The Sandman

“The Sandman” (1816) is a horror story by German author E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) and first appeared in his collection of short stories Night Pieces. “The Sandman” follows Nathanael, a young man obsessed with a devilish family acquaintance named Coppelius, whom he believes is the Sandman of children’s fairytales. Though Nathanael’s fiancée, Clara, and her brother, Lothar, try to convince him otherwise, his delusions lead him to break with reality, and at the end of the story, he dies by suicide. A classic of German Romanticism, the story addresses themes of Reality Versus Fantasy, The Dangers of Idealized Love, and Gender and the Uncanny, and includes elements of the supernatural and macabre. Hoffmann’s work has inspired many authors, such as Edgar Allan Poe, and in 1919, Sigmund Freud wrote an essay titled “The Uncanny” (“Das Unheimliche”) based on the eerie atmosphere of dread Hoffmann creates in his story.

This guide refers to the version of “The Sandman” published in The Golden Pot and Other Tales (Oxford University Press, 2008), edited and translated by Ritchie Robertson.

Content Warning: This study guide contains themes of psychological horror and violent imagery and mentions suicide. The source text and this guide use the term “madness” as a general descriptor for mental instability.

The story begins as a letter written by Nathanael, who is at university, to his soon-to-be brother-in-law, Lothar. In the letter, Nathanael describes his fear of the old advocate Coppelius, whom he believes is the same person as the Sandman, a terrifying figure from his childhood who he believes will destroy his happiness. Nathanael’s fear of Coppelius is rooted in a traumatic experience he had as a child, when he witnessed his father and Coppelius conduct secret alchemical experiments. During the experiment, Coppelius threatened to tear out Nathanael’s eyes, but his father prevented it. Nathanael’s father died in a fire during one of these experiments.

Nathanael’s fear of Coppelius is compounded by both his mother and Clara’s governess. His mother tells him that the Sandman throws sand in the eyes of children who don’t go to bed on time, and the governess tells him a much more terrifying version of the story, in which the Sandman “comes to children when they don’t want to go to bed and throws handfuls of sand into their eyes” (87), making “their eyes fill with blood and jump out of their heads” (87).

Nathanael tells Lothar that he is fearful because he believes that the Sandman has come to haunt him at the university as an ocular salesman, Coppola, he had recently encountered. Clara, who reads the letter addressed to her brother, writes back to Nathanael to offer him words of logic and comfort. She assures him that he is only imagining that the ocular salesman is this terrifying figure from his childhood.

After a letter that Nathanael writes in response to Clara, an unnamed narrator takes over the story. The narrator explains that Nathanael returns from university to his family home and is reunited with Clara and Lothar. Temporarily, Nathanael seems content, but his fears of Coppelius eventually take over his mood and he becomes gloomy. Clara and Nathanael begin to drift apart.

When Nathanael returns to the university, he comes upon Olimpia, the daughter of one of his professors, Spalanzani. Nathanael falls in love with Olimpia after seeing her through a pocket telescope he bought from Coppola. Nathanael is initially overjoyed when he is given permission to court Olimpia by her father. However, Nathanael’s happiness is short-lived when he overhears a violent argument between Coppola and Spalanzani, during which he realizes that Olimpia is nothing but a lifeless automaton doll. Nathanael’s realization about Olimpia’s true nature plunges him into a severe mental breakdown, leading to his institutionalization for treatment.

After his recovery and reconciliation with Clara, fate intervenes with a cruel twist of irony. In a moment of reckoning with his fiancée, Nathanael unearths from his pocket the old spyglass he purchased from Coppola. He looks through the glass, while Clara stands in his line of sight, and sees Olimpia instead. “A convulsion runs through his every vein” (117), and his fragile mind succumbs to another breakdown. “Rivers of fire were glowing and sparkling in his rolling eyes, and he uttered a horrible bellow, like a tormented animal” (117). “Interspersed with hideous laughter” (117) and “superhuman strength” (117), he takes hold of Clara and tries to hurl her into the unforgiving concrete below.

Clara, just in time, is saved by her brother, Lothar. Nobody, however, saves Nathanael—not even himself. Minutes later, his descent into the abyss of insanity becomes irreversible, and he plunges beyond the balustrade.