Fairy tale The Sandman is a mystical short story by Amadeus Hoffmann. It is not intended for children's reading. It is useful for parents to read the novel in order to understand: you should never scare children with any monsters, babaykas and other monsters, tell them scary tales before going to bed. From terrible fairy-tale images, children's fears grow, which can destroy the child's psyche.

Fairy tale sandman read

As a child, Nathanael was afraid of the Sandman, with which adults frightened small children so that they would fall asleep faster. The boy associated the image of the Sandman with the lawyer Coppelius, a terrible friend of his father, who came to their house in the evenings. A curious boy spied how his father and a friend were conducting secret alchemy classes. Seeing Nathanael, Coppelius tried to tear out his eyes. The behavior of the night visitor so frightened the child that he was ill for several weeks. After some time, Coppelius again appeared in the evening at their house and closed himself with his father in the study. Hearing the explosion, the boy hurried to the office and found his father dead. Coppelius disappeared from the city. A young man, Nathanael, meets Coppola, a barometer salesman. He believes that this is the vile sorcerer Coppelius, the killer of his father, and wants to get even with him. Nathanael's friends Lothar and Clara are trying to bring the young man back to the real world with their convincing arguments. Nathanael calms down. He even attends the lectures of the famous Professor Spalanzani and is fond of physics. But the dark forces do not let go of Nathanael's consciousness. Seeing the beautiful daughter of the professor, the young man lost his peace. He completely forgot about his beloved Clara and began to look after the professor's daughter, considering her the ideal of female beauty. It turned out that the strange Olympia is a mechanical doll, the creation of the professor and Coppola. Nathanael is losing his mind again. Devoted Clara brought her lover back to life. All traces of insanity vanished. No one reminded Nathanael of his illness. By chance, Nathanael stumbled upon a spyglass bought once from Coppola, pointed it at Clara and lost his mind again. The madman grabbed the girl and tried to throw her out of the tower window. Lothar saved his sister. The people fled to the cries of the insane. In the crowd, Nathanael also noticed Coppelius. With a piercing cry, Nathanael threw himself down. Seeing the disfigured body of a young man on the pavement, the sorcerer disappeared into the crowd. You can read the story online on our website.

Analysis of the fairy tale Sandman

Hoffmann's fantastic short story is a difficult work to perceive. It intrigues the reader from the first lines. The content of the mystical tale is revealed through the characters' letters. Nathanael's letters to a friend are filled with fears that have haunted the young man since childhood: Sandman, Coppelius, Coppola in one and the same person. Clara and Lothar are opposed to the protagonist by prudence and rationalism. They try to help a friend escape from the world of madness, but they fail. What does the fairy tale Sandman teach? She teaches that you should not be led by your fears, but in everything you need to rely on common sense.

Moral of the fairy tale Sandman

We have fears inside. You need to find the strength to fight them, look for ways to overcome them. Children's fears are very dangerous. They can turn into a trail of failures in a person's adult life. This is how you can interpret main idea fairy tales Sandman.

Proverbs, sayings and expressions of a fairy tale

• Fear has big eyes.
• Whoever winks at fear will perish.

Sandman (Sandman)- one of the fairly well-known supervillains in the Marvel universe, who eventually became a kind of ally of Spider-Man. He first appeared in comics in 1963. It's hard to imagine, but for the first time Spider-Man defeated him with a vacuum cleaner. Since then, the Sandman has repeatedly returned, extricating himself from seemingly unimaginable situations.

The Sandman's real name is William Baker, although he used pseudonyms such as "Flint Marco" and "Sylvester Mann" in his time. He has the ability to turn his body into sand, control its shape and size, and add extra sand to his body. The Sandman can also change the density of his body, making it just a cloud of sand, or hard like sandstone. His favorite tactic is turning his hands into weapons like hammers or spiked balls, as well as feints by sucking the enemy into the sand.

The future Sandman from childhood loved to visit the beaches and build sand castles. True, he did not do this very often - his father was in prison, and his mother preferred to spend time with a bottle, and not with her son. The guy began to improve himself early - to learn self-defense, to learn to fight back against hooligans. Then he became a bully himself. The bully who had previously bullied William became his friend and accomplice. William was nicknamed Flint to sound cooler. And he took the surname “Marco” when he met his father in prison. Flint was embarrassed to admit his relationship to his dad and chose to work with him as an accomplice, rather than as a son.

It is not known for certain how Flint got his powers. According to one version, while escaping from prison, he wandered into a nuclear bomb test site - and he was covered. According to another, he climbed to rest in a cave where radioactive waste was stored - and he was covered. One way or another, having received the ability, Flint became a supervillain. He repeatedly tried to defeat Spider-Man, but was defeated each time, often with the help of water, which significantly weakens him.

The Sandman was a pretty strong supervillain - it happened that he opposed the whole team of the Avengers on an equal footing. However, immediately after that, he lost to the Spider, who pushed Flint into the aircraft's turbine and dispelled it over the city. The Sandman subsequently became one of the original members of the Sinister Six. (Sinister Six), and another team, the Frightful Four (Frightful Four), enemies of the Fantastic Four. He also collaborated with Blastaar, the conqueror from the Negative Zone, and Iron Man's enemy the Mandarin.

