PEA GREEN BOAT VERNAL EQUINOX 2012

UNCANNY

1
 v Query — 4 u Poem: untitled — 5 w Opinion: Actroid DER3 — 6

b Cinema: Tintin and The Uncanny Valley — 8 urst Poem:

IN THIS ISSUE
Droplets — 11 d Cinema: Metropolis— 12 f Interview: Tanith

Lee, Author — 14 h Poem: Language — 20 u Third Millennium

Narcissus — 21 v Interview: Dr. James Hughes, Bioethicist — 22

Advice: How to Pose as a Humanoid Robot — 25 i History — 26

y Thoughts: Would you accept a Robot as your Priest or Vicar ? — 28

Opinion: The War of the Robots — 30 x Cinema: Real Steel — 33

v Review: Minecraft — 35 x History: The Turk — 39

Thoughts: Eyebombing — 40 uu History: Automa — 42 qrst

v
Video: Automatonophobia- 44 Interview: Museum of Automa - 45

w History: The Uncanny Valley of the Cabbage Patch Dolls — 47

u Folk Lore: Pediophobia — 52 x Opinions: All Dolls Go to

Heaven — 54 u Destination: Baby Land General — 57 v Essay:

Robots & Artificial Intelligence — 61 w Bookshelf — 72 u Poem:

To A Circadian Rhythm — 73 y Cinema: Ghost in the Machine — 74

History: Watson — 76 x Illusions: Can You Trust Your Eyes? — 78

v Essay: Das Unheimliche — 80 Other: Nightmare at the Opera w

Fiction: The Sand-man — 98 uqrst
2
 ABOUT THIS ISSUE
“Talk about
Uncanny Valley,”
my daughter muttered. We had
just seen the preview for the mov-
ie Tintin, and Krystal was clearly
disgusted. Uncanny What? She
explained to me the concept of
Uncanny Valley and how it relates
to CGI. I was intrigued and when
we got home I googled up
UNCANNY and this issue was
born.
The concept of Uncanny seems to
be a mixed bag of low-brow and
high-brow thinking. On the one
hand, there is the superstitious
nightmare rooted deeply in our
unconscious mind, while on the
other (bionic hand), there is very
real impact of bio-technology
pursued without planning.
Pulling together the content for
this PGB was different from previ-
ous issues. There was an almost
organic quality about the way
bits and pieces of ideas clicked
together, not only inside my
head, but on the page as well.
It was almost as if I was being
googled to a better under-
standing of one of the great
human mysteries: What defines
alive?
Working on this issue has been
a phenomenal experience for
me. Not only did I learn amaz-
ing new things (a smoking ro-
bot, who knew?), but I had the
opportunity to interview some
amazing people such as my all-
time favorite author, Tanith Lee;
and the exceptionally brilliant
Dr. James Hughes. I cannot
thank them enough for being
kind enough to answer my
questions. Additionally, this is-
sue contains some fantastic art
work by young artists. I urge
you to visit their websites to ex- interesting ideas to contem-
perience more of their incredi- plate. While I started out asking
ble talent. “Why are some people afraid of
dolls?” in the end I was left with
All links have been highlighted
“What is it that makes up a
in bright blue or enclosed in a
soul?”
bright blue frame for easy iden-
tification. One significant
change for this issue is the in-
clusion of icons, where ever
Namaste.
possible, to let you know where
links are going to lead, so you
know if it’s a wiki-link, video, or
standard webpage. In the cases
where an author/artist name
appears, a link to their site is
provided. You’ll find the
miscellaneous credits on
the next to last page.
With all that said, I think
you will find an array of
3
 QUERY What is Transhumanism?

Where is the Uncanny Valley ?

Who put the uncanny”in Uncanny Valley?

Can a polygon make you cry? By Jonathan Joly

What is Das Unheimliche?
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

What is the Chinese room? Do robots have souls?

Clockwork Prayer: A 16th-Century Mechanical Monk by Elizabeth King

How will we Game in the Future? What sort of people should there be?

4
 POEM

On the bank at the end

Of what was there before us
Gazing over to the other side
On what we can become
Veiled in the mist of naïve speculation
We are busy here preparing
Rafts to carry us across
Before the light goes out leaving us
In the eternal night of could-have-been

Utan gränser (No Boundaries) by Erik Johansson Poem By Professor Nick Bostrom 5
 How did you feel when you first
saw the Actroid DER3?
As with others suffering
from the uncanny valley effect I
was a little unnerved to see the
Actroid DER3. The attempt to repli-
cate the human appearance at
least on a basic level leaves it with
an inhuman quality similar to post-
humous photography during the
past when family photos were usu-
ally taken after the deaths of a rel-
ative.
Why do you "prefer" the less human
OPINION robot?
The i-Fairy's appearance
does nothing to hide the fact that
it is an obviously mechanical being
and as such does not pose the
possibility of a replacement for liv-
ing, breathing humans. The more
child-like proportions and imma-
ture voice has an almost cute qual-
ity about it is dis-alarming in na-
ture.
Were you aware that Kokoro is the
manufacturer for both actroids and the i-
Fairy?
I may have been aware, but
until now I didn't draw any paral-
lels about the fact.
6
What do you find amazing about the Actroid
DER3?
I think all androids are amazing
in their own way. The fact that we've come
from our clunky old terminals to being
able to create something so close to re-
sembling humans that it makes us ques-
tion our own judgment is simply amazing.
What elements make the Actroid
DER3 seem alive?
The way they have created facial
features and physical appearance here
make them seem very much alive. Interac-
tion with humans make them seem even
more so when they turn to gesture to mul-
tiple people at once in a large group while
speaking.
Are there any elements that make the
Actroid DER3 seem “not-right?”
Overall, the Actroid's perfor-
mance is well-rounded and efficient. There
are many movements that seem automat-
ed and "robotic" such as blinking, and
swaying with turns... I do think some varia-
tion in facial expression as well as eye con-
tact with others would be useful as well for
a convincing and sincere performance. I
do wonder where the future will situate us
with these creations. I hope best that the
outcome is a good one, and I wish luck to
the creators of these brilliant androids.
 When you first saw the Actroid DER3 you commented: “These thing are getting better and better.
We’ll have no chance to survive in the future when we fight them," what did you mean?

When I saw it I felt like the world is going in a direction -- some people dislike it, some like
it. This direction is all about evolution and it means that we have to either accept it or fight it. I like
evolution. The media makes me think that (evolution) has to take place the way it does. There is no way
to change. The media controls our brains and if it advertises that robots are great and will help us in
the future, then it is fine with us. So I saw it positively, as the next natural step to our evolution and sur-
vival of our race as humans.

What direction do you see humans moving in -- robots as tools or robots as beings?

irst of all robots can't make decisions on their own, so the future would be robots as
tools. But this is the near future -- for robots to become beings, humans need better technology, which
won’t happen for at least a hundred of years to come. Assuming humans will reach that level of tech-
nology.

Yes! Robots will become beings, but they will be very different from humans. They will have a better un-
derstanding. They won't be able to make moral mistakes, because they will not have their own ethics.
Their mistakes will be one in a million, because we are talking about robots at least two hundred years
from now. These robots will be really advanced. So the point is, we are talking and making assumptions
about, something when we don't know how it will be in the future.

With regards to "personhood," would you be in favor of granting a set of basic rights to sentient
artificial life forms?

For those who believe in a god, when god created humans, he gave them freedom so they
could chose how they wanted to live. For those who do not believe in a god, nature spontaneously cre-
ated life and it evolved to humans. Life got a free pass, so that it will evolve to something better.

We need to give (robots) a chance. IF we are to create such life forms, we cannot be selfish. We are not
gods, but we should at least take care of our creations, especially if they will be considered life forms. Of
course that decision is for our descendants to make, not for us.
R

7
 Tintin
and
The Uncanny
Valley
CINEMA

Let me start by saying that I am a huge
Tintin fan. I’ve been reading the comic
books since I was little and when I saw the
new movie I pretty much fell in love all
over again. It’s adventurous, it’s exciting,
it’s just plain fun! There is nothing not to
love. Even the goofy slap-stick style come-
dy which usually earns an eye-roll from me
has its place in my heart when it comes to
Tintin and company. It’s all about the clas-
sic nature of the work. Slapstick is okay in
Tintin because it was the accepted form of
popular comedy during that time period.
All sorts of famous actors have dabbled in
slapstick and therefore even though it is
goofy, it’s an acceptable form of goofiness.
It also does tend to lighten the stories
quite a bit when they get really dramatic,
which is always nice. I have never been a
8
big fan of overly dramatic work where Tintin, who would ever take it seri-
everything is all arguments and tears and ously? Because of this lack of main-
nothing funny ever happens. I guess in that stream popularity, I assumed that the film
way even as an adult I am still very much the would be produced in a small but powerful
child (like) audience that Herge was writing foreign independent studio. I pictured beau-
for. tiful, traditionally-lined work, along the lines
When I first saw on a random Tumblr thread of The Triplets of Belleville or The Illusionist-
animation that had a lot of life and move-
there was a Tintin movie in the works, I
ment- really classic stuff. Instead I found my-
freaked out. I never felt Herge’s work had
self staring face-to-face with CGI animation
never received the attention it deserves, be-
cause even though every library in the world stills.
probably has at least a few copies of the I was fairly disappointed, angry even, at the
trade paper backs on their shelves, hardly style they had chosen to use to convey one
anyone ever seemed to know about it. You of my favorite classical works. CGI is without
could mention it to your typical comic book doubt an extremely popular option- 3D GCI
collector and get nothing but a confused even more so- but it has also been more
look in return. After all, it sounds like a silly than a little played out of late. Everything
children’s story. With a protagonist named aimed at children seems to be presented in
the exact same way. Bright colors, comical
character designs, famous voice actors and
shiny computer graphics have quickly re-
placed the hand-drawn and at times sloppi-
ly produced cartoons that we have come to
expect in children’s films. Story, plot and
character development are just icing on the
cake in a film aimed at kids (or really more
like the raisins in oatmeal-raisin cookies,
since they represent the educational portion
of the story and it’s more likely that adults
will appreciate them).
Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge lover of
CGI animation. Pixar, DreamWorks, Blue Sky
and Illumination Entertainment are some of
my favorite studios. Almost all of my favor-
ite animated movies were produced in pure
CGI or at least with the aid of a computer.
Cartoons are pretty much my favorite thing
in all of existence, so that is a no-brainer.
However, there are many pros and cons to
CGI. Here, I’ll be focusing on the one that re-
ally tends to bother people and that is the
idea of “crossing over into the uncanny val-
ley”.
You can think of the uncanny valley as a met-
aphorical valley with two mountains on ei-
ther side. The first mountain is symbolism
(think cartoons) and the second is realism
(think live-action film). Our minds like to
draw a clear line between the two and we
prefer to stay on one side or the other. When
we climb down into that valley our brains
start to feel a little uncomfortable. Things
that we know are real and things that we
know are not real suddenly occupy the same
space and that alarms us. It may not be a
straight-out “oh my gosh this is terrify-
ing” (unless you’ve studied 3D animation,
then it really stands out) but somewhere in
the back of our minds we are thinking “I
don’t understand- what is happening- I am
somewhat frightened- I can’t really compre-
hend this at all”. The long and short of it is
that we don’t like being in that valley.
A world-class example of CGI’s occasional
travels into the uncanny valley is The Polar
Express. I won’t go into this film here be-
cause I could write an entire dissertation on
how it failed in about every way, but I will
provide you with a few screen shots of the
film (courtesy of IMDb), which will hopefully
speak for itself: This isn't just poor anima-
tion, this is legitimately creepy.
9
Enough about that. Let’s get back to the re- After all, the characters on and lashes reflect the light ginger color of
al reason for this article. the screen didn’t look his hair. The nose and mouth are realistic,
like the characters from yet still cartoon-like. It all comes together to

Tintin the comic; they looked create a perfect interpretation of Tintin.

like totally different
and That’s really what the movie felt like to me,
people. But at the
the Reason Why it was a perfect interpretation of a fantastic work.
same time, they The combined creative powers of the direc-
Not Nearly as Bad as I didn’t look that dif- tor, producers, actors and VFX (visual ef-
thought it would be

tintin.com
ferent at all. Sure they were 3- fects) artists really came together to create
Dimensional, so they had fea- a magical journey into a world of excite-
Right away I could tell the movie was go- tures like freckles and pores, de-
ing to be great. The music, the setting, and tailed hair and textured clothing
the characters- everything felt perfectly… that the original designs didn’t have be-
Tintin. It was almost like watching fan art- cause of Herge’s simplistic drawing style.
beautifully and lovingly rendered fan art- But that didn’t really make them any less of
come to life. The makers of this film really the characters they were supposed to be.
had a love for the work they were doing. Tintin, for example, still has his signature
The actors obviously enjoyed themselves as ginger cowlick even though in the movie
you could hear it in their voices and see it in the hair is rendered with extreme realism.
the motions and gestures they used to cre- Instead of a mere five or six lines making up ment and adventure, coupled together with
ate the performance capture animation for the outline of his hair he has a whole head appealing characters and a wonderful story-
the movie. I could feel that the characters of hair, but though the detail is extreme it is line. I truly enjoyed Tintin as both a fan of
were exactly who they are supposed to be; not distracting. The same goes for his face. the comics and a fan of animation. I think
it felt right. That was unexpected. I really In Herge’s style Tintin’s eyes are mere dots, that anyone who only looks at this movie as
thought that the characters would be more his nose a simple half-circle and his mouth another CGI kids’ film is really missing out
zombified, lifeless and expressionless dolls, a single curved line. In the movie his face is on a one-of-a-kind remake of a classic ad-
like past motion capture CGI films had given full of details; you could easily study it for venture tale which is loved by millions of
us. hours. His eyes are a rich blue and his brows kids and adults the world over. B
10
Droplets a visual poem by Thomas Wingfield
11
 Metropolis is the primary
point of reference for films
ranging from Franken-
stein to Batman to Titan-
ic. No science fiction film
made since its release can
escape its influence, even
if its only point of refer-
ence is Metropolis's em-
phasis on special effects
and design. Entire cycles
of horror movies bear the
stamp of Metropolis, with
it's climactic tide of angry
villagers and mad science.
- -Christianne Benedict,

12
“...an epic about In July of 2008, I blogged about the discovery of an almost complete edition of Fritz Lang’s
groundbreaking 1927 film Metropolis in a museum in Buenos Aires. The footage had just

conflicts that are been authenticated by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation, holders of the rights to
“Metropolis”, and restoration was still on a distant and hazy horizon.

ages old.” Well that day has arrived, earlier than I expected. The movie is now complete with the 25
minutes of additional footage discovered in Argentina plus it’s been re-edited according to
the Buenos Aires reels’ blueprint. (Before then there was no original Lang cut, just educated
guesses of how he had edited the film.) Although the newly discovered footage is noticeably
scratched up by a poor conversion to 16mm from the original 35mm nitrate done in the 70s,
it adds a great deal to the movie we
know.
CINEMA
Some of the newly inserted material
consists of brief reaction shots, just a few seconds long, which establish or accentuate a char-
acter’s mood. But there are also several much longer scenes, including one lasting more than
seven minutes, that restore subplots completely eliminated from the Paramount version.

