The doll as object for curiosity, fear and fascination of death.

The fantastic description of a psychopathological development in E. T. A. Hoffmann's story »The Sandman«

Abstract

The article analyzes the inner development of the protagonist Nathanael in E. T. A. Hoffmann's story Der Sandmann. Hoffmann creates a fantastic plot by means of several “doppelgangers”, in which internal and external events show themselves in the mirrored constellation of the figures of the father and his antagonist as well as the (artificial and human) lover. In the course of a splitting- or doubling-dynamic, a disturbing ‘complex’ emerges which leads to love affair with an automat as pretended daughter of a professor. By this thesis, the mythical figure of the ‘Sandman’ is associated with the protagonist's fascination with a doll as well as into suicidal delusions which finally leads to the protagonist’s suicide and his tried murder of his lover Clara. Methodologically, narrative figures are regarded as personifications of the protagonist’s inner development and psychoanalytic interpretations are contrasted with other (in depth-oriented) psychological concepts in the analysis undertaken here.