In the battle with the Hulk, Sandman fell into a "crusher" and turned into glass. The Hulk did not break it - he regretted it. Very carefully, trying not to push anyone, Flint got to his accomplice, the scientist Sorcerer, and he healed him. Together with the Four, he continued to put a spoke in the wheels of the Four and the Spider. After numerous battles and setbacks, Flint decided to take a break from super-villainy, hit on one girl, but he had a competitor - Hydroman, a water man. As a result, as a result of an accident, sand and water merged into one, and the two criminals turned into a practically brainless and rather harmless Mud Thing. When they were separated, the Sandman decided to give up villainy altogether.

Flint befriended (a stone hulk from the Four) and really gave up on crime. However, it was not easy to give up the hooligan lifestyle, and although the Sandman stopped actively robbing banks and trying to kill certain heroes, he still took by force what was not given to him when he asked for good things. However, albeit gradually, but he still switched to the “bright side of the force”. Sandman helped the mercenary Silver Sable hunt criminals around the world, and was accepted on probation into the Avengers team. He was recognized as a full-fledged Avenger, but due to his own stupidity he left the team, believing that he did not succeed in becoming kind, and was about to return to crime.

However, having thought with his sandy brain and deciding not to give up, Flint again joined Sable and continued to catch criminals in order to prove to the world (and first of all to himself) that the Sandman can be a hero. At that time, Flint was turned to glass by Doctor Octopus and smashed, but Flint gathered himself, turning into a humanoid pile of glass shards, and beat Octopus to a pulp. He was stopped by the thought that heroes don't do that. Spidey then helped Flint return to his usual form. Since then, Flint has become a real hero - he repeatedly began to doubt himself, but each time he came to the conclusion that the life of a hero is cooler. And people began to respect him, and not just fear and hate him.

The Sandman returned to crime suddenly - the Wizard, his former ally, believed that in the role of a hero, Flint buries his talents. He kidnapped Flint and built a special device in order to bring back the long dormant evil personality of the Sandman to the surface. And it worked. Flint questioned the wisdom of heroism and began stealing, robbing, and attacking heroes again. And then a very strange adventure happened to him - the personality of the Sandman doubled many times.

The Sandman devoured several stoned pop stars, turned into a caricature version of himself, and then exploded - and split into several fragments of his personality. Dumb-headed kingpin Conscience, innocent child Billy, feisty bandit Flint Marko - three personalities could not get along. And if Conscience and the Kid were harmless guys, then Flint, no longer restrained by their presence, went to rage. Things got even worse when Flint's female nature was found and invited everyone to become one again. Flint, Baby (who became the embodiment of uncertainty) and Female Nature teamed up, and Conscience decided to wait it out for now. The empowered Sandman continued to rage with no conscience. Flint's conscience died sadly from such a turn.

Returning to a life of crime, Flint, however, was not without warm feelings. He fell in love with a woman who was addicted to captive supervillains and became practically a new father to her little daughter. Subsequently, when many villains became heroes under the influence of a polarity-reversing spell (), Sandman also decided to step on the side of good again. Unlike others, it is voluntary. But ordinary people no longer believed him.

The Sandman appeared in almost all the Spider-Man animated series, except for the beloved animated series of the 90s, where he did not make it, since at that time the film about Spider-Man from director James Cameron was supposed to come out, and Flint was supposed to be there one of the villains. Did not happen. Sandman also became one of the villains in the third Spider-Man film.

Romanticism is an era of incredible expansion of human consciousness. It is then that a person believes that he can resist fate, control his passions, heed the voice of Providence. European romanticism originates in Germany, where it experiences three periods: Jena, Heidelberg and Berlin. The last and later of them is the work of one of the most brilliant German writers of the nineteenth century, E.-T.-A. Hoffmann. Most of all, this author is known for his fairy tale short stories, one of which "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" became the basis for the libretto of the famous ballet P.I. Tchaikovsky. Hoffmann's works combine the optimism and pessimism of late romanticism, the spirituality and mechanization of the world. To be or to seem? Listen to reality or succumb to illusions? Get bogged down in a routine or strive with your soul in upper world? Such questions are put by the creator before his heroes.

The Sandman is included in one of two volumes of a collection of short stories published in 1817, it is called Night Studies. Why nightly? Firstly, perhaps because these works reveal the mystical, dark and secret side of the human soul. Secondly, if we turn to the manuscripts, then on the pages of the first edition of The Sandman one can see the note "November 16, 1815, one in the morning." That is, it is literally a night creation. A week later, Hoffmann creates a second version of the novel and sends it to Berlin, to the publisher Georg Reimer. The latest edition contains significant changes. So, in the final version, there is no episode where Coppelius touches Nathanael's sister, as a result of which she loses her sight and loses her life. The last episode of the early version is fundamentally different from the final version. The action also takes place on the town hall tower, but Coppelius demanded that Nathanael push Clara down and then follow her.

What is the novel about?

From the preface, in the form of Nathanael's correspondence with his beloved Clara and her brother, we learn how the Sandman came into being. One of characteristic features Hoffmann's fairy tales is that any seemingly fantastic phenomenon has a rational explanation. Maybe the Sandman is the evil alchemist Coppelius, who made the protagonist and his family suffer, or maybe it's just a feeling of "sand in the eyes" that occurs when the eyes are overtired before going to bed.