For example, the “Thin Man,” who in the standard version appears to be a glorified butler to
the city’s all-powerful founder, turns out instead to be a much more sinister figure, a combi-
nation of spy and detective. The founder’s personal assistant, who is fired in an early scene,
also plays a greater role, helping the founder’s idealistic son navigate his way through the
proletarian underworld.

The cumulative result is a version of Metropolis whose tone and focus have been changed.
“It’s no longer a science-fiction film,” said Martin Koerber, a German film archivist and histori-
an who supervised the latest restoration and the earlier one in 2001. “The balance of the sto-
ry has been given back. It’s now a film that encompasses many genres, an epic about con-
flicts that are ages old. The science-fiction disguise is now very, very thin.”

You can read more details about the restoration on the website of Kino International, he the-
atrical distribution company releasing the complete Metropolis. The Kino site also has an
awesome photo gallery of stills from the movie, plus behind the scenes shots, unspeakably
badass production designs and original publicity posters. B
By Livius Drusus
13 13
 Biting the SuN

14
14
Biting the Sun by Celine Loup

INTERVIEW
British author, Tanith Lee, was the first woman to
win the British Fantasy Award for Death's Master.
She has published over 70 novels and 250 short
stories within the genres of science fiction, horror,
and fantasy. Her Four-Bee series, Don’t Bite the
Sun and Drinking Sapphire Wine describe a future
where death has been almost eliminated, people
design their own bodies, and the human race is
served by artificially created quasi-robots (Q-R).
PEA GREEN BOAT: In an excellent example of Uncanny Valley,
the protagonist of Drinking Sapphire Wine says:
“I felt sick…but also because it was finally out, the bare
facts of their rivalry, what I had always instinctively
felt….in some hidden dark of their personae, they hated
and despised us.”
This was written in 1976, where did you get your inspiration?
TANITH LEE: I’d been hooked on SF/Fantasy (along with myth
and history) since the late 1950s: my brilliant mother was an afi-
cionado. So no doubt Asimov, Bradbury, Leiber, and Sturgeon,
amongst others had an influence. But also I’ve always felt that
there is much more to any machine -- even typewriter, hoover,
or telephone, let alone car, plane, or computer -- than simple
machinery. That is, there’s no such thing as an ‘inanimate ob-
ject.’ Who has never been aware, say, of an ornament, or crock-
ery, that subtly always moves out of position; two necklaces or
chains, laid down perfectly flat, that become nearly irreparably
entangled, keys that disappear/reappear? And who, apart from
the calmest among us, has never wanted to hurl their typewriter
or laptop or cell phone through a window, since it has just de-
leted a vital something, gone to sleep, without our direction to
do so? Beside that innate conviction, I knew myself (very acute-
ly, at twenty) living in a world of mortal discontent, where so
many of us struggle with our physical selves – hair, body-shape,
skin, general stamina; and even, too though not in my case,
were unhappy with their gender. Plus, of course, the shadow of
ultimately unegotiable death. The High Tech solutions of Four
BEE, BAA, and BOO were an inevitable wish-fulfillment response
to all of that. But, as they say, be careful what you wish for. The
solution which removes all the original problems, can, and very
likely will, create a whole fresh set of problems. My one very
strong, if oblique, literary influence in that direction is, I now be-
lieve, Aldous Huxley’s extraordinary novel, Brave New World. I
read it around age 18, and looking back now, I kind of sense a
couple of Huxley’s strong pantherine pawmarks have scratched
my light and far more frivolous and crazy text.
PGB: In Drinking Sapphire Wine, a quasi-robot (android) states:
“No life spark is required to create an android, since we
are electronically motivated, but we are grown from cells
and possess flesh as you do.”
15 15
 This implies the androids and humans are physically the same. Was that your intent?
How does the artificial life form of the Q-R fit in the immortal culture of the Four-Bee
world?

TL: Machines, even if vastly physically like or unlike humans, are also ‘living’ in their
own fashion, and probably more resemble us, as we them, than we normally care to
notice. After all, in the cities of the Fours, , given the virtually flawless changes, re-
pairs, and regenerations, is there much difference? The galvanic force that charges
the machines and androids is an equivalent to the electric force – live spark (soul?)
that fires up the human body. Despite what the Q-R excludingly says, revealing that
proud exclusivity, there, is not the prerogative of the human. The body fails for what-
ever cause, and you recharge it – with that same galvanic force. And the ‘artificial life’
of the Q-R is artificial only because the machinery it inhabits has been created, and
kept, a slave. And slaves rebel. This inevitable notion, not unknown elsewhere in SF,
would have been one of the ingredients of a third Four BEE book I’d wanted to write
back then. (There are four cities, we’re told. What is the fourth one? Four BYY- which
is pronounced /bī/ - and it is a ruin. What did that?)

In fact, two later novels of mine, The Silver Metal Lover and Metallic Love, to some
degree pick up on some of the open doors in the Four BEE duo. With an altered em-
phasis, inevitable; Silver and Love are very separate books. But anyone, maybe, who
read and recalls the two sets, might suspect a connection. As I now do.

With just a touch of the Ugly Duckling, Tanith Lee’s novel Electric Forest
focuses on a malformed woman given the opportunity to have her con-
scious transferred into an absolutely perfect android body. The only catch
is the body is a double of a rich and powerful woman who is as cruel as
she is beautiful.

16
16
PGB: Did Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis inspire the concept of your novel Electric
Forest (1979)? Is it a coincidence the cover art by Don Maitz emulates Lang’s
transformation scene with Marie/Hel?

TL: Certainly I’d heard of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, but never its plot-line, and I
didn’t manage to see the movie until the late ‘80s. Therefore it did not inspire
Electric Forest, which – for me – is (once more) far less about the technicality of
robots or androids, than the search for physical perfection, and the curiosity of
twinned doubles and individual identity. That being the case, I’d never would
have associated Don Maitz’s excellent cover with the movie. How very interesting
– I’ve been staring at it off and on ever since your question!

Tanith Lee’s S.I.L.V.E.R. series takes place in a world where technology has
created perfect androids. Too perfect as it turns out, “exactly like – or better
– than a human man.”

PGB: What inspired The Silver Metal Lover (1981)?

TL: This was one that very decidedly came from out of the blue, like a bird flying
in at an open window and perching on my shoulder. Though the windows were
shut where I was sitting in the BBC TV center, talking to a director and fellow writ-
ers, all of us working then on episodes of Blake’s 7. I loved being -- though so
briefly -- part of Blake, and only lost the thread of discussion for a second or so.
Nevertheless, that was long enough, to fix an image in my brain…that of an an-
droid exactly like – or better – than a human man…and the title too was there im-
mediately. I wrote the novel in about two weeks, not unheard of for me.

The horror and tragedy that occur near the end (of SML) caused me to wreak the
grill-pan of my oven, since, in writing, I’d forgot I’d left it on. Only the black
crisped smell of burnt metal, mingling with my tears, alerted me. A strange, per-
haps pertinent event.

17 17

"One of the things I love about
(The Silver Metal Lover) is
how Tanith explores the hard
problems of consciousness
without intruding on the story.
It was only during times ‘away
from the book,’ that I pon-
dered her insights—how the
erotic nature of love can grow
souls. When I say erotic, I don’t
mean pornographic. I’m refer-
ring to Eros, the god of love—
the original meaning is some-
thing that brings two people
together in such a way that it
creates a lasting transfor-
mation." --Kim Falconer
18
PGB: Physically the robot character Silver is different from the androidous sim-
ulates seen in Electric Forest and the Four-Bee series. Silver is fully a machine,
yet he is more human. Why is that?
TL: Really, we get the probable answer, the clue to Silver, at the end of the sto-
ry – so I won’t give that away now. Yet, returning to my earlier arguments
about machines, why not ? Why shouldn’t Silver become more human, if he
had empathy? During the novel, Jane is always courteous to the other robots in
her life: “Thank you,” she says, and is mocked. Why not thank mechanical door
for opening, even if you do it silently, or an elevator for carrying you up and
down? We, and everything, are formed at base level of the same intrinsic build-
ing blocks, those peculiar comic doodles that make up the beginnings of all
Life. Steel and plastic have the same root origins as earth, air, fire, and water –
and flesh. Just a thought.
PGB: More than a decade passed between The Silver Metal Lover and Silver
Love, and it has been announced* you will soon be releasing a third novel. How
has your concept of robot/human interaction changed over time?
TL: I don’t know who announced this – unless it’s left over from my website
(currently crashed and, despite the best efforts of my webmasters, apparently
not yet recoverable). I definitely wanted to write a third book, as with Four BEE,
but again, publishers showed no interest. If I had more time and money, I’d
write it anyhow. But for now it has to wait. Anyone who read the last pages of
Metallic Love may have guessed where it might be leading. Which is straight
back to Jane and Whatever-his-name-is-now-is-Silver. The title is The Tin Man.
My concept of, and perhaps slight obsession with human-robot interaction is
still as keen, and it may have changed – though I suspect it’s only intensified.
For sure, I won’t know, as I usually never do, what on earth – or out of it – I’m
going to say, until I can start the book. Here’s to that, then.
B
* Appeared in the Wikipedia entry for S.I.L.V.E.R. Series
Tanith Lee was born in London, England. After completing her secondary education, Lee held a number of ordinary jobs. It was while
working as an assistant children’s librarian, that a children’s story she submitted was selected for publication. In 1971 her children's
novel, The Dragon Hoard was published. After the publication of Don’t Bite The Sun in 1976, Lee decided to become a full-time writ-
er. She won a number of prominent awards including the British Fantasy Award.

Nebula Awards
 1975: The Birthgrave (nominated, best novel)
 1980: Red As Blood (nominated, best short story)
 2010: Disturbed by Her Song (nominated, best LGBT speculative fiction)

World Fantasy Awards

 1979: Night's Master (nominated, best novel)
 1983: "The Gorgon" (winner, best short story)
 1984: "Elle Est Trois, (La Mort)" (winner, best short story)
 1984: "Nunc Dimittis" (nominated, best novella)
 1984: Red As Blood, or, Tales From The Sisters Grimmer
 1985: Night Visions 1 (nominated, best anthology/collection)
 1987: Dreams Of Dark And Light (nominated, best anthology/collection)
 1988: Night's Sorceries (nominated, best anthology/collection)
 1999: "Scarlet And Gold" (nominated, best novella)
 2006: "Uous" (nominated, best novella)

British Fantasy Awards

 1979: Quest For The White Witch (nominated, best novel)
 1980: Death's Master (winner, best novel)
Guardian of the Book Illustration by Janet Jia-Ee Chui
 1980: "Red As Blood" (nominated, best short story)
 1981: Kill The Dead (nominated, best novel)
 1999: "Jedella Ghost" (nominated, best short story) Daughter of the Night An Annotated
2000: "Where Does The Town Go At Night?" (nominated, best short story)
Tanith Lee Bibliography

19
 POEM

At my reading
every day
language breathes
down my nature

on the podium
losing myself
LANGUAGE in stolen words
as kisses
By B.Z. Niditch
making out
in a roll
of my tongue
capturing solitude

with a scrappy
wonder
in a blunted alembic
of a life sentence

soon to be
reflected on
graffiti walls
and then translated.

