Analysis of the Sandman by E.T.A Hoffmann

Analysis of the Sandman by E.T.A Hoffmann
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Analysis of the Sandman by E.T.A Hoffmann
Hoffmann's short story "The Sandman" is a tale that attempts to establish who the Sandman was through the characters. According to the folklore, Sandman is believed to be a being that sprinkles sand on the eyes of children so that they can go to bed and sleep. It was a story that was used to scare children to go to bed by telling them that Sandman would come and plug out their eyes (Arnapal 15). The story was also used to explain the whitish accumulations on the eyes of children discovered when they wake up. In his story, Hoffmann describes a story of Nathaniel who is curious about knowing who the Sandman was (Arnapal 29). However, Hoffmann employs a unique writing style in the story; unorthodox writing style. The purpose of this paper is to examine the orthodox writing style employed by the author and the psychological status of Nathaniel, who is the protagonist character in the story (Arnapal 31).
The author begins the story with three letters among the three major characters in the story; Nathaniel (the protagonist), Clara (Nathaniel's fiancée) and Luther (brother to Clara). The narrator of the story must have come across the story of Nathaniel and decided to use the three letters to set a baseline of facts to support the claims of the story to unfold. Also, the story has introduced with letters instead of introducing the narrator (Lehne, Engel and Rohrmeier 39). This plunges the reader into establishing the relationship among the three characters; Nathaniel, Clara, and Lothar. This kind of introduction is unusual with many stories by different authors. While a majority of the authors usually hide the main line of the story to keep the reader curious throughout the story, Hoffmann has reversed that and instead lets the reader establish a relationship among the key characters so as to stimulate the urge to go ahead and find out what unfolds in the story among the characters (Lehne, Engel and Rohrmeier 65).
In addition, Sandman is a kind of exemplary literature that can generate ontological instability between moments that conforms to the expectations versus the reality of an individual. Hofmann engaged in writing that in itself could evoke quasi-hallucinatory modes of perceptions that are unconscious in nature (Pearson 82). Most intriguing in the story is the figure of Olimpia which apparently plays a central role in the story. Olimpia is the daughter of a professor who taught Nathaniel but later is revealed to be a robot which blows of Nathaniel's mind. First, the reader is puzzled to know the gender identity of the robot and how could a mechanical structure take a role of a female (Pearson 91). A critical look a...