Nathanael left his hometown for the sake of studying science in G. Here he meets the barometer salesman Coppola, in whom he recognizes the same Coppelius - the Sandman. After several meetings with the seller, the hero buys a small telescope from him, through which he watches Olympia, the daughter of the physics professor Spalanzani. The student meets her and her, as he believes, father, spends evenings with them. After much torment and doubt, carried away by the correctness and impeccability of the girl, the young man falls in love with her and decides to marry her.

Full of enthusiastic feelings, having come to her father's house with a marriage proposal, the young man sees a quarrel between Spalanzani and Coppola, as a result of which the mechanical doll Olympia was deprived of its eyes. Nathanael was not prepared for such a shock. After this incident, he woke up in his house, surrounded by friends and Clara. The health of the poor young man is being restored, it seems that the ending can be happy. However, during the walk, Nathanael and Clara climb the tower of the town hall, where the young man recalls the pocket spyglass. Looking into it, he sees again the dead, rolling eyes of Olympia, the old Coppelius. Unable to withstand this test, he rushes down.

Main characters and their characteristics

1. The protagonist of the work is Nathanael, a student from a poor family. Already from his first letters it follows that this young man from childhood was very impressionable and receptive. He does not agree to accept the world as simple and ordinary as it seems to many. Hoffmann, not without irony, depicts the young man's romantic inspiration. Imagining something that is not in reality, the character could not distinguish the true feelings of a living person from the monotonous actions of a mechanical doll. Dreams took possession of him so much that even, it would seem, looking into the eyes of reality, he could not come to terms with it.
2. Beloved of Nathanael Clara, a kind and sensible girl. The poetic views of her friend are alien to her, but he unfairly accused the girl of misunderstanding and insensitivity: only she was able to realize the danger that such a far-reaching fantasy poses. The heroine is opposed to the image of Olympia, the representative of the world of automata. To her, if I may say so, everything human was alien. Impeccable in every movement, in every note, unable to object or make an awkward gesture, she won the heart of the young man. But the revelation of the truth drove him crazy.
3. The most controversial character is Coppelius. If you look at the action of the novel through the eyes of Nathanael, then this hero appears before us in three guises: the lawyer Coppelius, the salesman Coppola and, of course, the Sandman himself. Judging, like Clara, we will conclude that Coppola and Coppelius are just coinciding names of different personalities, and the Sandman remained in children's fairy tales.

What's the point?

The idea of ​​​​creating a fantastic novel about a wind-up doll and a young man who fell in love with her came from Hoffmann not by chance. In the 18-19 centuries. in Europe, demonstrations of various mechanisms were very popular, for example, Vaucanson's automata, which imitated human activity. Struck by the plausibility of such inventions, the author creates his "Sandman.

The motif of the automaton appears in the tale even before Nathanael's acquaintance with Olympia. "You soulless, damn automaton!" - such an angry reproach allows the young man to Clara when she refuses to approve his poems. The hero perceives the doll as the only creature capable of understanding him. This is how two opposing worlds interpenetrate.

Another cross-cutting motif of The Sandman is the eyes. It is the “bright eyes” Clerchen recalls Nathanael in his letter to Lothar, the Sandman encroaches on the eyes, Coppelius also wanted to encroach on them when he found the hero in his father’s office. What primarily reflects the soul of a person attracted the attention of a young man in a doll of Olympia. It seemed to him that her eyes "emit a moist moonlight." Seeing them dead, thrown on the floor, the character could not come to terms with the fact that his love is a clockwork doll.

Romanticism in the novel

It is quite possible to imagine the existence of Hoffmann's fairy tales outside the context of romanticism, but the influence of the ideas of this era cannot be excluded.

Philosophical reasoning of Kant and Hegel about the cognizability of life and being developed a tendency among romantics to believe that there is more than one world. This is how the idea of ​​dual worlds was born, which Hoffmann embodies in his own way in The Sandman. It is not the fantasy heavenly and mortal earthly worlds that collide here, as can be found in the early romantics, but the world of impeccable automata and people who are alive, feeling and capable of making mistakes.

Another integral component of romanticism is the image of the poet. Again, in the novel under consideration, this is not a hero endowed with a special ability to hear a voice from above, not a conductor between people and heaven, as was the case with early romantics, for example, Novalis. The image of Nathanael was created by Hoffmann with a considerable amount of irony, and any fantasy of a misunderstood poet can be rationally explained.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sandman, Sower, sand man(English) Sandman, German Sandmannchen) is a folklore character, traditional for modern Western Europe. According to popular beliefs, it pours magical sand into the eyes of children who have played until late, forcing them to fall asleep. The image of the Sandman can have both a positive coloring - this is a kind creature that calms the naughty and brings good dreams - and a negative one - this is an evil, hostile creature that brings nightmares to naughty children.

Image in traditional culture

According to Western European folk tales, the Sandman pours magic sand into the eyes of children to make them fall asleep. There was also a belief that the Sandman could sneak into bed under the covers with poorly wrapped children and take them with him.

The idea of ​​"sand in the eyes" is based on a biological decrease in the activity of the secretory glands before bedtime, including the lacrimal glands - which explains the "burning" in the eyes, sticking of the eyelids, etc. Wet discharge in the eyes of a just woken up person was also correlated with Sand person.