20
The “species dominance” issue will dominate
our global politics this century, resulting in a
major war that will kill billions of people. The is-
sue is whether humanity should build godlike,
massively intelligent machines called
“artilects’ (artificial intellects), which 21st century
technologies will make possible, that will have
mental capacities trillions of trillions of times
above the human level. Society will split into
two (arguably three) major philosophical
groups, murderously opposed to each other.
The first group is the “Cosmists” (based on the
word Cosmos) who are in favor of building arti-
lects. The second group is the “Terrans” (based
on the word Terra, the earth) who are opposed
to building artilects, and the third group is the
“Cyborgs”, who want to become artilects them-
selves by adding artilectual components to their
own human brains.
--Prof. Dr. Hugo de Garis,
Cosmists vs.Terrans: A Bitter Controversy Concerning Whether
Humanity Should Build Godlike Massively Intelligent Machines

Third Millennium Narcissus by Greg Stevens 21

 The Future
as we Fear
It
Dr. James Hughes Ph.D. is Executive Director of the
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, is a bio-
ethicist and sociologist at Trinity College in Hartford
INTERVIEW
Connecticut where he teaches health policy and serves as
Director of Institutional Research and Planning. Dr. and technology can provide, such as longer lives and expanded
Hughes is author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Socie- abilities. It was an attempt to distinguish the views of most trans-
ties Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future. humanists, who lean Left, from the minority of highly visible Sili-
con Valley-centered libertarian transhumanists, on the one hand,
You created the term “democratic transhuman- and from the Left bioconservatives on the other.
ism,” so how do you define it?
In the last six or seven years the phrase has been supplanted by
The term "democratic transhumanism" distin- the descriptor "technoprogressive" which is used to describe the
guishes a biopolitical stance that combines socially liberal or lib- same basic set of Enlightenment values and policy proposals:
ertarian views (advocating internationalist, secular, free speech,
and individual freedom values), with economically egalitarian  human enhancement technologies, especially anti-aging ther-
views (pro-regulation, pro-redistribution, pro-social welfare val- apies, should be a priority of publicly financed basic research,
ues), with an openness to the transhuman benefits that science be well regulated for safety, and be included in programs of

22
 universal health care;
 structural unemployment resulting from automation and
globalization needs to be ameliorated by a defense of the so-
cial safety net, and the creation of universal basic income
guarantees;
 global catastrophic risks, both natural and man-made, require
new global programs of research, regulation and prepared-
ness
 legal and political protections need to be expanded to in-
clude all self-aware persons, including the great apes, ceta-
ceans, enhanced animals and humans, machine minds, and
hybrids of animals, humans and machines
 alliances need to be built between technoprogressives and
other progressive movements around sustainable develop-
ment, global peace and security, and civil and political rights,
on the principle that access to safe enabling technologies are
fundamental to a better future
In simple terms, what is the “personhood theory?” How do you
think it is/will be applied to A.I.?
In Enlightenment thought "persons" are beings aware of
themselves with interests that they enact over time through
conscious life plans. Personhood is a threshold
which confers some rights, while there are levels of
rights both above and below personhood. Society is
not obliged to treat beings without personhood,
such as most animals, human embryos and humans
who are permanently unconscious, as having a fun-
damental right to exist in themselves, a "right to life."
To the extent that non-persons can experience pain how-
ever we are obliged to minimize their pain. Above person-
hood we oblige humans to pass thresholds of age, training and
testing, and licensure before they can exercise other rights, such
as driving a car, owning a weapon, or prescribing medicine. Chil-
dren have basic personhood rights, but full adult persons who
have custody over them have an obligation to protect and nur-
ture children to their fullest possible possession of mature per-
sonhood rights.
Who to include in the sphere of persons is a matter of debate,
but at the IEET we generally believe that apes and cetaceans
meet the threshold. Beyond higher mammals however, the
sphere of potential kinds of minds is enormous, and it is very
likely that some enhanced animals, post-humans and machine
minds will possess only a sub-set of the traits that we consider
necessary for conferring personhood status. For instance a crea-
ture might possess a high level of cognition and communication,
but no sense of self-awareness or separate egoistic interests. In
fact, when designing AI we will probably attempt to avoid creat-
ing creatures with interests separate from our own, since they
could be quite dangerous. Post-humans meanwhile may
experiment with cognitive capacities in ways that some-
times take them outside of the sphere of "persons"
with political claims to rights, such as if they suppress
capacities for empathy, memory or identity.
What ethical obligations are involved in the develop-
ment of A.I.?
We first have an ethical obligation to all present
and future persons to ensure that the creation of ma-
chine intelligence enhances their life options, and
doesn't diminish or extinguish them. The most extreme
version of this dilemma is posed by the possibility of a
hostile superintelligence which could be an existential
risk to life as we understand it. Short of that the simple
23
expansion of automation and robotics will likely eliminate most forms
of human labor, which could result in widespread poverty, starvation
and death, and the return of a feudal order. Conversely a well-
regulated transition to an automated future with a basic income
guarantee could create an egalitarian society in which humans all
benefit from leisure.

We also have ethical obligations in relationship to the specific kinds

of AI will create. As I mentioned above, we should avoid creating self-
willed machine minds because of the dangers they might pose to the
humans they are intended to serve. But we also have an obligation to
the machine minds themselves to avoid making them self-aware. Our
ability to design self-aware creatures with desires that could be
thwarted by slavery, or perhaps even worse to design creatures who
only desire to serve humans and have no will to self-development, is
very troubling. If self-willed self-aware machine minds do get created,
or emerge naturally, and are not a catastrophic threat, then we have
an obligation to determine which ones can fit into the social order as
rights-bearing citizens.

What direction do you see technology headed – robots as tools

or robots as beings?

It partly depends on whether self-aware machine minds are first

created by brain-machine interfaces, brain emulation and brain
"uploading," or are designed de novo in machines, or worse, emerge
spontaneously. The closer the connection to human brains that ma-
chine minds have the more likely they are to retain the characteristics
of personhood that we can recognize and work with as fellow citi-
zens. But a mind that emerges more from silicon is unlikely to have
anything in common with human minds, and more likely to either be
Bio-Guardian collaboration by Thomas Wingfield and Joe Mclean
a tool without a will of its own, or a being that we can't communicate
or co-exist with.
B
24
 umanoid Robot
H
How to Pose as a
ADVICE
PRETEND TO BE DAMAGED
range behavior while failing
A damaged robot may exhibit st
to transmit identification.

CHANGE YOUR HEAT SIGNATURE

. Rub your exposed skin with
Stuff aluminum foil in your pants
gold metal around your
cool mud. Hang a hulking piece of
uit. Your heat signature
neck and slip into an Adidas jumps
nor will it match a healthy
will not match a healthy robot,
human being.

MAKE SOME NOISE

occasi ona l scr ee ch ing be ep or boop should suffice. Make
An
no audition.
it quick and strangled; this is

MOVE LIKE A ROBOT

mark clumsiness that
Early robots exhibited a trade
wne d a dance calle d th e ro bot . Contemporary robots are
spa
re de xt er ous - unles s br oken. Pretend you are either
mo
ed break-dancing machine,
damaged machinery or a well-oil
pop and loc k you r way int o th e heart of robot territory.
and
D DON'T LOOK BACK
IF CONFRONTED KEEP MOVING AN
robots and pretend to be
You're just a poser, so ignore other
nt. Keep your head down and
completely oblivious to the environme
e. The fate of the entire hu-
shuffle forward with a steady, even pac
man race may depend on it.
excerpt from How to Survive a Robot uprising by Daniel H. Wilson
25 25
 ROBO-MONK
“...The robot monk
resides at Hotoku-ji,
MEDIA a temple in Kakoga-
wa City, Hyogo Pre-
fecture. Fixed in a
kneeling position, it
features a smoothly
“The bride, Inoue, works for the com-
shaven head and
pany that makes the i-Fairy, and her
prominent ears, just
husband, Shibata, is a client.
like its human coun-

The future terparts. Clad in

priestly robes, it
grasps a string
"It's true that robots are what caused
us to first begin going out, and as sug-
gested by my wife, we decided that we

is being wanted to try this sort of wedding,"

Hotoku-ji monk hard at work
of juzu (Buddhist pray-
er beads) in its left hand. Shibata said after making his vows.
So what does Hotoku-ji's robot priest do? After saying "I do," the bride said that
she wanted to use her wedding to

created
Most of the time it sits absolutely still--one could say
it meditates. When its sensors detect a worshipper
approaching the altar, however, the robot goes into
action. It begins to chant a sutra (Buddhist prayer)
show people that robots can easily fit
into their daily lives.
"I always felt that robots would be-

today. while the shumoku (clapper) in its right hand rhythmi-

cally strikes a mokugyo, a hollow wooden object
something like a gong and a drum.
This particular robot is the creation of Yoshihi-
ro Motooka, a 65-year-old former railway technician.
- Faith D'Aluisio Most interesting is that the creator, in line with Bud-
dhist precepts against wasteful excess, made the ro-
bot with discarded items, including parts from a bicy-
cle, a cassette tape recorder, and a washing machine
motor…”
May 28, 1999
come more integrated into people's
everyday lives. This cute robot is part
of my company, I decided that I would
love to have it at my ceremony," Inoue
said.
Makers of the robot, Kokoro Ltd, said
that while they are still selling the i-
Fairy with the stated purpose of help-
ing visitors, they're happy for the ma-
chine to help weddings cross the digi-
tal divide.” AssociatedPress

26
ROBO-PRIEST TAKES
CENTER STAGE
YOKOHAMA, JAPAN - The bearded Robo-Priest cost
priest kneels on his cushion in front of nearly $¥500,000.
a Buddhist altar. Incense fills the air, as He is programmed
he chants a sutra for the dead, pausing to deliver word-
after each verse to strike a small brass perfect prayers ac-
Mechanical priest perform-
gong. cording to the rites ing funeral rituals in Yoko-
hama, Japan © Don Farber
"We are very proud of him," says Isao of seven different
Hirata, a hovering acolyte in a navy Buddhist sects, Shinto and two Chris-
blue business suit. "He's so lifelike ... tian faiths.
one of our finest creations." At the push of a button, religious stat-
First, they automated the humans out ues are hydraulically pumped into cen-
of car-making; now, Japan's electronic ter-stage ... seven different Buddhas, a
whiz-kids have made an even more Catholic Christ on a cross, and a slightly
daring breakthrough: taking the priests more haggard-looking one for the
The Citizen Ottawa, Canada Monday April 22,
out of religion. Here, on a hillside in a Protestants. There are two vacant nich-
suburb of Japan's second city, a con- es to accommodate any Jewish or Hin-
struction magnate has spent $¥18 mil- du Yokohamans who may feel left out. and buying a perpetual lease on one will will descend hydraulically from his attic in
lion marrying the marvels of modern Robo-Priest is the centerpiece of a set you back $¥44,000. Funeral services the ceiling and say sutras for the soul of
robotics to the mysteries of the world's chapel built to the design of Mr Hideo and rental of the chapel's many modern the departed for half an hour.
oldest religions. Yoshino, 59, the head of a Yokohama facilities, which include tables and bench- "We are not trying to do live priests out
In this high-tech chapel, all glass and construction company who decided es which can be hydraulically raised and of business," Mr Sakurai said. "However,
stainless steel, computers and hydrau- last year to get into aging Japan's lu- lowered -could cost another $¥100,000 the robot never forgets an anniversary, it
lics do the Lord's work. crative and highly competitive funeral or more. never makes a mistake and you get the
Mr Hirata presses a button on his con- industry. Robo-Priest was built to promote this service free." Since the chapel opened in
trol pad and the priest switches to an- Behind the chapel is a cemetery where automated necropolis, says the chapel's October, Mr Sakurai says business has
other prayer routine - all recorded in Mr Yoshino hopes to make his profit. curator, Mr Tohru Sakurai. The date of a been quite brisk - 200 grave sites have
stereo. The priest bows his head and There are 1,300 grave sites here (swept client's death will be programmed into been sold.
moves his lips in sync with the chant. and watered daily by a robot caretaker), the computer, and every year the priest Sydney Morning Herald, May 4 1993

27

“The monk is driven by a key-wound
spring and walks the path of a square,
striking his chest with his right arm,
while raising and lowering a small wood-
en cross and rosary in his left hand, turn-
ing and nodding his head, rolling his
eyes, and mouthing silent obsequies.
From time to time, he brings the cross to
his lips and kisses it. It is believed that
the monk was manufactured
by mechanician Juanelo Turriano...”
- Wikipedia.com
HISTORY
28
Image courtesy of The Smithsonian Institute
Would you accept a robot
as your priest or vicar?
By Danielle Elizabeth Tumminio
THOUGHTS
With artificial intelligence and robots taking over jobs from bank teller to car-
pet cleaner, I decided to see whether something called the Cleverbot could
take over mine. The Cleverbot is a kind of artificial intelligence application that
chats with humans using sentences from previous conversations. It is the con-
summate copycat.
I, on the other hand, am an Episcopalian priest. I teach people about faith,
guide them through difficult spiritual moments and assist with sacraments. I
like to think I'm irreplaceable – or, at least, irreplaceable as far as machines are
concerned –but perhaps my assumption is incorrect.
Let's say you wanted the Cleverbot to be your priest or pastor. How would it
fare? I decided to start by asking it some basic questions about Christianity.
Me: Who is Jesus?
Cleverbot: Jesus is the son of God.
A disturbingly good start, I thought.
Me: What does "son of God" mean?
Cleverbot: I'm not sure.
(Continued on page 29)

