E.T.A. Hoffmann's "The Sand-Man" cannot be understood without reference to elements of the German Romanticism. On one level, "The Sand-Man" can be said to be a prefigure of modern science fiction and fantasy. But there is a grotesque quality to the story that interpenetrates both scientific and emotional aspects of the story and points in the direction of an increasingly intense psychopathology. The psychological element appears to be Hoffmann's main concern, but the vehicle that he uses to explore the main character in "The Sand-Man" is of the Gothic thriller. Hoffmann relies on features of Gothic narrative--the powerful, threatening menace, the morbid atmosphere over everything--but these are what the story is "about" only to the degree they are attributes of Nathanael's reflection. Nathanael's experience is that he is forced by the misfortune of circumstances and obstacles that Coppelius puts in his way to behave and think as he does. But it turns out that Nathanael's experience is an attribute of his metal state. Nathanael's imagination, not a malevolent external force, pushes him toward disaster. Hoffmann appears to be engaged in an exploration of the content and consequence of madness, aggravated but not created by externals.
In positioning the story initially as a first-person narrative, Hoffmann deceives the reader into thinking that Nathanael, a student after all, is perfectly rational and has encountered a dreaded personage from the past.
"The Sand-Man" manifests a Gothic environment in such episodes as Nathanael's first glimpse of Coppelius and Nathanael's attempted murder of Clara. But the heart of Gothic horror in "The Sand-Man" is filtered through Nathanael's perceptions. Pathological fantasy achieves status as reality until Nathanael is exposed as an unreliable narrator and his perceptions as symptomatic of his pathology.
The story begins as an epistolary narrative, with Nathanael recalling his first childhood e...