Based on the folklore image of the Sandman, the literary image was found in various works, in particular in E. T. A. Hoffmann and G. K. Andersen. In Hoffmann's story "The Sandman", a frightening image of the Sandman is drawn: " evil person who comes to children when they do not want to go to bed, and throws handfuls of sand into their eyes, so that their eyes bleed and fall out, and he puts them in a bag and takes them to the moon to feed his children; and they sit there in the nest, and they have such sharp beaks as owls, to peck the eyes of naughty children with them.

The Sandman on German TV

The Sandman is known as a character in a puppet animated film, usually aired in the evenings on the TV channel of the GDR.

Between the years and 1990, there were three different Sandmen who appeared on TV shows in both West and East Germany. With some difference, they still had common features: each time it was a little man with a white beard and in a cap with a tassel. His performance usually preceded or ended a short film for children, after which he poured magic sand from his bag, giving children pleasant dreams.

The idea to put the Sandman on TV first came to Ilse Obrig, a West German television presenter and author, in early 1959. However, her program “Sandmännchens Gruß für Kinder” (“Hello to children from the Sandman”), which was released on December 1, 1959 on the SFB channel, was ahead of colleagues from the East German channel DFF, who released on November 22, 1959 the TV program “Unser Sandmännchen” (“Our Sandman”). man"). On October 29, 1962, The Sandman appeared on the West German channels NDR, SFB and HR. For 30 years, there were two or three Sandmen at the same time (one in the GDR and then two, then three in the FRG).

The first appearance of the Sandman on television in the GDR provoked protests from parents, but numerous letters from children with requests to return him to the screens had an effect. In the summer of 1960, the Sandman appeared in the image in which he will perform all subsequent years. In 1978, the first German cosmonaut, Sigmund Jähn, took a Sandman doll into space with him. His Soviet colleague took the doll Masha, and a “doll wedding” (Puppenhochzeit) was celebrated on board the ship.

In the course of the transformations that followed the reunification of Germany, in 1990 the East German Sandman disappears from the screens, but after the protests of parents and children, he soon returns to television programs. After 1991, only Eastern version Sandman - on the channels MDR, RBB and KI.KA, while new characters appeared in it, including from the West German versions of the program. In winter / years, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the appearance of the Sandman on television, it is planned to release the film "Der Sandmann und der verlorene Traumsand" ("The Sandman and the Lost Sleepy Sand").

It is noteworthy that for most Germans (Western and Eastern, respectively), only their traditional version of the Sandman, fixed respectively by West German and East German television, is acceptable. For the former residents of the GDR, this character has become a symbol of their identity, a kind of symbol of their lost country. The image of the Sandman is used in various products: for example, the lid of one yogurt for children imitates the sandman's hat.

The sand man could also become familiar to the Soviet audience. The program "Good night, kids" planned to make the sandman living in the wall clock the host of the program. To visually reduce a person to the size of a clock door, much more space was needed than in the studio, and the technologies of that time did not allow for the video editing necessary in this situation. The idea of ​​using this character had to be abandoned.

In film and television

• In the science fiction film Logan's Flight (1976), the "sand people" are employees of the special unit for the destruction of the fugitives.
• 1991 - short cartoon "The Sandman" based on the fairy tale by E. Hoffmann.
• "Sandman " / Sleepstalker (1994)
• The Sandman is often mentioned in the German film Good Bye Lenin! ” (Eng. Good bye, Lenin!), Filmed in 2003 and tells how East Germans experience the unification of Germany.
• In the series "Charmed" - 5x14 Sand Francisco Dreamin.
• In the animated series Ghostbusters, a distraught sandman decides to put all people on Earth to sleep for a period of 500 years.
• The Sandman theme is present in the film The Top Hat (1935). Fred Astaire, playing the sandman, dances, sprinkling sand on the floor so that the heroine Ginger Rogers can fall asleep.
• The Sandman is a character from one of the episodes of the American teen TV series Are You Afraid of the Dark?
• The Sandman is also a character in the 2012 cartoon The Keepers of the Dreams by Peter Ramsey, along with Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Ice Jack.
• "Sandman " / Der Sandmann(2011) - Swiss film about a man who throws sand out of him when he lies. Whoever inhales this sand falls asleep.
• In the television series Sleepy Hollow (season 1, episode 3, Evil triumphs / For the Triumph of Evil ...) Sandman is an evil demon that forces people to commit suicide.
• In the television series Grimm (season 2, episode 15), the Sandman is a creature that feeds on people's tears, making them blind in the process.
• One of the iconic professional wrestlers of the 1990s, Jim Fullington, fought under the pseudonym "Mr. Sandman", and later simply "Sandman".
• In episode 9 of season 9 of the British television series Doctor Who, sand people are creatures from "sleep particles" that form in the eye during sleep.