Refreshingly honest. Let's try something
else.
Me: What is the Trinity?
Cleverbot: The holy Trinity?
Me: Yes.
Cleverbot: What is your opinion on the
Holy Trinity?
Very Socratic, I thought, turning the
question back at me.
Me: I think it is very profound. What is
your opinion of the Holy Trinity?
Cleverbot: The bomb! The bomb! The
bomb!
Triple enthusiasm for the three-in-one
and one-in-three went beyond even my
zealotry for the Trinity. Perhaps my job
was in jeopardy. Hoping the Cleverbot
would not rise to the occasion, I decided
to challenge it with some of the more
philosophical questions I get asked as a
woman of the cloth.
Me: What is transubstantiation?
Cleverbot: Hello?
Now, perhaps abstract thought isn't the
Cleverbot's strength, but its ignorance of
Eucharistic theology didn't convince me
that my congregation wouldn't exchange
those sermons I toiled over for Cleverbot
ones. After all, the capacity to think intan-
gibly takes a long time to develop, even in
humans. Maybe technology wasn't there
yet. But if we extrapolate from Moore's law
that the speed of computing doubles every
two years, the Cleverbot's speed of thought
may increase exponentially as well. Abstract
thought could be just a few transistors
away.
So, in a final attempt to prevent priest
mechanization, I decided to ask some of the
questions that are as essential to a priest's
toolkit as a Phillips screwdriver is to a
mechanic's. Without answers to these, the
Cleverbot may live in a technological cloud,
but it could certainly not help seekers to
reach the heavenly one.
Me: What happens at Christmas?
Cleverbot: You get presents at Christmas.
Me: What happens at Easter?
Cleverbot: We get earned time.
Me: Do you know any hymns?
Cleverbot: Why did the chicken cross the
road?
Me: What happens in the book of Genesis?
Cleverbot: Everyone dies.
Me: Who is your favorite saint?
Cleverbot: Drew Brees.
Me: What happens in the Bible?
Cleverbot [and yes, I swear I am not mak-
ing this up]: Harry kills Voldemort. It all
ends.
So I guess my conversation proves that
the Cleverbot won't be taking over my
position as a religious leader any time
soon. But, beyond its lack of technical
knowledge, perhaps the most compelling
reason congregants shouldn't be listening
to its auto-generated sermons yet is that
being a priest is a calling, a vocation.
Even if the Cleverbot had answered every
one of those questions correctly, there's
more to being a priest than having
knowledge at one's fingertips – or actua-
tors, in the robot world. People become
Christian leaders because of strong faith,
not just strong intellect. They're motivated
by a sense of calling that courses through
the blood, not one that's hardwired into a
motherboard.
So I decided to ask the Cleverbot one last
question, the one I should have asked at
the beginning:
Me: Do you have a calling to the priest-
hood?
Cleverbot: A calling? I have a calculator.
It's a graphing calculator. I use it in math
class.
B Re-printed courtesy of guardian.co.uk
29
In one corner, we have Robby the Robot,
famous cinematic automaton of the classic
film, Forbidden Planet (1956).
And in the other corner, we have lovable B
-9, mechanical guardian of our space fami-
ly Robinson and popular hero of Lost in
Space.
May the best robot win…
In very silly terms, that's the set-up for this
classic first season Lost in Space (1965-1968)
episode, "The War of the Robots," which
aired originally on CBS on February 9, 1966.
Here, the stranded Robinsons (trapped on a
desolate alien planet...), unexpectedly dis-
cover a quiescent "robotoid" in an over-
grown grove near their homestead.
The Robinsons' protective robot insists the
alien machine (Robby...) is an "extreme dan-
ger" to the humans, in part because of Rob-
by's very nature: he's a "robotoid" (unlike
the Robot), and robotoids are advanced ma-
chines which can go beyond the bounds of
their programming.
30
The War
of the
Robots
By John Kenneth Muir
Robotoids have a "choice" -- according to
the Robot -- in the way they follow (or don't OPINION
follow...) orders and instructions. The Robin-
sons and especially Dr. Smith (Jonathan Har-
ris) believe their Robot is just jealous of the
new machine, which -- when activated by
Will (Bill Mumy) -- shows an affinity for re-
pairing watches, the damaged chariot, and
other devices.
Dr. Smith derides the family robot as a
"clumsy has-been" and "obsolete" as Robby
the Robotoid in short order becomes practi-
cally invaluable to the marooned Robinsons
(save for Penny, who has mysteriously van-
(Continued on page 31)
ished from the entire episode...without it being noticed by her Mom or
Dad). Soon, Robby confronts the B-9 and tells him that the Robinsons no Those sets and vehicles appear fantastic and realistic at the same time,
longer need their original robot and that "in comparison" to himself, the
B-9 is "very ignorant."
Alone and abandoned, B-9 skulks away into
the rocks -- having lost his family -- and soon Rob-
by's true motives emerge. He is actually the dedi-
cated servant to an alien scientist (a kind of dog-
alien that very much resembles the Anticans from
the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Lonely
Among Us" that was produced and broadcast
twenty-one years later...). The Robotoid's mission is
not to serve the Robinsons, but rather to disarm
them, render them "harmless" and deliver them as
experimental subjects to the aliens. "You are weak
and vulnerable creatures," Robby tells the Robin-
sons, "but there are others who have need of you..."
In the end, it's a battle-to-the-death be-
tween a nearly-invincible Robby (the most famous
mechanical man of the movies, pre-Star Wars...)
and a vastly-under-powered Bubble-Headed Booby, the most famous
mechanical man of television...
Honestly I have a weird sort of love/hate fascination with Lost in
Space. I absolutely adore the optimistic 1960s futurism on display in the
series, not to mention the wonderful conceit that space program tech-
nology has become the purview of the American nuclear family in the
near future.
Also, I almost universally find the set designs, gadgets, and gen-
eral production values of the first season highly commendable....they
outstrip the original Star Trek by a rather wide margin. Thus, I'm a huge
admirer of the first season's approach: lensed in moody black-and-white or Firefly isn't going to find a whole lot of meat here; or a whole lot of
(like the Twilight Zone) and dominated by this clunky (but gorgeous)
complexity either.
"retro-tech." Every time I see the Robinsons' full-sized, working chariot or
the incredibly-detailed interior of the Jupiter 2, I'm virtually spellbound.
and seem completely functional.
I love the way the first season is shot too. In
"The War of the Robots," for instance, a fluid camera
glides in menacingly towards Robby the Robot at
least twice -- pushing portentously towards the in-
scrutable juggernaut. A less efficient production
might have used a zoom instead of taking the time
and energy to move the camera, but you can tell that
there was no expense spared in early Lost in Space,
and generally, the series was well-filmed. There's
even a sense of visual ingenuity (and wit...) in the epi-
sode's final battle between clunky metal men
All that established, I really can't stomach the
second and third seasons of Lost in Space, the color
years which give "campy" entertainment (not to
mention sci-fi TV...) a bad name for years and years.
I've tried (with considerable dedication) to watch many of those later ep-
isodes, but overall they lack internal consistency, paint a silly picture of
the universe, and feature no real character growth or humanity. In the
second and third years of Lost in Space, "science" may as well be "magic"
for all the logic or intelligence applied by the writers.
But -- again -- I must stress that Lost in Space's first season, with
its gorgeous photography and solid balance of characters, features some
truly intriguing and (even creepy...) stories. Of course, you can't judge
those forty-year old stories by the standards of today's science fiction. I
mean, the audience that loves and admires the new Battlestar Galactica
B
31
 That established, there's some-
thing undeniably sweet and sort of
pure about these black-and-white
shows. They endure as science fiction
parables about the nature of families.
"The War of the Robots" is no excep-
tion to that rule. Here, the Robot feels
squeezed out by his new "sibling,"
Robby, and becomes jealous that, well,
there's somebody newer and more ex-
citing in the room. The Robot begins
striking out at those who love him
(refusing to help Will...), becomes petu-
lant and even self loathing (describing
the fact that he has been denied or
"cheated" out of human characteristics
evidenced by the Robotoid.)
Let's face it: haven't we all felt
displaced like that from time to time?
By a brother or a sister? By your best
friend's 'new' buddy? It's strange that a
story so plainly concerning sibling ri-
valry involves an ostensibly "emotion-
less" robot, but again, that's the great
thing about science fiction on televi-
sion: it can dramatize stories in a way a
regular drama can't.
Even in this episode, however,
there are matters of concern in terms
32
of logic and consistency. Early on, Rob-
by's alien master reveals that he left
the Robotoid on the planet many years
before. Later in the story, the same al-
The Laws of
ien master explains that if Robby can't
send a homing signal soon, they won't
be able to find him, or the planet.
Plainly, something doesn't connect be- a robot may
tween those two conversations. If the not injure a human be-
aliens left the robot on the planet, why ing, or through inac-
can't they find it again? Similarly, I en-
tion, allow a human
joyed the Robot's explanation of the
being to come to
subtle distinctions between robot and
harm;
robotoid, but how, exactly, does a Ro-
bot from Earth (from 20th century
Earth) come by this information about a robot must obey the orders
advanced alien robotoids? given it by human beings except where
In the end, I suppose it doesn't such orders would conflict with the First
really matter. "The War of the Robots"
Law;
is a fable or lesson about jealousy, and
every other consideration is secondary.
And besides, if you grew up in the a robot must protect its own
1970s with an affection for Forbidden existence as long as such protection
Planet's Robby and the Lost in Space does not conflict with the First or Second
Robot, there's no probably way on
Laws.”
Earth (or in space...) you can resist an
episode involving their robot-on-robot
smack down...
B
 CINEMA
Real Steel By Theresa Lucas

There are a lot of formulaic movies out there that try to tap into After another disastrous bout, Charlie ends up at the junkyard
the underdog story. Movies like Rocky and The Karate Kid are looking for parts to piece together another robot when Max liter-
classics because we can put ourselves in the shoes of the main ally falls over an old-school robot named Atom that turns out to
character and the moment of victory is sweeter for it-- but what be just the thing to improve their fortunes.
happens when you're rooting for a robot? Real Steel is one of those movies that has so many elements
Real Steel, a movie loosely based on a short story by Richard from other films that very little comes across as new. Take a little
Matheson, is the story of Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) and his Rocky, sprinkle in The Champ and add some Rock 'Em Sock 'Em
estranged son Max. Charlie is a former boxer trying to earn a living Robots for good measure and you've got Real Steel. That said, it's
in a world that no longer has any interest in boxing matches fea- still a pretty good little movie.
turing human fighters. Over time audiences have moved on from Hugh Jackman has to get most of the credit for making "Real
the small spectacle of of traditional boxing matches and now only Steel" a movie worth watching. Charlie isn't a sympathetic charac-
pay the big money to watch robots slug it out in the ring, so Char- ter-- and Jackman doesn't try to make him one. He's schemes and
lie chooses to eke out a living operating his own robot fighter. steals his way through life and the sudden arrival of a kid doesn't
Charlie is the kind of guy who only seems capable of making bad change his character. Max goes toe-to-toe with Charlie but he's
decisions. He rushes into every situation with a gambler's impetu- one of those super-precocious kids that only exist in the movies.
ousness but no eye for detail and is running out of options when He's sympathetic and cute in a predictably smart-mouthed kind of
it comes to staying ahead of his debts. True to form Charlie ap- way, but we've seen him before. Charlie isn't anything new either,
proaches the unexpected appearance of his son Max as an oppor- but at least he takes his time evolving into someone worthwhile.
tunity to score some money rather than showing any interest in The story isn't set that far into the future so the world hasn't
the relationship for its own sake. But Max has more than his share changed that much. The fights are a realistic combination of vide-
of stubbornness and before long is acting as his dad's fighting o/gladiatorial game that actually seem somewhat harmless com-
partner.
33 33
pared to the current reality-television craze. The robots
take a beating, sometimes to the point of being ripped
apart, but it's not cringe-worthy without the blood in-
volved in a real-world fight. There is a slight attempt to
humanize Atom but there are never any glimmers of
sentience beyond the imagination of the characters, so
it's hard to connect to the robot as the underdog of
the story beyond a superficial level. Charlie and Max
do work in that role however and there's a certain
sweetness in seeing heart triumph over advanced
technology.

Real Steel works in that it's a film that successfully

plays on the audience's emotions. Whether it's the
evolution of Charlie's relationship with Max, the recon-
nection between Charlie and his onetime love Bailey
(Evangeline Lilly) or the climactic title-fight, there's a
lot of story to cheer for. Sure it's somewhat cookie-
cutter but it's still an entertaining way to spend two
hours. And it's a diversion you can watch with your
kids-- something I don't take for granted these days. I (TOSY Ping Pong Playing Robot) is a
might wish that the film had explored the idea of re- bipedal humanoid robot designed by
placing fighters with robots and Charlie's feelings TOSY, a robotics firm in Vietnam, to
about that-- it seemed like a missed opportunity that play table tennis against a human. TOPIO 3.0 stands approxi-
was mostly wasted on setting up the final shadow-
mately 6' 2" (1.88m) tall and weighs 264 lbs (120 kg ).TOPIO
boxing scene. However Real Steel is strictly light en-
uses an advanced artificial intelligence system to learn and
tertainment--but it's also good fun and sometimes
continuously improve its skill level while playing.
B
that's all you really need.

