The main section of The Sandman deals with Nathan’s attempts at coping with the revivals of his trauma, beginning with his effort to convince his rationalist girlfriend, Clara, of the acute threat embodied by Coppola.

One year later the visitor returns for one final evening, which ends with an explosion that kills Nathan’s father.Īlthough this scene contains the traumatic core of the story, it merely constitutes part of the story’s introduction. When Nathan is discovered, his father’s visitor utters the most violent threats and the boy loses consciousness.

Their faces hideously distorted by the flames of a hidden stove, what he sees both fascinates and utterly frightens the boy. Young Nathan, overwhelmed with curiosity, manages to hide behind the curtain of the closet in his father’s study and watch the two men conduct an alchemical experiment. She would scare them with the old wives’ tale of the Sandman, who throws sand into the eyes of unruly children to make the eyes jump out of their heads, allowing the Sandman to collect and feed them to his own children. Each evening before the visitor’s arrival, Nathan’s mother would send the children quickly to bed.

A certain salesman of optical devices, Coppola, seems to Nathan to be the very same sinister visitor who used to visit his father during Nathan’s childhood. In The Sandman we learn how an aspiring young poet, Nathan, is confronted with his most traumatic childhood memories and ultimately driven into madness and death.

Hoffmann fairy tales