In contemporary music

• "Mr. Sandman" is a popular song written by Pat Ballard and released in 1954 by The Chordettes.
• "In Dreams" is a famous song by Roy Orbison that contains one of the variants in the lyrics. folk image character.
• One of the most famous songs of the American band Metallica (album "Metallica", 1991) is called Enter Sandman ("Includes Sandman"). The image of the Sandman also appears in the video for the song.
• The image of the Sandman is present in the song "Blood Red Sandman" by Lordi from the album The Monsterican Dream (2004).
• The image of the evil sandman is present in the song "Mein Herz brennt" by the German band Rammstein, although the character is not named in the song.
• There is also a Russian rap group from Rostov-on-Don called Sand People.
• The single of the Russian metalcore band The Korea, released in April 2010, was called "Sand Man".
• A song by the Russian horror rock band Haunted House is called "The Sandman".
• The song by the Russian horror punk band Scars 19 is called "Sand Man".
• A song by the German rock band Blind Guardian titled "Mr. Sandman", which is a heavy cover version of The Chordettes hit.
• Song by the German rock band Oomph! called "Sandmann"
• Song by Irish rock band My Bloody Valentine "Sandman Never Sleeps" from the ep "Geek!" 1985
• The song of the rapper Method Man - Mr. sandman.
• Richard Cheese's "Enter Sandman" is a cover version at the same time on Mr. Sandman by The Chordettes and on "Enter Sandman" by Metallica
• The band's name Coppelius is a reference to Ernst Hoffmann's character of the same name, best known from the fairy tale The Sandman.
• One of the songs of Letzte Instanz is Sandmann.
• Song by Hurts - Sandman from the album "Exile".
• The song of the group KALLISA - Sand man.
• Composition by Oak - Sandman.
• The song of the Irish singer Enya - The Song Of The Sandman (Lullaby).
• Song by Swedish rapper Yung Lean - Sandman (2014).

In computer games

• In the games Fallout 3" and " Fallout: New Vegas” you can get the “Sandman” perk, which allows you to kill people in their sleep.
• In Game " Team Fortress 2"There is a weapon that can stun opponents, plunging them into a state of "sleep", which is called The Sandman.
• In Game " Titan Quest: Immortal Throne One of the Dream Magic spells is called "Sands of Dreams", which is also an allusion to the Sandman.
• In Game " Silk Road Online"There is a mob named "Dark Sandman" that, when attacked, can stun the enemy.
• In Maple Story, there is an NPC named Mr. Sandman, who offers to fulfill your dreams (using the word dreams, which also translates as "dreams") and is a reference to the Pat Ballard song.
• The game "Hitman: Absolution" has several tests to neutralize opponents ("Sand man met a blue man", etc.).
• Far Cry 4 has a special weapon with this name.

In literature

• Ray Bradbury has a short story called "The Unmarked Thing", sometimes called "The Sandman". In it, the stranger takes the form of what it appears in spontaneous perception to the people around him. And the "sandman" is something flowing, changing, something that does not belong to its will, like the dreams of many people.
• E. T. A. Hoffmann has a short story of the same name, The Sandman. In it, a mystical character, namely the sandman, brings the young man to a mental breakdown.
• In Alexei Pekhov's series of books "Kindrat" a creature from the world of death is mentioned, stealing human eyes, in connection with which Hoffmann's "sand man" is mentioned.

In comics

• Author Neil Gaiman has a series of comics "The Sandman", dedicated to the Sandman, Morpheus, the embodiment of sleep, where he is one of the seven Eternals, higher beings in charge of order in the universe (Fate, Death, Sleep, Crush, Passion, Suffering, Madness). The series consists of 75 issues and is one of the best graphic novels, containing great amount various cultural references and interpretations historical events. As in the legend, he uses sand to put a person to sleep.
• The Sandman is a Marvel Comics character, an enemy of Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. Also highlighted is the Marvel-90214 ("Noir Universe") version of this character, where the Sandman is a mysterious thug who kills people on the orders of a mafia boss in New York by gouging out his eyes (an analogy with the image of the evil Sandman), as well as a probable subsequent skull injury.
• The Sandman is featured as one of the recurring characters in the Nichtlustig comics by German artist Yoshi Sauer.

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An excerpt characterizing the Sandman