34 34
 By Justin Yates
REVIEW jective for the first day is to either craft torches to keep the creatures from
spawning or to build a structure to protect you during the night. The creatures,
or “mobs” as they’re called, will spawn anywhere that is dark enough, so even if
Minecraft at its simplest is a sandbox world where
you manage to craft torches, you will still need some kind of structure to protect
you can dig holes, pits, caverns, etc. as well as build
you until you can craft weapons to fight off the mobs. The most feared mob is
hills, mountains, buildings, etc., but it can be so
the Creeper, because unlike the rest of the mobs which just attack you, Creepers
much more. Indeed unless you change the difficulty
will explode as they approach you. You must keep your wits about you, lest you
setting to “Peaceful”, the game is a survival game in
hear the dreaded “sssssssssSSSSSSSSS” which signals that they are about to ex-
addition to a creative outlet. There are two ways to
plode, followed by the *BOOM!* of the explosion which will almost always kill
play the game, single player and multiplayer. Both
you instantly as well as destroying any nearby blocks or structures.
are pretty much the same game except that single
Setting aside the mobs, the game is a great creativity game. When you start you
player is played and the maps are stored on your
only have your hands to gather resources. The only resources you can gather
computer, while multiplayer is played over a net-
with your hands are dirt, sand, and wood. Once you have some wood, you can
work connection and the maps are stored on a
start making use of another great feature of Minecraft: crafting. Using different
server which you connect to in order to play.
materials in different configurations, you can make various tools, materials, re-
The game starts you with no possessions whatso-
sources, and so on. At any given time, you have access to a 2x2 crafting table.
ever and you must find a way to survive the night
You can use this table to make small things such as torches, which requires a
which comes all too soon. As night falls, skeletons,
stick below a piece of coal. The most common use of the 2x2 crafting square is
zombies, giant spiders, and creatures known as
to make a crafting table by arranging 4 wooden planks with one in each square
“creepers” appear and are out to kill you. Your ob-
of the 2x2 grid. The crafting table allows the use of a 3x3 crafting grid. Another

35
common use of the 2x2 grid is to process since the introduction of redstone circuitry discount (from what the full version will
wood. One block of wood gives 4 wooden there have even been rudimentary comput- cost) and get all future versions for free in-
planks, two planks stacked one on top of ers. Currently they are only 16-bit machines cluding the full version when it is released.
the other gives four sticks. Sticks are used which are basically just huge adding ma- The final version will sell for €20, but if you
very often to craft axes, shov- chines, but the potential is buy it while it’s in Beta, it only costs €14.95.
els, pickaxes, hoes, fishing amazing, especially as the The price is listed in Euros because Notch
rods, swords, bows, arrows, space available to build a (the creator) lives in Sweden, and the ex-
torches, and more. As you machine is nearly infinite change rates vary every day.
may have guessed, each tool within the world of Mine-
Notch has a lot of ideas for Minecraft and I
has its use. Axes for wood; craft. As technology im-
can’t wait to see what come in the future.
shovels for sand, dirt, gravel, proves and people continue
You can learn more about Minecraft as well
and snow; pickaxes for stone; to take the time to produce
as buy it at http://www.minecraft.net. If you
hoes for farming; fishing rods such creations, the possibil-
would like to follow the progress of Mine-
for fishing; swords, bows, and arrows for ity of having a basic computer (as we think
craft, you can view Notch’s blog or follow
battle; and torches for light. Using the tools of “computers”) within your computer is
@Notch on twitter. He will often announce
(except arrows and torches) causes wear on amazing.
his progress on Minecraft improvements as
them and eventually they will break. Using a At the time of this writing, Minecraft is cur-
well as reveal future plans for Minecraft. B
tool incorrectly, such as a shovel on stone, rently only in Beta, which means it is not the
will cause the tool to be worn more quickly final, full game. Notch is constantly working
and break sooner. on improving the game and adding fea-
The game itself is pretty basic; dig, build, tures. Every so often he will release an up-
and survive, but it can be so much more dated version with a large batch of bug fix-
with a bit of creativity. People have created es, various improvements, and extra fea-
huge recreations of characters, drawings, tures. These updates are free and automati-
scenes, buildings, etc. There have also been cally downloaded when you launch the
working creations such as rollercoasters, game. The game is not free, but it is not too
Rube Goldberg machines, cannons, and expensive either. You can buy it now at a
Minecraft 1.2 released March 1, 2012
36 All images courtesy Mojang
 37
Black and White Still Life By Anh Duy Nguyen
Citizen Cyborg
“The human race's use of genetic engineering to evolve
beyond our current limitations would be a central politi-
cal issue of the next century. Just as in abortion and brain
death, the key issue in genetic engineering was whether
it is more important that we remain "human" or that we
are "persons." Is there anything we must preserve about
Homo sapiens DNA or "human nature"? The last two
decades have added new tools to transcend our limita-
tions, such as nanotechnology, but the basic question re-
mains the same.
In the twenty-first century the convergence of artificial
intelligence, nanotechnology and genetic engineering
will allow human beings to achieve things previously im-
agined only in science fiction. Life spans will extend well
beyond a century. Our senses and cognition will be en-
hanced. We will gain control over our emotions and
memory. We will merge with machines, and machines will
become more like humans. These technologies will allow
us to evolve into varieties of "posthumans" and usher us
into a "transhuman" era and society.”

James Hughes. Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Re-

spond To The Redesigned Human Of The Future. Kindle Edition.

38
I recently read the wonderful book The Invention of Hugo Cabret with my son. The sto-
ry and beautiful illustrations conjure a surreal world in which a central character is a me-
chanical man. This automaton draws a wonderful picture that is central to the story.
This reminded me of the most famous automaton in history – The Mechanical Turk.
The Turk was touted as an early robot that could play chess at the highest level. Built in
Vienna in 1770 by the inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen, the machine consisted of a
large pedestal, housing intricate machinery on top of which stood a chessboard. To this
box was attached the upper half of a men dressed in oriental robes and a turban. After a
theatrical introduction, the automaton would face a challenger. The Turk would move its
pieces by itself, and would instantly recognize illegal moves.

The Turk first dazzled the court of the empress Maria Theresa in Vienna. It offered a sur-
prisingly good game, and soon became a sensation, touring Europe and later North The Mechanical Turk
America. The Turk was matched against some of the best chess players of the time,
loosing some games, but winning surprisingly many. It remained popular after its inven-
tor’s death, and it even played against Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. By Kresimir Josic

The secret of the Mechanical Turk was kept for over 50 years – the machine was an elab-
orate illusion. It contained an ingeniously hidden compartment that housed a human
operator. This hidden chess master could observe the position on the chessboard above,
and manipulate the Turk. The identity of the operator that made the Turk famous is still
unknown.
The original Turk was destroyed in a fire, but some of the original parts survived. It was
reconstructed in 1984 – however, at this time a hidden operator was no longer neces-
sary (a nice video of the reconstructed machine is here ). The present incarnation of
the Turk is truly autonomous, its moves guided by a chess-playing computer.
Today machines can play chess better than any human. However, there are plenty of
things that humans can still do better: accurately transcribing dictations, or predicting
which products other people will like.
Interestingly, Amazon has created an online service to easily harness a large human
workforce for such tasks. And they have named this service The Mechanical Turk,
HISTORY
after the 18th century automaton. Businesses can use this
slick computer interface behind which are hundreds of hu-
mans that actually perform the requested tasks.
The modern chess-playing Turk does not need a human
operator. And this brings us to the interesting question:
How long before we can replace the human operators be-
hind Amazon’s Mechanical Turk with machines? I would
like to believe that this will take a very long time. But given
the acceleration in innovation that we are experiencing, it
may take far less than 200 years.
Kresimir Josic is Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Houston
and contributer to the NPR program Engines of Our Ingenuity.

39
 THOUGHTS by Michael A. Arnzen
Here's a fun form of culture jamming -- a very soft and
cuddly act of public defacement not unlike smiley face
graffiti -- that's picking up attention online this month:
"Eyebombing."

"Eyebombing" is the art of sticking "googly eyes" (a.k.a.

"wiggly eyes" -- the glue-on sort of craft store kind) onto
an inanimate object in the public sphere in a way that

Eyebombing
cleverly lends the object the appearance of a living crea-
ture.

The purpose? According to the coordinating website,

eyebombing.com, it's "humanizing the world, one
googly eye at a time." A wee bit subversive in nature, like
drawing a mustache on a billboard celebrity. Take a snap-
shot of this public (de-?)facement, post it to eyebomb-
ing.com, link to it on a Facebook group or Flickr group or
some other social network, and you have a mounting
trend that -- while nothing new, really -- is emerging as a
cute internet meme. We could _possibly_ also call this
meme an instance of the popular uncanny. But maybe
not in the way you might, at first, suspect.

Sure, it's just anthropomorphizing. Such gestures -- which

give the attributes of life to an inorganic object -- often
are "uncanny" because they confuse the assumed bound-
ary between what makes something an object and what
makes something -- anything -- a subject, capable of

40
 "returning the gaze." We might feel an aura of weirdness for when we turn around, precisely like those eyes on the GEICO
just the first moment we look at the object and see that it is dollar bill stack from advertising ("I always feel like somebody's
"looking back" when it's not supposed to. This reaction harkens watching me.")
back to what Freud once termed the "surmounted" childhood
Of course, this is not really scaring anyone. Disturbing a few,
beliefs in an animistic world, in this case rendering everyday
momentarily, perhaps. But we remain "surmounted" because
urban life as fantastic as the trees that talk in fairy tales or the
we are not fooled by the eyes -- they are not realistic the way
Muppets of television childhood. Only now Oscar the Grouch
that, say, fantastically customized contact lenses or the eyeballs
doesn't live a trashcan -- he IS the trashcan. From guard rails to
from a "reborn doll" are. No -- these "craft" items are virtually
postal boxes, as the result of eyebombing, the objects of every-
two-dimensional in all their clitter-clatter spinning disc glory,
" yebombing
E day life become doll-like with those cheap stick-on "googly"
and are located more in the realm of concepts than animals.
eyes so familiar to us from craft stores.
is the act of Indeed, they seem to make a statement more than talk for

setting But googly eyes are plastic simulacra to begin with. They do themselves. The subversive act of rendering a public, hard ob-
not "move of their own accord" per se -- in fact, it would prob- ject as a personalized and personified object is still potent; it
googly eyes ably be far more uncanny and disturbing to see human beings can defamiliarize in a very palpable manner, like all good art --
on inanimate with plastic eyes like these on their faces instead. In other but it does so in a way that is not felt as threatening. Its unre-
things in the words, this is a representation of the gaze, a plastic staging of ality is domesticated -- which, while seemingly lacking in the
the uncanny, rather than a genuinely haunting act of defamil- haunting power of the uncanny is nonetheless a a defining ele-
public space. iarization. ment of many items of the _"popular"_ uncanny, which subli-
Ultimately mates but never entirely buries repressed desire in its attempt
Yet it is still -- at least at first glance -- a little uncanny. Indeed,
the goal is it is the eyes themselves, far more than the objects they trans-
to make the unfamiliar more familiar -- often by employing the

to humanize form, which I would say are the harbingers of the popular un-
tactics of childhood fantasy.

the streets, canny. Is it not the familiarity of the googly eyes -- not of the Eyebombing is the Fozzie-Bearification of the community prop-
defamiliarized postal box, but the plastic eyes themselves -- erty -- the Jim Hensoning of the public square. There is a re-
and bring
used in such a strange way, that makes them seem so odd, if turn of the repressed invoked here, but it very well may a re-
sunshine to not haunting? The googly eyes themselves are displaced from pressed belief in the power of folk art, which has been increas-
people passing the faces of dolls and other crafts and are now potentially ingly "surmounted" by technology -- or even just a psychologi-
by." looking at us from anywhere, especially places where we would cal reawakening of some relationship to a children's puppet
-- Eyebombing.com not expect to encounter them. The "bombed" site -- a guard from days gone by -- which here returns with a twinge of un-

B
rail, a trash can, a light switch -- is surprisingly looking at us canny recognition. Bombs away!

41
 HISTORY
Automaton
“acting of one’s own will”

1400
The advent www.lessing-photo.com

Edo period
8th Century BCE 2 nd
Century BCE of clock- 1495
Homer writes 1206 work and 1560 c. 1600 (1603–1867)
Hero of Alexandria Leonardo da Mechanician
the use of automata known
that Hephaes- designs many Al-Jazari describes Vinci sketches Juanelo Turriano Clockmakers in
automata builds a praying as karakuri ningyō
tus, blacksmith hydraulic, pneu- complex program- the design for Augsburg, Ger-
in public monk automa are popular in Japan.
to the Greek matic and me- mable humanoid a complex au- many create
clocks for Holy Roman Many of these are
gods, made 3- chanical autom- automata he de- tomated “marvelous silver
across Emperor Charles V designed and creat-
legged servants ata including signed and con- knight, now creatures, chari-
-- automata -- ed in China, then
singing birds, structed in the Book known as “da ots and mechani-
which moved exported as novelties
temple tableaux, of Knowledge of In- Vinci robot” cal tabletop gal-
under their own and moving stat- genious Mechanical leons.”
power and at ues, document- Devices including
ing them in one that could serve
Automata drinks.

42
1662
Rene Descartes
1769
envisions the
universe as a 1737
Wolfgang von
machine with
French engi- Kempelen
every living c.1780 c.1800 1850-1910
neerJacques de Vau- tours Europe
thing a complex The Jaquet French Golden Age ,
canson constructs with a chess- James Cox builds
machine com- Droz automata Paris makers sup-
the Digesting Duck, a playing ma- The Peacock Clock
posed of inter- begin touring plied the world
mechanical duck that chine --The
dependent
components
gave the illusion of Turk -- which to promote with musical au- 1969 - 1985
eating and defecating. is thought to watches tomata of artistry
that could be
Voltaire commented be a hoax and beauty. The Mechanical Dark Age
rationally un-
wryly " without the
derstood. Computers and the space race usurped all interest
shitting duck there in the potential of mechanism in popular culture.
would be nothing to
remind us of the glory
of France."

43
 VIDEO

Automatonophobia ''Our fascination with mechanical,

electrical devices to mimic human
is the fear of anything that
behavior just seems to be unbound-
falsely represents a sentient being.
ed. The products of the mechanician
are so incredible: That a machine
can do what a man can do!''
-- Charles F. Penniman Jr.
The Draughtsman-Writer was built in
the 18th century by Henri Maillardet

44
INTERVIEW The House of Automa
The House of Automata, a specialist automata company, is
located in Scotland and is run by Michael and Maria Smart.
They have expertise in most types of antique & modern au-
tomata, & their clients include collectors, auction houses,
media and museums.

