The Uncanny

This extract examines the feeling of the uncanny through the writer Jentsch's telling of the story of "The Sand Man" in Horrmann's Nachtuchen. Jentsch declares that one of the most effective devices for creating feelings of the uncanny is to leave the reader unsure as to whether or not a figure in the story is human and do it in such a way that the reader doesn't want to clear up their doubts immediately.

The Story is about a villain, "The Sand Man", who tears out children's eyes and the story opens with the memories of a boy, Nathaniel who is still plagued by the mysterious death of his father. On certain evenings his mother would send him early to bed warning him that the Sand-Man was coming and then Nathaniel would hear the tread of a visitor with whom his father would be occupied.

One night Nathaniel is curious and decides to see for himself who the Sandman is and creeps into his father's study. He recognizes the visitor as the lawyer Coppelius who the children are afraid of. The laywer discovers Nathaniel and comes close to throwing hot coals into his eyes but Nathaniel's father prevents this. This little episode can either be interpreted as an allegorical delusion by the child or reality. A year later there is another visit from the lawyer and Nathaniel's father is killed in a big explosion. The Lawyer disappears without a trace.

Years pass and Nathaniel the horror from his childhood an optician, Giuseppe Coppola. Hey buys a pocket spy-glass from Coppola and uses it to look over at the house of Professor Spalanzani and spy his beautiful daughter, Olympia with whom he falls in love with and thus forgets the girl he's betrothed to. However the girl is an automation made my the professor. The professor picks up the eyes, throws them at the professor and all of a sudden Nathaniel's childhood memories are rekindled.

At last now Nathaniel seems to have recovered and he intends to marry his betrothed. They are walking in the city market and the couple decide to climb the tower of the town hall and leave the girl's brother below and upon finding Coppola's spy-glass Nathaniel falls into a new attack of madness. The tries to throw his betrothed into the gulf below but her brother saves her. However Nathaniel continuities to rush around on top of the tower. Amongst the crowd of people below is Coppelius and we are lead to suppose that it could've been him that Nathaniel spied through the glass. Nathaniel's madness continues and he throws himself off the tower.

A feeling of uncanny is created through uncertainty of the reality of the characters and uncertainty over their roles. For example this story begs the question as to whether or not Coppola the optician really is the lawer and also the Sandman.

We know that we are not looking upon the results of a madman's imagination yet this doesn't detract from the sense of uncanniness.

The penultimate paragraph baffles me a bit and it only really seems to talk of how bad it would be to loose one's eyes and compare that idea with castration.

The final paragrph I find equally confusing and arbitrary.