- What? hurts? Tushin asked Rostov in a whisper.
- Hurts.
- Your honor, to the general. Here they are standing in a hut, - said the fireworks, approaching Tushin.
- Now, dove.
Tushin got up and, buttoning his overcoat and recovering, walked away from the fire ...
Not far from the fire of the artillerymen, in a hut prepared for him, Prince Bagration was sitting at dinner, talking with some of the commanders of the units who had gathered at his place. There was an old man with half-closed eyes, greedily nibbling at a mutton bone, and a twenty-two-year-old impeccable general, flushed from a glass of vodka and dinner, and a staff officer with a personalized ring, and Zherkov, uneasily looking around at everyone, and Prince Andrei, pale, with pursed lips and feverishly shining eyes.
In the hut stood a taken French banner leaning in a corner, and the auditor, with a naive face, felt the fabric of the banner and, perplexed, shook his head, perhaps because he was really interested in the appearance of the banner, or maybe because it was hard for him. hungry to look at dinner, for which he did not get the device. In a neighboring hut there was a French colonel taken prisoner by the dragoons. Our officers crowded around him, examining him. Prince Bagration thanked individual commanders and asked about the details of the case and about the losses. The regimental commander, who introduced himself near Braunau, reported to the prince that as soon as the case began, he retreated from the forest, gathered woodcutters and, letting them past him, with two battalions hit with bayonets and overturned the French.
- As I saw, Your Excellency, that the first battalion was upset, I stood on the road and thought: “I will let these ones pass and meet with battle fire”; did so.
The regimental commander so wanted to do this, he was so sorry that he did not have time to do this, that it seemed to him that all this had definitely happened. Maybe it even really happened? Was it possible to make out in this confusion what was and what was not?
“Moreover, I must note, Your Excellency,” he continued, recalling Dolokhov’s conversation with Kutuzov and his last meeting with the demoted one, “that the private, demoted Dolokhov, captured a French officer in front of my eyes and especially distinguished himself.
“Here, Your Excellency, I saw the attack of the Pavlogradites,” Zherkov, looking around uneasily, intervened, who did not see the hussars at all that day, but only heard about them from an infantry officer. - They crushed two squares, your excellency.
Some smiled at Zherkov's words, as they always expected a joke from him; but, noticing that what he said was also leaning towards the glory of our weapons and of the present day, they took on a serious expression, although many knew very well that what Zherkov said was a lie, based on nothing. Prince Bagration turned to the old colonel.
- Thank you all, gentlemen, all units acted heroically: infantry, cavalry and artillery. How are two guns left in the center? he asked, looking for someone with his eyes. (Prince Bagration did not ask about the guns on the left flank; he already knew that all the guns were thrown there at the very beginning of the case.) “I think I asked you,” he turned to the staff officer on duty.
- One was hit, - the officer on duty answered, - and the other, I cannot understand; I myself was there all the time and took orders, and I had just left... It was hot, really,' he added modestly.
Someone said that Captain Tushin was standing here near the village itself, and that he had already been sent for.
“Yes, here you were,” said Prince Bagration, turning to Prince Andrei.
“Well, we didn’t get together a bit,” said the officer on duty at the headquarters, smiling pleasantly at Bolkonsky.
“I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing you,” Prince Andrei said coldly and curtly.
Everyone was silent. Tushin appeared on the threshold, timidly making his way from behind the generals. Bypassing the generals in a cramped hut, embarrassed, as always, at the sight of his superiors, Tushin did not see the flagpole and stumbled on it. Several voices laughed.
How was the weapon left? Bagration asked, frowning not so much at the captain as at those laughing, among whom Zherkov's voice was the loudest.
Tushin now only, at the sight of the formidable authorities, in all horror imagined his guilt and shame in the fact that he, having remained alive, had lost two guns. He was so excited that until now he had no time to think about it. The laughter of the officers confused him even more. He stood in front of Bagration with a trembling lower jaw and barely said:
“I don’t know… Your Excellency… There were no people, Your Excellency.”
- You could take it from cover!
That there was no cover, Tushin did not say this, although it was the absolute truth. He was afraid to let the other boss down by this and silently, with fixed eyes, looked straight into Bagration's face, just as a student who has gone astray looks into the examiner's eyes.
The silence was quite long. Prince Bagration, apparently not wanting to be strict, did not have anything to say; the rest did not dare to intervene in the conversation. Prince Andrei looked at Tushin from under his brows, and his fingers moved nervously.
“Your Excellency,” Prince Andrei interrupted the silence with his harsh voice, “you deigned to send me to Captain Tushin’s battery. I was there and found two-thirds of the men and horses killed, two guns mangled, and no cover.
Prince Bagration and Tushin were now equally stubbornly looking at Bolkonsky, who spoke with restraint and excitement.
“And if, Your Excellency, let me express my opinion,” he continued, “the success of the day we owe most of all to the action of this battery and the heroic stamina of Captain Tushin with his company,” said Prince Andrei and, without waiting for an answer, immediately got up and walked away from the table.
Prince Bagration looked at Tushin and, apparently not wanting to show distrust of Bolkonsky's sharp judgment and, at the same time, feeling unable to fully believe him, bowed his head and told Tushin that he could go. Prince Andrew followed him.
“Thank you, you helped me out, my dear,” Tushin told him.
Prince Andrei glanced at Tushin and, without saying anything, walked away from him. Prince Andrei was sad and hard. It was all so strange, so unlike what he had hoped.

"Who are they? Why are they? What do they need? And when will it all end?" thought Rostov, looking at the changing shadows before him. The pain in my arm was getting worse and worse. Sleep became irresistible, red circles jumped in my eyes, and the impression of these voices and these faces and the feeling of loneliness merged with the feeling of pain. It was they, these soldiers, wounded and unwounded, it was they who pressed, and weighed, and twisted the veins, and burned the meat in his broken arm and shoulder. To get rid of them, he closed his eyes.
He forgot himself for one minute, but during this short interval of oblivion he saw countless objects in a dream: he saw his mother and her big white hand, saw Sonya's thin shoulders, Natasha's eyes and laughter, and Denisov with his voice and mustache, and Telyanin , and all his history with Telyanin and Bogdanych. This whole story was one and the same, that this soldier with a sharp voice, and this and that whole story, and this and that soldier so painfully, relentlessly held, crushed, and all in one direction pulled his hand. He tried to move away from them, but they did not let go of his hair, not even for a second on his shoulder. It wouldn't hurt, it would be great if they didn't pull it; but it was impossible to get rid of them.
He opened his eyes and looked up. The black canopy of night hung a yard above the light of the coals. Powders of falling snow flew in this light. Tushin did not return, the doctor did not come. He was alone, only some kind of soldier was now sitting naked on the other side of the fire and warming his thin yellow body.
"No one wants me! thought Rostov. - No one to help or pity. And I was once at home, strong, cheerful, beloved. He sighed and groaned involuntarily.
- What hurts? - asked the soldier, shaking his shirt over the fire, and without waiting for an answer, grunting, added: - You never know they spoiled the people in a day - passion!
Rostov did not listen to the soldier. He looked at the snowflakes fluttering over the fire and recalled the Russian winter with a warm, bright house, a fluffy fur coat, a fast sleigh, a healthy body, and with all the love and care of the family. "And why did I come here!" he thought.
The next day, the French did not resume their attacks, and the remnant of the Bagration detachment joined Kutuzov's army.