PEA GREEN BOAT: In your experience, how do people respond to

automata?
House of Automa (Michael & Maria Start): People respond differ-
ently depending on the automaton. A child can be startled and
scared by the Leaping Tiger and then rapidly soothed by the Rabbit
in a Cabbage. A life-sized lady will awe some people as they register
the different movements, breathing, eyes, etc., but the singing bird
box always delights. People always give a moving automaton their
full attention until very familiar of the sequence of movements.

PGB: Where do automata reside in the ‘uncanny valley?’

HoA: They vary, the most disconcerting can hit the bottom like a
Zombie, some animal automata are as far away from the valley as a
kid’s teddy bear. Averaging them out would put them just into the
uncanny valley.

PGB: Do automata represent the technological innovations of their

day or simply a novelty?
HoA: Automata are more about power and influence then technolo-
gy. The power to entertain, for example Paris Musical automata, or
induce awe as in the case of Tipu's Tiger or The Jaquet Droz writer.
Technological innovation often deadens the lifelike quality with the

45
 use of modern pneumatics, electronic screens etc.

PGB: Are automata the fore-runners of modern ro-

bots? Do you feel there is any connection between
the two?
HoA: There is no connection between robots, ma-
chines that do a job of work, and automata, ma-
chines that replicate life.

PGB: Why did you set the automata Nancy up with

her own Facebook page? What sort of response has
she received? Have you found anyone who seems to
experience a blurring between Nancy being a au-
tomata and the possibility she might be a live per-
son?
HoA: Nancy has attracted a variety of friends in-
cluding a few (modern) robot-like automata, alt-
hough she relates better to her human friends as she
is more stylish than useful. Nancy recently reverted
to her maiden name of Nancy Animata to distinguish
her from the many Nancy Turners on Facebook. With
Facebook Nancy has the ability to develop an inde-
pendent personality and become more autonomous
particularly as a Woman. Her history is that of a ma-
chine possessed by Men. Facebook allows the fe-
male sex to claim her, interact with and develop her
personality. More than one person is permitted to
respond for her and each of Nancy’s authors genu-
inely tries to respond as she would like. Her re-
spondents seem eager and happy to acknowledge
her as an independent being.
R
46
46 46
 QUOTE

Every religious sect and group has its amazing stories.

Apparent miracles or successes might make a teaching
sound more plausible, but don’t make it true. Proper
interpretation of Scripture determines truth.

Take for example Gothard’s “Cabbage Patch” flap. In

1986, he taught that the highly popular Cabbage
Patch Dolls were causing strange and destructive be-
havior in children that could only be alleviated when
the dolls were removed or destroyed.

In a letter from his organization, his followers were

told by representative Ginger Jones that to enter into
a written agreement to love a doll was a violation of
the First Commandment. The threat as seen by Go-
thard was that by adopting a doll, children might not
want to raise up their own godly children. Children
may “love” dolls as they do other toys, but this does
not mean they worship them.

Testimonials were included with the above letter

about the awful effects of the dolls with no allowance
made for other environmental and social factors in the
homes. The Cabbage Patch doll became a scapegoat.
The Dangerous Leanings of Bill Gothard’s Teachings
by G. Richard Fisher
A STUDY IN EVOLVING FADISM

Photograph by Theresa Thanh Vu 47

 People magazine called it “dog-eat-dog anarchy.” The Wall Street Journal said it was “mass
hysteria” Dr. Ralph Wittenberg chairman of the Psychiatric Society during the early 80s voiced
concern his about a phenomena where a person comes to believe “there is something very
precious and special about something or someone. You somehow submerge your independent
observations and judgment to some more authoritive person or more powerful event.”

http://www.weddingbee.com/2011/01/26/childhood-photos-at-wedding/
HISTORY

48 48
 1976 with independently owned small complains “ Cabbage Patch Kids

Xavier Roberts designs a soft bod- businesses, mainly gift shops, degrade the concept of adoption.”

ied doll with a needle-molded face. which take CPKs all over the na-
Joking with friends, he says he tion.
A Georgia housewife advertises
“found them in the cabbage 1978
babysitting for CPK at $10 a week.
patch.” Later, Robert creates a dis-
Roberts purchases a turn of the Local press state her nursery aver-
play of his soft-sculpture “Little
century medical facility in Cleve-

People” at the gift shop where he

works. When asked much they
cost, Roberts quips, “Well, they’re
not for sale, but you can adopt
them for $30.” The novelty of the
arrangement and the uniqueness
of the doll design help launch what Popular national television show
will eventually become known as
Cabbage Patch Kids (CPK).
1977
Based on his own birth certificate,
Roberts designs and orders 1000
faux birth certificates to be distrib-
uted with each hand-made doll. He The Chicago Tribune calls it the
begins marketing his “Little Peo- “polyester baby boom.”
ple” at flea markets and craft fairs.
This leads to distribution deals
land, Georgia and renovates it into
a manufacturing and distribution
center he dubs Baby Land General.
1979
“Real People” host Skip Stephen-
son visits Baby Land General, stat-
ing “Crazy, even for our show.”
When the CPK “Bronze Edition” is
released, 15,000 dolls sell at $100
each. 90% of all sales are to adults. “unreserved endorsement.”
1981
Roberts takes Cabbage Patch Kids
international. 500,000 dolls are
sold in Japan.
1982
Coleco purchases the rights to
manufacture and distribute CPK.
1983
Dr. Joyce Brother gives CPK her
Concerned United Birthparents, a
national support group for families ey.”
who give up children for adoption
ags nearly a dozen boarders on
any given day. “In the adoption
papers it says you agree not to
leave the babies alone,” she ex-
plained.
By May, Coleco has sold $596.5
million dollars in CPK merchandise
In June, Coleco begins a heavy tel-
evision advertising campaign. Due
to enormous positive response,
they discontinue TV ads stating,
“We don’t need to spend the mon-
49 49

In October, A riot over CPK dolls
breaks out in Philadelphia, Pennsyl- Consumers mob stores in Florida,
vania.
In Dallas, Texas an group of en-
raged consumers threatened a
store manager, demanding he un-
load a crate of just delivered dolls
and sell them immediately
Thanksgiving Weekend, 1983
In Des Moines, Iowa a woman ask
her grandson, a college football
player, to utilize his skills to obtain
a doll. With two friends running
interference as the doors opened,
he was able to beat the mob and
obtain a doll, which he threw in a
“picture-perfect spiral” to a waiting
friend, who then threw it over the
50
heads of the crowd to a third per-
son waiting at the cash register.
including West Palm Beach, North
Miami Beach, Kendall, Boca Raton,
and Lauderdale Lakes. The Miami
Herald reported that when the
doors of Jefferson Ward opened
there was a “stampede” in which
store employees were “trampled.”
In two minutes of hysteria, people
grabbing for CPK dolls overturned
shelves, knocked a 75-year old man
to the floor, and came to blows
over dolls. One employee stated,
“Some people were crying because causalities, one a broken leg.
they didn’t get one. Some wanted
to sue because we had run out.”
One Florida store manager, fearing
the angry crowd, decided to hand
out tickets and allow people into
“I started handing out tickets,
and there were people all over
me. They were grabbing at me,
trying to trip the tickets from
my hands. They were screaming
and tearing at each other. They
were going to kill one another
just for a doll. I got back inside
and called the police.”
his store a few at a time.: Malcolm Watson releases a paper
stating the doll’s features
When Sheriff’s deputies arrived the
“releasing mechanism” that trig-
frenzied group stomped on their
gers and instinct for nurturing in
feet and kicked them.
both adults and children.
In Pennsylvania, a department
“They knocked over tables Unconfirmed rumors state: “a sig-
fighting with each other –
nificant number of hospitals” have
there were people in mid-air.
issued real blank birth certificates
It got ugly.”
to child wanting to adopt non-CPK
dolls.
store manager faced with 1,000
people, many who had been wait-
Summit County Indiana residents
ing 8 hours, armed himself with a
ask to officially register CPKs adop-
baseball bat. The result was five
tions.
In Charleston, West Virginia, 5,000
shoppers stormed Hill’s Depart-
ment Store for 120 CPK. The man-
ager later told a journalist:
In December, ALTERNATIVES, a
Georgia based non-profit said the
dolls clearly “brought out the worst
in consumers,” who “trampled one
another in a frenzy of Christmas
spirit to purchase the dolls.”
In Yonkers, New York a local paper
reports the popularity of Cabbage-
Brandeis University psychologist tizing – baptism of a CPK. Church

authorities deny these have taken “kidnapping” and reported the
place.
In Palm Harbor, Florida a CPK
named Effie May is elected hon-
orary mayor on the platform of
“sunshine, lollipops, and rain-
bows.”
In Dallas, Texas a journalist re-
ports seeing a wealthy older
woman grocery shopping with a
CPK “propped up in a shopping
cart,” arguing out loud, then de-
ferring to the doll for a decision.
Omni magazine reports several
owner, was possessed by a Davenport, Iowa. Doll owner
“demon.” Victims claim the dolls Norm Grimstead stated: “They’ve
order them to injure themselves been living together for several
or others. In one case an exorcist months. We thought it was about
is bought in to deal with the time.” Disc jockey Dave Schrop-
problem. shire quips, “This may be the first
Cabbage Patch wedding. I hope it
In Virginia Beach, Virginia a CPK doesn’t lead to the first doll di-
was stolen from the Thomas vorce.”
House Adoption Center, but local
papers referred to the incident as March 6, 1984 A CPK funeral
takes place in Corpus Christi, Tex-
culprits were quickly arrested and as in a “tiny black pine casket”
plead guilty. Helen Williams organized the
event as a protest against CPK no
Nation magazine reports: The
longer being exclusively distribut-
Reverend Jerry Falwell said that
ed through small businesses, with
the dolls were “blasphemous cari-
50 supporting small business
catures”…when he first heard of
owners and 30 CPK mourners
the Cabbage Patch Kids, he ap-
wearing black armbands
proved of them because ‘they
Photograph by Theresa Thanh Vu
taught little girls to think about
adoption rather than abortion.” Rumors begins to circulate about
Now, however, he believes they the origins of CPK dolls, including
are ‘the spawn of Satan.’” conspiracy theories involving
the government and Satanist.
Secret History
On February 29, 1984 a CPK Another rumor is damaged dolls
“couple” named Gerard and Jodie returned for repair are returned in
of the Cabbage

Patch Kids
incidents in which a CPK doll, be- Nelly are married in a service a coffin or the owner billed for a

R
ing treated as a living child by the broadcast live by KSTT-AM in funeral.

Information from Fantasy: The Incredible Cabbage Patch Phenomenon by William Hoffman (1984) 51
Robert FOLK LORE
the
Doll
Robert Eugene Otto (1900-1974) was born to a The fact that Robert Otto was an
reasonably wealthy Key West, Florida family. In only child is reason enough for him
1906, a family servant made Robert a doll de- to become attached to Robert the
signed to look just like him. Local folklore con- Doll, but he never seemed to out-
tends the servant practiced voodoo and used the grow his obsession with it. As an
doll to curse the family. adult, he kept the doll in his bed-
room and took it with him every-
Robert Otto and Robert the Doll were often seen where -- even after he married.
together, wearing matching outfits. The doll went This quirk was seen as harmless by
everywhere with him, sat with the family during friends and neighbors. According to locals, Robert Robert the Doll’s WEBSITE
meals, and slept in the same bed. Eugene's parents the Doll was often seen sitting in an upstairs win-
said they often heard him talking to the doll and dow and some how this made people uncomforta- Robert the Doll’s BLOG
that the doll appeared to be talking back. Alt- ble. Some people swore they had seen the expres-
Robert the Doll’s TWEETS
hough at first they assumed their imaginative son sion on the doll’s face twist into a frown or threat-
was simply answering himself in a changed voice; ening sneer. When Robert Otto died in 1974, Rob- Robert the Doll’s WIKIPEDIA ENTRY
but according to local gossips, they later believed ert the Doll was placed in the attic.
that the doll was actually speaking. After a being After Robert Otto’s death, his widow rented out Robert the Doll on TRAVEL CHANNEL
woken in the night by Robert Otto’s screams, his the house with strict instructions that Robert the
Robert the Doll on YOUTUBE
parents became more seriously worried. Anything Doll was to remain in the attic and not be taken
that happened around the house, Robert Otto out for any reason. Her wishes were followed until Robert the Doll’s SINGLE
pointed to the doll and said, “Robert did it!” after her death and Robert the Doll found it’s way
Robert the Doll GIFT SHOP
R
into the collection of the Fort East Martello Museum.

