The Sandman
by Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffman
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At a glance:
- Author: Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffman
- First Published: 1816
- Type of Plot: Epistolary
- Time of Work: The early nineteenth century
- Setting: Germany
- Characters: Nathanael, Clara, Lothar, Coppelius, Giuseppe Coppola, Spalanzani, Olimpia
- Genres: Realism, Short fiction, Fantasy, Grotesque literature
- Subjects: Love or romance, Psychology or psychologists, Self, Supernatural, Authors or writers, Emotions, Reality, Imagination, Identity
- Locales: Europe, Germany
The Story
In the first of the three letters that open the story, Nathanael writes Lothar, a distant cousin who lives with his sister Clara and Nathanael’s mother, of the distress he has felt following the recent visit to his room by an instrument trader named Giuseppe Coppola. Nathanael is convinced that Coppola is the lawyer Coppelius, who was responsible for the death of Nathanael’s father years earlier during his childhood. As a child, Nathanael believed Coppelius to be the Sandman, who, according to a nursemaid’s fairy tale, threw sand into children’s eyes when they...
(The entire page is 1884 words.)
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