Prince Vasily did not consider his plans. He even less thought to do evil to people in order to gain an advantage. He was only a man of the world who had succeeded in the world and made a habit out of this success. Depending on the circumstances, according to his rapprochement with people, he constantly drew up various plans and considerations, in which he himself did not fully realize, but which constituted the whole interest of his life. Not one or two such plans and considerations happened to him in use, but dozens, of which some were just beginning to appear to him, others were achieved, and still others were destroyed. He did not say to himself, for example: “This man is now in power, I must gain his trust and friendship and through him arrange for a lump-sum allowance,” or he did not say to himself: “Here, Pierre is rich, I must lure him to marry his daughter and borrow the 40,000 I need”; but a man in strength met him, and at that very moment instinct told him that this man could be useful, and Prince Vasily approached him and at the first opportunity, without preparation, instinctively, flattered, became familiar, talked about that, about what was needed.
Pierre was at his fingertips in Moscow, and Prince Vasily arranged for him to be appointed to the Junker Chamber, which then equaled the rank of State Councilor, and insisted that the young man go with him to Petersburg and stay at his house. As if absent-mindedly and at the same time with undoubted confidence that this should be so, Prince Vasily did everything that was necessary in order to marry Pierre to his daughter. If Prince Vasily had thought ahead of his plans, he could not have had such naturalness in his manners and such simplicity and familiarity in dealing with all people placed above and below himself. Something constantly attracted him to people stronger or richer than him, and he was gifted with a rare art of seizing precisely that moment when it was necessary and possible to use people.
Pierre, having suddenly become rich and Count Bezukhy, after recent loneliness and carelessness, felt himself surrounded and busy to such an extent that he only managed to remain alone in bed with himself. He had to sign papers, deal with government offices, the meaning of which he did not have a clear idea, ask the general manager about something, go to an estate near Moscow and receive many people who previously did not even want to know about its existence, but now would be offended and upset if he did not want to see them. All these diverse faces - businessmen, relatives, acquaintances - were all equally well, affectionately disposed towards the young heir; all of them, obviously and undoubtedly, were convinced of the high merits of Pierre. Incessantly he heard the words: “With your extraordinary kindness”, or “with your beautiful heart”, or “you yourself are so pure, count ...”, or “if he were as smart as you”, etc., so he he sincerely began to believe in his extraordinary kindness and his extraordinary intelligence, all the more so since it always seemed to him, in the depths of his soul, that he was really very kind and very smart. Even people who were previously angry and obviously hostile became tender and loving with him. Such an angry eldest of the princesses, with a long waist, with her hair smoothed like a doll's, came to Pierre's room after the funeral. Lowering her eyes and constantly flashing, she told him that she was very sorry for the misunderstandings that had been between them and that now she did not feel entitled to ask anything, except for permission, after the stroke that had befallen her, to stay for several weeks in the house that she loved so much and where made so many sacrifices. She could not help but cry at these words. Touched by the fact that this statue-like princess could have changed so much, Pierre took her by the hand and asked for forgiveness, without knowing why. From that day on, the princess began to knit a striped scarf for Pierre and completely changed towards him.

E. Hoffmann is one of the most prominent representatives of the era of German romanticism. His work is very multifaceted: in addition to literary activity He composed music and painted. At the same time, his writings are distinguished by originality, which makes his fairy tales completely different from the traditional works of romantics of the era under study. Therefore, this writer occupies a special place in the history of world literature.

Briefly about the author

He was born in the family of a simple lawyer and after graduation he chose the same profession for himself. However, study and the subsequent public service weighed heavily on him, and he tried to make a living from art, but without success. The situation improved somewhat after the writer received a small inheritance. Despite the difficulties, he did not stop writing, but his works did not resonate with German critics and readers. At the same time, his works were popular in other Western European countries, in Russia, as well as in the USA.

Creation

Hoffmann's romance is very specific and differs from what the representatives of this trend wrote. Most of the authors approached the depicted objects and characters very seriously, glorifying the idea of ​​absolute freedom. But Ernst Amadeus abandoned these attitudes, introducing elements of sharp satire into his narrative. In addition, the author abandoned the utopian ideals of freedom, concentrating solely on the characters of his characters. Hoffmann's tales are fantastic and with an admixture of horror, but, nevertheless, they do not scare so much as teach. The author's humor is also very specific. The writer in a caustic and very ironic form ridicules the vices of contemporary society, for which, perhaps, his works were not very popular in his homeland. But in our country, he received recognition. Belinsky called him the greatest poet, and Dostoevsky was seriously carried away by his creations, moreover, Hoffmann's tales were reflected in the novelist's writings.