52

“My Name is Talky
Tina and I am going
to kill you.”
In the Twilight Zone’s Living Doll
episode, a little girl receives a Talky
Tina doll ( modeled on Chatty Cathy),
but her stepfather, Erich, angry over
the cost, throws the doll across the
room. When he picks it up, it says “I
don’t like you.” Disturbed by the doll,
Erich tries to get rid of it by throwing
in the trash, burning it, and cutting it
with a saw. but Talky Tina gains the
upper hand and causes his death.
When the mother picks the doll up, it
delivers it’s famous line: My name is
Talky Tina...and you better be nice to
me!
Isla de
Las Munecas
In the Mexican boroughs of Xochimilco, a man named
Julián Santana Barrera raised few eyebrows when he began
collecting the broken bodies of dolls. He claimed the dolls
kept away evil spirits. When asked, he said he believed the
dolls were somehow alive, but in limbo after having been
“forgotten” by their owners. Barrera lived in isolation on a
man-made island used for farming, called a chinampa, in a Pediophobia
hut with no utilities. He kept to himself, turning away visitors is a fear of dolls,
and seeing only family members. He decorated the trees on
manikins, or
his chinampa with the dolls and doll parts he found in near-
by canals and trash heaps. According to local folklore he was children.
concerned with appeasing the spirit of a dead girl who had
drowned in the canal. The identity of the girl is unknown, as
are the details of her death, but some claim that Barrera
found the dead girl himself. Locals said Barrera divided his
free time between searching for additional dolls and rear-
ranging those he put on display. In the 1990s, the display of
doll parts attracted the attention of the press and Barrera
found himself the center of unwanted attention. He died of
old age in 2001, leaving the chinampa to his brother. It is
now a popular paranormal tourist destination known as Mex-
ico’s Island of the Dolls.
53
 T
o this day, I have no idea how my mother obtained our Cabbage Patch Kids
in the midst of that psychotic media blizzard. There were no toy stores in
Yuma, and my parents were not the type of people who just up and flew to

All Dolls Chicago or New York City on a whim. This was before the Internet turned
holiday shopping into a national bidding war between desperate soccer moms and
entrepreneurial computer nerds. All my mother had was an outdated JC Penney
catalogue and an overwhelming desire to please her children. It was a Christmas

Go To Heaven
miracle. Of course, they saved the good stuff for last, making us wade through a se-
ries of colorfully-wrapped tube socks and notebooks before we finally got to the
cool presents. I was so excited when I finally tore open the last package.

It was a boy! But he didn’t look much like me. He had black hair made out of yarn,
and his eyes were large, blue, and incredibly creepy. The expression on his fat face
closely resembled Renaissance paintings of the baby Jesus, which seemed appropri-
OPINION ate considering the circumstances. He wore a flannel shirt underneath a pair of den-
im overalls. On his feet were plastic tennis shoes tied with real string. It wasn’t an
outfit I would have picked for myself, but then again, as my father’s deflated expres-
sion indicated, parents couldn’t dictate their children’s desires. If my son wanted to
dress like a Depression-Era redneck, I wasn’t going to stand in his way. I named him
Jericho. Jerry for short.

I had a rather large collection of stuffed animals that were arranged in my room just
so. The dogs were on the dresser, the cats were posed above the headboard of the
bed, the exotic animals (lions, tigers, monkeys, etc.) were lurking on the bookcase,
and the aquatic animals swam around underneath the bed. I rotated the stuffed an-
imals that slept in bed with me in order to prevent jealousy and political infighting
amongst the groups.

Jerry immediately became prince of my little animal kingdom and took his place be-
side me in bed. After I explained the situation to the other stuffed animals and posi-
tioned Jerry in a comfortable spot on my right, my parents came to tuck me in. They
always tried to get through the process without answering a million questions, but I
By Dale Bridges rarely allowed that to happen.

54 Photograph by Theresa Thanh Vu

“Will Jerry go to heaven?” I asked.
“No,” my father said immediately.
“Absolutely not. That thing is a toy, and
there are no toys in heaven.”
“His name is Jerry,” I said.
“What?”
“He prefers to be called Jerry and not that
thing.”
My father made a familiar, strangling
noise, which was something that often
happened when he was talking to me. I
continued. “Because I’m worried about
Jerry going to hell. He has a plastic face,
and I’m afraid the fire would melt it off.”
“That thing is not going to hell either,”
said my father. His neck was starting to
get red the way it sometimes did when
the Nebraska Cornhuskers were losing at
football. “It’s a toy filled with stuffing. It’s
not alive. In the Bible it says…”
“But what about the Scarecrow?” I said.
“The what?”
“The Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz was
filled with stuffing, and he was alive.” I
paused to consider this. “But he didn’t
have a brain. Maybe that’s the problem.
Can Jerry go to heaven if he doesn’t have
a brain?”
“The Scarecrow is not alive either.”
“Yes-huh. If he wasn’t alive, how would
he be able to help Dorothy find the Emer-
ald City?”
“That was a movie.”
“Lots of movies are about real stuff.”
“But this one isn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
“But how do you know?”
My father raised his hands in the air like a
criminal surrendering to a SWAT team.
“That’s it!” he said. “I’ve had enough. I’m
going to bed.” He turned to my mother
on his way out. “You bought him that…
doll, so you deal with this.”
We watched him leave, and then my
mother said, “Roll over on your stomach
so I can rub your back.” She sat on the
edge of my bed. I rolled over, and my
mother ran her fingers over my back,
which was relaxing and made me sleepy.
“Is Dad mad at me?” I asked.
“He’s just grumpy,” she said. “Don’t pay
any attention to him.”
“I’m still worried about Jerry. Do you
think he’ll go to heaven?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But heaven is a
paradise, right?”
“Right.”
“And what is a paradise?”
“A paradise is a perfect place.”
“That’s right. And, would heaven be a
perfect place if Jerry wasn’t there?”
“No.”
“Then there’s your answer,” she said.
“Now roll back over and accept your pun-
ishment.”
I rolled over, and she kissed me on the
nose.
“Jerry, too,” I said.
She kissed Jerry on the nose, as well, and
then left the room.
I was thankful for my mother’s reassur-
ances, but I was still worried. There was a
hole in her logic. In order for people to
go to heaven, they had to be baptized.
My father had delivered numerous ser-
mons on the subject, and he was ada-
mant about it. It didn’t matter what you
believed, if you died without being bap-
tized, you were going to H-E-double
hockey sticks. It’s possible that Jerry’s
former owner had given him proper theo-
55
logical instruction, but I couldn’t take that
chance. I would have to solve this bap-
tism problem, and fast.
My parents both worked full time, which
left a two-hour window after school dur-
ing which my siblings and I were left un-
supervised. It’s surprising how much
mayhem you can cause and then cover
up in one hundred and twenty minutes.
We once turned our entire basement into
a medieval castle, stormed it, broke two
lamps and a hair dryer, and still managed
to have everything back in order before
our parents walked through the door. It
was like a scene from Mary Poppins, ex-
cept there was no duet between an up-
tight British nanny and Dick Van Dyke.
Two hours was more than enough time
for me to baptize Jerry before my father
came home. I filled the bathtub with cold
water and lit several candles. I don’t re-
member what the candles were for now,
but they seemed appropriate at the time.
I instructed my siblings to change into
their Sunday clothes, and after I put on
the finest clip-on tie in my collection, I
brought Jerry to the bathroom.
It was a simple ceremony. I asked Jerry if
he believed that Jesus was the son of
56
God. He said that he did. I pushed him “It was a simple
under water for a few minutes, and that
was that.
ceremony. I asked
Jerry if he believed
At least that would have been that if I
hadn’t remembered the mob of unre- that Jesus was the
pentant stuffed animals living in my bed-
room. There was Curious George and
son of God. He said
Scooby Doo and Harry Dog and Theodo- that he did. I pushed
ra Bear. They were all heathens. How
could I have been so foolish? I ran to my him under water for
room and started hauling armloads of
stuffed animals to the bathroom. It was
a few minutes, and
quite a collection of furry anthropomor- that was that.”
phized sinners. I rolled up my sleeves
and got to work. I was cleansing the have a big mess to clean up, young man.”
Cookie Monster’s soul when my mother
came home. I finished baptizing Cookie Monster and
Big Bird, and then I joined my mother
“I see we’ve been busy,” she said as she downstairs, where the dryer was making a
stood in the bathroom doorway. She heavy plunk-plunk-plunk sound as it ro-
looked at the pile of soggy animals in the tated.
hamper. “Swimming lessons?”
“Baptism,” I said. “Are they okay in there?” I asked.
“I see. Are you done?”
My mother nodded. “They’ll be fine. You
“Two more.” get some towels and clean up the bath-
room. I’ll keep an eye out on your disci-
She thought about this for a few seconds, ples.”
and then she took off her jacket and
picked up the hamper. “Finish up and “Good thinking,” I said. I ran upstairs to
bring them downstairs,” she said. “You get rid of the evidence."
R
 Baby Yes, Cabbage
Patch Kids
Land Are Still
Creepy
General by Ramona Creel
When I was a smallish-sized person, Cabbage Patch Kids were all

DESTINATION the rage, but I was pretty sure they wouldn't last. In a world where
toy fads come and go, I'm amazed to see that something so weird
and creepy has stood the test of time. But I'm here to report that
CLICK HERE
to ENTER they're still going strong -- and you can even visit the hospital

the UNCANNY VALLEY where all dolls are born, out in the middle of nowhere in rural
Georgia!

An Entrepreneur's Dream
In 1978, a young fabric artist started a hobby that created a cultural
phenomenon, grew into a multi-million dollar business, and put
Cleveland, GA on the map. Xavier Roberts (you just have to love
anyone outside of a Hollywood film named Xavier!) had become
interested in "needle molding," a German fabric sculpture tech-
nique from the early 1800s. He starts making strange little faces
that looked a bit like potatoes with big nostrils, and eventually ex-
panded into one-of-a-kind adoptable dolls -- complete with their
own unique birth certificates. In 1978, he won first place at the Os-
ceola Art Show with one of his early dolls named "Dexter" (not a

Baby Land General images courtesy Theresa Thanh 57

serial killer.) Flush with success, Xavier hit the craft show circuit $150. These days, they create dolls from teeny newborn "is-it-a-
and began selling his handmade "Little People" for an adoption boy-or-a-girl" babies, all the way up to what look like thuggish
fee of $40 per doll. At the same time, he got some friends to help and sullen adolescents. You can get kids of every nationality
renovate a turn-of-the-century medical clinic in the North Georgia (although they all have the same goofy-looking face, just different
Mountains into a museum and store for his creations -- called Ba- skin color -- kind of like the legions of multi-cultural “It's A Small
by Land General Hospital. World" children!) Whatever your taste, you can find it here --
blondes, brunettes, redheads, and baldies, kids with 'fros, kids with
In the early 80's, Xavier signed a licensing agreement with Coleco
stylable hair, and even kids that look like they are meant to have
to create more durable, non-original, less-expensive versions of
these dolls under the name "Cabbage Patch Kids" for national dis- dreadlocks. Buy a doll to match your child (or to take the place of
the child you never had) -- it's all good at Baby Land!
tribution. These are the dolls most folks remember and still buy
today (with vinyl heads that smell disturbingly like baby powder.) It's Even Weirder In Person
Millions were sold in the first year, but that didn't even come close
If you thought that walking through the Cabbage Patch section at
to meeting demand -- and during the holiday shopping season,
your local toy store was disconcerting, try a miniature theme park
all you had to do was turn on the nightly news for shots of ugly
filled with creepy little kids! The speakers play cheesy hip-hop ver-
mall-mob scenes with grown women fighting over who was going
sions of nursery rhymes (yo yo black sheep, gots you any wool?) --
to get the last doll in stock. The marketing of Cabbage Patch Kids
and you are greeted by a terminally cheerful older lady in a
is both a sad reminder of our lack of consumer perspective and
nurse's outfit, crooked lipstick, and too much pancake makeup.
the most successful introduction of a new doll line in the history of
She's clutching a doll to her ample bosom, talking in baby-speak,
the toy industry -- and the whole thing started in backwoods
and inadvertently frightening small children with her enthusiasm. I
Georgia (go figure!)
couldn't help picturing her as one of those deranged women who
Fast-forward 35 years from the beginning, and Baby Land General
finds out she's infertile, kidnaps other people's newborns, and
has outgrown its original location -- the company recently built a
passes them off as her own -- she's clearly been let out of prison
huge 70,000 square foot building on 96 acres facility that looks
on work release and placed in what should be a "safe" environ-
more like an antebellum home than a toy store. This is where you
ment for her
have to go for the seriously collectible original kids. Early "Little
The front room is filled with cases of early collectible kids, each
People" can be valued at as much as $20,000 (insane, if you ask
with a price tag of $5,000-$15,000 (more expensive than adopting
me), and you can still adopt a hand-stitched cloth baby for around
a puppy, but less than the cost for a live child!) And new babies

58
are "birthed" every hour at the Magic Crystal Tree in the hospital has moved toward a less regulated
the back room -- a mother cabbage goes into la- procedure for those without insurance -- all around
bor, animatronic bunnybees pollinate the dolls with the room, you can pluck your own baby from the
crystals (a very gender stereotypical blue for boys "garden" without professional assistance (which I
and pink for girls), and a "LPN" (Licensed Patch imagine will be the downfall of the CP health sys-
Nurse) runs over to assist with the delivery. She (no tem in coming years.) You can even bring your
male nurses at Baby Land) comments on how much original cloth dolls in to the "bathing camp" for
the tree is dilated (I'm sorry, but that's just wrong) clean-up and refurbishing, but I didn't get a good
and injects the cabbage with "imagicillin" answer about what they do with discarded kids

(presumably to protect its offspring from being dull whose owners have grown up and forgotten about
them. There's no "re-adoption" center for older
and boring -- would that we had such a shot for
Cabbage Patch Kids (the ones with serious aban-
real people!) The youngest human in the room is
donment issues), and I didn't see a landfill or incin-
allowed to choose the first and middle names --
these are recorded on the birth certificate, the baby erator in the back -- so maybe they turn them into
nutrition for the newly growing buds ("soylent
is placed in one of the cribs scattered about the
green is cabbage!")
hospital, and that kid is officially put out for adop-
tion. It's free, it's weird, it's nostalgic, and it's the only
thing to do in Cleveland, Georgia -- so I say Bab
Occasionally a c-section (cabbage, not cesarean)
Land General is worth a stop. But remember, this
may be required (shoulder dystocia? placental ab-
ruption?) Since not every birth goes the way nature place is really nothing more than a gigantic toy
store, filled with every bit of Cabbage Patch para-
intended, the hospital Intensive Care Unit (seems
phernalia you could possibly imagine. If you're
like it should be "Intensive Cabbage Unit," in keep-
bringing a child with you, don't expect to escape
ing with the theme) is lined with incubators full of
without dropping at least $50 in the process!
teeny unformed preemies -- just a decapitated
R
head sticking out of a cabbage leaf (tell me tod-
dlers aren't going to have nightmares about that!) I
don't know what the cabbage mortality rate is, but Copyright Ramona Creel, all rights reserved.
Baby Land photographs courtesy Theresa Thanh Vu

59
60 Temple of Technology by James Rugg
ESSAY

Because the Western media often cites Shinto as the

reason for the Japanese affinity for robots, I ask what
else has shaped Japan’s harmonious feelings for intelli-
gent machines. Why is Japan eager to develop robots,
& and particularly humanoid ones? I also aim to discover if
religion plays a role in shaping AI scientists’ research
styles and perspectives. In addition, I ask how Western
and Japanese scientists envision robots/AI playing a role
in our lives. Finally, I enquire how the issues of ro-
boethics and rights for robots are perceived in Japan
and the West.

