his death. Coppelius: Fear-instilling, large and malformed man who spoiled the happiness of Nathanael and his siblings in their childhood and may be implicated in the death of Nathanael's father. Coppola: Italian trader in barometers and lenses, in whom Nathanael recognizes Coppelius. Spallanzani: Physics professor with whom Nathanael is studying, and collaborator with Coppola on building the lifelike automaton Olimpia. He shares his name with a real scientist who published during Hoffmann's lifetime, and is alluded to in the story. Olimpia: "Daughter" of Nathanael's professor, Spallanzani, who is later revealed to be an automaton, or robot; this revelation is one of the elements that incites Nathanael's madness. Siegmund: Attempts to save his friend Nathanael from unhappiness and insanity.
Folklore reference The story features a depiction of the Sandman, a character from northern European folklore, who is said to sprinkle sand in the eyes of children to make them fall asleep. When, as a child, Nathanael asks his sister's elderly nurse about the Sandman, she gives him a more grisly account of the character:
"Don't you know that yet? He is a wicked man, who comes to children when they won't go to bed, and throws a handful of sand into their eyes, so that they start out bleeding from their heads. He puts their eyes in a bag and carries them to the crescent moon to feed his own children, who sit in the nest up there. They have crooked beaks like owls so that they can pick up the eyes of naughty human children."
Interpretations The horror in The Sandman does not begin with a monster. It begins in the way Nathanael remembers. His fear of losing his eyes stays with him. Freud called that kind of fear uncanny, when something hidden returns and makes the familiar feel strange. Todorov called stories like this fantastic because they never say what is real. They do not confirm. They just leave you caught in between. Kofman thought it was not about what Nathanael saw. It was about how easily his view of the world slipped. When the difference between real and not real starts to blur, everything else begins to slip too.
The characters and the conflict are first defined in the story's three opening letters. Furthermore, the psychological conflict of the protagonist, Nathanael, is represented, who is torn between hallucinations and reality. Nathanael struggles his whole life against post-traumatic stress which comes from a traumatic episode with the Sandman in his childhood experience. Until the end of the book it remains open whether this experience was real, or just a dream of the young Nathanael. The text clearly leaves the decision open inasmuch as it offers two understandings: that of Nathanael's belief that there is a dark power controlling him, and Clara's postulation (together with Lothar) against this that this is only a psychological element.
The story is partly a subjective description of the proceedings from Nathanael's viewpoint which, due to enormous psychological problems, is not likely objective—or possibly objectively portrayed. Hoffman consciously leaves the reader unsure. In this, the interpretation from an Enlightenment perspective makes sense against the Romantic view, whereby Clara represents the enlightenment and Nathanael the Romantics.
Of central importance is the "eyes" theme (interpreted by Freud in his 1919 essay "The Uncanny" as fear of castration), the "steps", the robot, and laughing. Hoffmann, well known for not conforming to society, manages to give a satirical critique of society here, which offers a lesson to both Enlightened scientists and Romantic "hoverers and floaters". Freud's psychoanalytic interpretation emphasizes that the uncanny is an aesthetic experience evoked for all by the text. Thus, a reading of this text with attention to the uncanny opens up aesthetic theory to include the mixed positive and negative aesthetic pleasures.