Peculiarities

A characteristic feature of the writer's works was the close interweaving of reality and fantasy. But the latter is not perceived by the author as something out of the ordinary: on the contrary, he portrays it as something taken for granted, as the other side of everyday human existence. His characters seem to live a double life: in the ordinary world and in a fairy-tale setting. An example of such a fairy tale is Hoffmann's short story "The Sandman". This is one of his most popular works, which has become the hallmark of the author. The work is based on folk legends, but at the same time, it reflects the realities of the era contemporary to the author. The short story proved to be so popular that its motifs are used in popular culture. One of the main storylines even entered integral part in the libretto of the famous French opera.

Composition

Of particular interest is the question of how he built his narrative in the Summary(“The Sandman” in this respect differs from other fairy tales), unfortunately, will not convey all the originality of the structure of the text. And she is very unusual. The author, as if not knowing how to tell this unusual story to his reader, chooses a very interesting form of narration. The tale begins with the main character's correspondence with his friend Lothar and his fiancee Clara. After retelling the content of the letters, the writer went directly to the climax of the action and its denouement. Such a composition allows you to better understand the character of the hero, who fell into madness and ended his life tragically. In the letters, the reader gets acquainted with the complex and extremely contradictory inner world of Nathaniel, who is in terrible turmoil due to childhood trauma: nightmares haunt him, and even all the attempts of the bride to distract him from difficult thoughts turn out to be fruitless. In the second part of the story, the reader sees the hero as if from the outside, already knowing about his mental suffering. But now we see their external terrible manifestation, which leads to tragedy.

tie

In the analyzed work, Hoffmann showed himself to be one of the best masters of human psychology in world literature. Summary (“The Sandman” is distinguished by the dramatic and complex plot, despite the apparent simplicity of the structure), the tale should begin with a mention of the correspondence of friends, from which we learn its background. Nathaniel tells a friend scary story that happened to him in childhood. The nanny frightened him with a fairy tale about a sandman who supposedly punishes those children who do not want to go to bed. The memory of this was so deeply embedded in his memory that the child's imagination was in some way crippled. The final blow to the child's psyche was dealt after one terrible incident, which he witnessed.

In the work under consideration, Hoffmann showed himself to be a master of terrible fiction. The summary (“The Sandman” is a rather gloomy short story) of the work is not able to convey all the intensity of passions and the complex internal struggle of the main character, the text should be read in full. But since we are limited by the scope of the article, we will manage with an abbreviated retelling. Nathaniel witnessed the horrific death of his father, who was experimenting on a strange professor who visited their home. One evening, the boy spied how this stranger was experimenting with his eyes, and after the experiment, his father tragically died. The child is convinced that the professor is the killer and vows revenge.

Plot development

In the analyzed essay, Hoffmann proved his mastery in depicting human psychology. Summary (“The Sandman” is a work with deep philosophical overtones, despite the presence of fantastic elements), the fairy tale is distinguished by dynamism due to the rapid development of events and, at the same time, reliability in the depiction of characters. In the next letter, Nathaniel tells how he met an unusual physics teacher and began to study with him. There he also met a mechanic who was very similar to the professor who killed his father. The hero was preparing to take revenge, but the bride, in a response letter, persuaded him to give up gloomy thoughts that could drive him crazy. After some time, the hero said that he was mistaken: the mechanic just looked like a professor, and in order to somehow appease him, the hero bought a telescope from him, through which he began to watch his teacher's daughter, Olympia, who turned out to be a very beautiful girl. In vain, Nathaniel's friends assured him that she was very strange and resembled a mechanical doll (and it turned out later): the hero did not want to hear anything and, forgetting about his bride, decided to propose to Olympia.

Further developments

Hoffmann was one of the most controversial storytellers. "Sandman", the analysis of which is the subject of this review, - the best of that the confirmation. The gloomy coloring of the work is felt especially strongly as we approach the denouement. The hero was dissatisfied with Clara, who turned out to be a simple and sincere girl, not subject to superstitious fears and false impressions. Nathaniel read his dark stories to her, but she did not perceive them, which he took for indifference and stupidity, while Olympia listened to the young man, not distracted by anything. Deciding to propose to her, the young man came to her father's house, but to his horror he found a terrible picture: a teacher with a terrible professor broke the doll. Nathaniel went mad from what he saw.

The character of the hero and the denouement

The author focuses on the image of the main character, a very impressionable young man who could not get rid of his childhood obsession. Despite his love for Clara, a simple and sincere girl, he nevertheless succumbed to his superstitious fears, which led him to madness. Unfortunately, the good inclinations in him were destroyed by a broken psyche, which neither Clara's love nor the friendship of her brother Lothair could heal. In the finale, the hero returns home and, after a temporary improvement in well-being, spends time with his bride. But one day he looks in again and goes crazy again. Nearly killing Clara, he commits suicide. So, the writer's popular fairy tale is "The Sandman". Hoffmann, whose reviews of the book, despite all the tragedy, turned out to be very positive, entered the world literature precisely as the creator of works with unusual color and gloomy coloring, but with specific humor, which was noticed by many readers and critics.