“‘The Sandman’ had aroused my interest in the marvelous and extraordinary, an interest that readily takes root in a child’s mind. I liked nothing better than hearing or reading horrific stories about goblins, witches, dwarfs, and so forth; but pride of place always belonged to the Sandman, and I kept drawing him, in the strangest and most loathsome forms, with chalk or charcoal on tables, cupboards, and walls.”

The passage captures the magnetic pull that the Sandman exerts on the protagonist’s imagination, serving as a potent symbol of both wonder and peril that comes with an overactive mind. This dichotomy encapsulates the risk of descending into “madness” and the loss of one’s sense of self. By reveling in horror stories, the protagonist forms an intriguing paradox—transmuting fear, which is usually a negative emotion, into a source of personal gratification. This conundrum aligns well with the Gothic genre’s thematic focus on the murkier corridors of the human psyche.

“Merciful heavens! As my old father bent down to the fire, he looked quite different. A horrible, agonizing convulsion seemed to have contorted his gentle, honest face into the hideous, repulsive mask of a fiend. He looked like Coppelius. The latter, brandishing a pair of red-hot tongs, was lifting gleaming lumps from the thick smoke and then hammering at them industriously. It seemed to me that human faces were visible on all sides, but without eyes, and with ghastly, deep, black cavities instead.”

The transformation of the father’s features in this moment suggests that every character harbors a hidden side. This shocking transformation in the father highlights themes of duality and hidden darkness within familiar figures. This becomes a metaphor for the broader theme that everyone has a darkness lurking within them, hidden even from those closest.

“‘Bring the eyes! Bring the eyes!’ cried Coppelius in a hollow rumbling voice.”

Coppelius’ cry for “eyes” evokes terror. Eyes are often considered windows to the soul, so Coppelius demanding them suggests a desire to gain mastery over the essence of humanity. His “hollow rumbling voice” adds to the ominous