<\/p>\n
In Hoffmann\u2019s 1816 \u201cThe Sandman<\/em>\u201d, the main protagonist Nathaniel falls in love with Olimpia \u2013 an automaton created by university professor Spallanzani and Coppelius-double Coppola. How did Nathaniel not find out earlier?<\/p>\n Had robot technology advanced so far in 1816 that an automaton became indistinguishable from humans?<\/p>\n Was Nathaniel just blinded by his humongous ego?<\/p>\n Or perhaps was Nathaniel attracted to an automaton because he is one too?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n During his childhood, Nathaniel gets caught trying to find out who the Sandman is in his father\u2019s room. As a result, Coppelius \u201cripped me [Nathaniel] open\u201d and \u201cunscrewed my hands and feet\u201d (Hoffmann 47). The evocative imagery used to describe what happens to Nathaniel is often labeled a confabulation. This blog post will instead take an alternative perspective and explore the possibility that Nathaniel was killed in this incident, and Nathaniel\u2019s father revived him as an automaton.<\/p>\n Nathaniel\u2019s father is described to have been working with or for Coppelius for a long time \u2013 there are multiple instances of the \u2018sandman\u2019 coming to visit. Presumably, Coppelius and Nathaniel\u2019s father created automatons during this period of time. Nathaniel describes \u201chuman faces\u2026 visible all around\u201d after Coppelius was seen hammering lumps. Moreover, the act of creating automaton seems to be either taboo or looked down upon \u2013 Coppelius and Nathaniel\u2019s father take great care in hiding this from the family. The children are sent to bed immediately upon the arrival of Coppelius and the stove is disguised as a wall closet.<\/p>\n It could be conceivable then that Nathaniel is then killed or badly injured for seeing Coppelius and his father in the act of creating automatons. Nathaniel\u2019s father, in an act of desperation, revived or healed Nathaniel by giving him automaton parts. Why? Perhaps because going to a hospital would not only raise questions within the household but also with the government. Nathaniel wakes up when \u201cA gentle, warm breath\u201d passes over his face and \u201cawoke as if from the sleep of death\u201d (Hoffmann 47). The \u201cwarm breath\u201d is paralleled by the breath of life that God breathes into man in Genesis. Furthermore the simile used in \u201cas if from the sleep of death\u201d may be suggestive of his death as a complete human. Importantly, Nathaniel is stuck in bed for \u201cseveral weeks\u201d (Hoffmann 48) because of a fever. Although much has changed over the last two hundred years, a 2015 article from WebMD states that in most cases a fever \u201cgoes away on its own in 3 days\u201d and other sources state that most extreme fevers last 1-2 weeks. Instead, perhaps the several weeks was put into Nathaniel getting automaton parts.<\/p>\n Why does Nathaniel fear Coppelius so irrationally? One possible explanation is that Coppelius was direct responsible for murdering Nathaniel\u2019s father, possibly because he revived Nathaniel as an automaton. Nathaniel\u2019s heavy preoccupation with his creator Coppelius may be grounded in his fear of disassembly. It would then make sense that Nathaniel falls in love with another automaton \u2013 Olimpia \u2013 and doesn\u2019t see the emptiness or \u201clifelessness\u201d that his colleagues see in Olimpia. Nathaniel claims that he was rendered color-blind because of his childhood experience. However, the faulty eyes may be a result of his father\u2019s desperate attempt to give his son eyes without the help of Coppelius \u2013 the one seen with eyes the most.<\/p>\n Lastly, at the very end Nathaniel attacks Clara whilst muttering recurring phrases in a robot-like way. With his father and thus his creator dead for so long, it wouldn\u2019t been a surprise that the automaton portions of his body malfunctioned.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Hoffmann\u2019s 1816 \u201cThe Sandman\u201d, the main protagonist Nathaniel falls in love with Olimpia \u2013 an automaton created by university professor Spallanzani and Coppelius-double Coppola. How did Nathaniel not find out earlier? Had robot technology advanced so far in 1816 that an automaton became indistinguishable from humans? Was Nathaniel just blinded by his humongous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45402,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/aaronzhuo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/aaronzhuo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/aaronzhuo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/aaronzhuo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45402"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/aaronzhuo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/aaronzhuo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/aaronzhuo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/14"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/aaronzhuo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/aaronzhuo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/aaronzhuo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}