The fields of robotic technology and AI are closely relat-

ed and often overlap. Robotics falls under the umbrella
of artificial intelligence research. Both The New Oxford
Dictionary of English and Japan’s authoritative Kojien
dictionary define artificial intelligence as the perfor-
mance by computer systems of tasks normally requiring
human intelligence. Meanwhile, The New Oxford Dic-
tionary of English describes a robot as “a machine
(sometimes resembling a human being) that is capable
By Mary King of carrying out a complex series of actions automatical-
ly, especially one programmable by a computer.” The
Kojien dictionary says a robot is a “complicated man-
made automaton, an artificial person or cyborg, a ma-
chine for work or a machine that is controlled to per-
form automatically.”

61
Since 1993 Robo-Priest has been on call 24-hours a day at Yoko-
hama Central Cemetery. The bearded robot is programmed to
perform funerary rites for several Buddhist sects, as well as for
Protestants and Catholics. Meanwhile, Robo-Monk chants sutras,
beats a religious drum and welcomes the faithful to Hotoku-ji, a
Buddhist temple in Kakogawa city, Hyogo Prefecture. In 2005, a
robot named Kiyomori, dressed in full samurai armor received
blessings, at a Shinto shrine on the Japanese island of Kyushu.
Named after a famous 12th-century military general, Kiyomori
prayed for the souls of all robots in the world before walking qui-
etly out of Munakata Shrine. Geminoid Hl-1 and Hiroshi Ishiguro

In Japan robots not only take an ac-

swer various questions. Saya has a range of expressions, and re-
tive part in religious life, but can reg-
sponds politely in Japanese if you flatter her but takes offense at
ularly be seen fulfilling other roles
insults. Her creator, robot engineer Hiroshi Kobayashi, continues
too. Humanoid robots such as
to work on improving Saya’s appearance and motion, although
Mitsubishi’s Wakamaru are designed
he has no plans for her to walk. Kobayashi does not consider
to become part of the family, to en-
Saya to be intelligent. He also doubts that robot engineers will
tertain both young and old, as well as provide information and
succeed in developing a robot with the mental, physical and
security. Last year Ryota Hiura, a roboticist at Mitsubishi, told a
emotional capacity of a child, let alone of an adult. (Note: This
Chicago Tribune journalist about an elderly woman dying of
has changed, see video “Robot learns like Toddler” left)
heart disease who had asked for her Wakamaru to attend her fu-
neral. Hiura explained that the old woman’s dying wish had been
“The idea of a robot with the intelligence of an adult or even that
respected.
of a five-year-old child is impossible. Such ideas are still in the
realm of sci-fi,” said Kobayashi during a face-to-face interview.
Visitors to Tokyo University of Science are often surprised by the
presence of Saya, an android that has worked on the university’s
Meanwhile, Hiroshi Ishiguro, who is Director of Osaka University’s
reception desk for the past four years. Saya is human-like in ap-
Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, has attracted attention by mod-
pearance. She wears a lemon-colored uniform and is able to an-
eling androids on real-life people, among them his daughter and

62
 becoming slaves of machines. The play, however, created a vastly
different impression after it opened in Tokyo in 1924. The Japa-
nese found the idea of artificially created humans to be more intri-
guing than threatening. But RUR lost its intended meaning in Ja-
pan, because both the title of the play and the word “robot” were
translated as “jinzo ningen,” meaning artificial-human, which gave
the Japanese a warm feeling. Afterwards, Japanese writers and sci-
entists were inspired to explore the possibility of creating artificial
humans, and eventually the word jinzo ningen was replaced by the
catchierkatakana word “robotto.”

Robotto made it into a Japanese dictionary in 1928, the same year

that Hirohito became emperor. To mark the coronation of the new
A scene from the play R.U.R by the Czech Playwrite Karel Čapek
emperor, Japanese biologist Makoto Nishimura, designed a 2.33-
metre-high, gold-colored humanoid that could open and close its
eyes, smile and write Chinese char-
acters.
Both the East and the West have an ancient history of mechanical
“machines,” toys and dolls that can be considered to be the fore- Gakutensoku went on show that
runners of the robot. However, Leonardo da Vinci’s 1495 drawing same year in Kyoto and many Japa-
of a mechanical knight is reputed to be the first actual plan for a
nese offered prayers to the golden
humanoid robot. Stories of golem and of Frankenstein have also mechanical giant. Undoubtedly,
held sway over Western imaginings of artificial man-made beings. Gakutensoku reminded people of
The word “robot,” with its connotations of beings that replace hu-the Buddha statues that adorn tem-
mans, derives from the Czech noun robota, meaning forced labor. ples throughout the country. Gakutensoku
Czech playwright Karel Capek made the word famous Gakutensoku was impressive even
in Rossum’s Universal Robots (RUR), his play about mass- though it was basically little more than a huge relation of a kara-
produced robots that were actually made of flesh and blood. kuri ningyo, the 18th-century mechanized dolls that charmed Jap-
anese by serving tea, writing auspicious Chinese characters or
First staged in 1921, many people interpreted RUR as an attack on shooting arrows at targets.
technology, but Capek aimed only to question the idea of humans

63
 NHK TV news presenter Ayako Fujii. His most
recent android is Geminoid Hl-1, a clone image
of himself. According to NHK TV news reports,
Ishiguro hopes to accomplish more during his
day by allocating some of his meetings and du-
ties to Geminoid Hl-1 and then teleconferenc-
ing through the android. Ishiguro’s android
twin has already started teaching some of the scientist’s classes.
On his web site, Ishiguro says he creates robots that act 90 per
cent human, that can understand jokes and resolve problems. The
professor also jokes that his wife nearly slept with his robot. Ap-
parently, Mrs. Ishiguro once got into bed with Geminoid, and
when his robot exclaimed that it was late, she apologized and
hugged the robot without realizing it wasn’t her husband.
needs. Consequently, remote presence is an option also being
considered. This way a human would be able to watch and control
the robots, but the human would not necessarily have to be based
in Japan.
Shinya Ono, a scientist and a politician with Japan’s leading Liberal
Democratic Party, states that within 10 years every Japanese per-
son will have a robot in their home. In his 2005 book Robotto
Hassou Omocha Bako (Robot Idea of Toy Box), Ono says one ro-
bot costs the manufacturer 5 million yen to produce, but that with

Japan is world leader in the development of humanoid robots. It is

particularly eager to develop humanoid robots because the coun-
try is facing a demographic time bomb. With one fifth of its popu-
lation over the age of 65, Japan already has the largest percentage
of elderly in the world. According to the International Monetary
Fund, by 2025 Japan will have only two people of working age for
every retirement-age person (those 65 or older). Western coun-
tries are likely to resolve their demographic problems by import-
ing cheap foreign labor and encouraging immigration but Japan
takes a xenophobic stance on the idea of large-scale immigration.
Therefore, the Japanese expect robots to fill the gap in the future
labor market.
was a humanoid robot built by Westinghouse
Electric Corporation as a promotional tool.
Humanoid robots are particularly popular because studies show Elektro stood 7’ tall, weighing 265 lbs. It could move its head and
that people enjoy interacting and bonding with them, so human- arms, walk when commanded, speak 700 words, and smoke ciga-
oid robots are considered ideal for roles that entail caring for rettes. His photoelectric eyes could distinguish red and green light.
Japan’s sick, elderly and children. But there are concerns that ro- He was on exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
bots won’t be sophisticated enough in time to meet Japan’s

64
insurance a robot could be rented to each household for 10,000 have expressed frustration at Japan for not providing “profound
yen per month. feedback” on roboethics and the issues of applying robots to soci-
ety.
Ono, who launched the Robolympics campaign, also aims to see
Japan host the world’s first Olympics for robots. Meanwhile, Shu This European stance reflects a lack of understanding of Japan’s
Ishiguro, head of Robot Laboratory in Osaka, is con- religion, history, culture and society. It is probably
fident that by 2050 Japanese robots will beat the impossible to transpose the Japanese experience
human winners of World Cup Soccer. with robots onto the West due to these differ-
ences. To begin with the Japanese recognize kami
Apart from having robots contribute to society, an- The observation made in (gods) in both animate and inanimate objects, a
other major incentive for robot development in Ja- 1965 by Gordon Moore, co- concept difficult for monotheistic Westerners to
pan is undoubtedly financial. The Japan Robot As- founder of Intel, that the fully appreciate. For various cultural reasons the
sociation has estimated that the market for person- number of transistors per Japanese will not problematize the issue of robots
al robots could be worth as much as $50 billion by square inch on integrated in society in the same way as Westerners.
2025.
circuits had doubled every
Naho Kitano, a roboticist at Tokyo’s Waseda Uni-
year since the integrated
Due to its achievements in robotics Japan is often versity, defended Japan’s stance at the 2006 con-
circuit was invented. Moore
referred to as “Robot Kingdom,” but some U.S. and ference of the European Robotics Research Net-
European AI scientists are not impressed by Japan’s predicted that this trend work (EURON). In her paper titled Roboethics: A
progress in the field. During the 2005 International would continue for the fore- Comparative Analysis of Social Acceptance of Ro-
Robotics Exhibition held in Tokyo, Joseph Engel- seeable future.. bots Between the West and Japan, Kitano explains
berger, considered by many to be the “father of in- that in Japanese history Western technology was
dustrial robotics,” accused the Japanese robotics industry of wast- never perceived as an “enemy to humans like the Luddites in Eng-
ing time and money on “producing toys.” Engelberger berated Ja- land.” The Japanese eagerly embraced technology in the mid-19th
pan for focusing on developing humanlike robots instead of pro- century after the U.S. forced Japan out of more than two centuries
ducing robots with a specific function. He emphasized that robots of self-imposed isolation. After the fall of the Tokugawa feudal
do not have to look human to be useful to humans. system, Japan forged ahead under the political banners of bun-
meikaika (modern culture and enlightenment) and fukokukyohei
However, Japan has also worked hard to develop non-humanoid (rich nation, strong military). The Japanese equated civilization
robots. Among them are walking robot chairs that can carry the with technology and Westernization.
elderly or disabled, the HAL exoskeleton “bionic” suit that doubles
the strength of its wearer, as well as snake robots that can be used Capek’s RUR and Asimov’s robot stories are prime examples of
for earthquake rescue services. European roboticists, meanwhile, Western literature that present the robot as a threat, whereas in

65
 Japan robots have long been viewed as
loveable characters. The most famous
robot in Japan is Tetsuwan Atom
(Mighty Atom/Astro Boy), a robot boy
with a human soul who serves as an
ambassador for peace. Most Japanese
roboticists say Tetsuwan Atom inspired
them as children to pursue a career in
robotics. The 1960s cartoon still holds a
special place in the hearts of Japanese
today because it has been through Tet-
suwan Atom stories that many found a
Wikipedia.com
way to grieve for friends or family
members killed or maimed by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. The idea of “robot rebellions” or robots taking jobs
away from humans is rooted in Western culture and are fears not
shared by Japanese. Most Japanese believe that robots relieve hu-
mans of doing dirty, dangerous, and dull work.
Kitano maintains that the World Robot Declaration which Japan
presented at the 2004 International Robot Fair in Fukuoka, still
serves as an adequate guideline for the future development of ro-
bots. Japanese roboticists will keep an eye on the development of
roboethics in the West and in neighboring South Korea, but Japan
is notoriously slow at introducing new laws. Japan also has a ten-
dency to resist social change by interpreting its situation as
unique.
South Korea, meanwhile, has not only announced that by 2010 it
expects to have robo-cops patrolling the streets alongside its po-
lice force and army, but that its Robot Ethics Charter will take
effect in 2007. The charter includes Asimov-like laws for the ro-
bots, as well as guidelines to protect robots from abuse by hu-
66
mans. South Korea is concerned that some people will become
addicted to robots, may want to marry their android, or will use
robots for illegal activities. The charter demands full human con-
trol over the robots, an idea that is likely to be popular with Japa-
nese too. But a number of organizations and individuals in the
West are bound to criticize laws that do not grant equal human
rights to robots.
Western academics and lawyers have been discussing the issues
of roboethics and robo-rights for more than two decades now.
For example, Robots: Technology, Culture and Law in the 21st
Century, an academic paper by Phil McNally and Sohail Ina-
yatullah, was published in 1988. The two futurists wrote that
they consider robot rights to be linked to the expansion of the
world capitalist system, “Most likely they [robots] will gain rights
during a system crisis; when the system is threatened by anarchy
and legal unpredictability -- a condition that paradoxically may
result from developments in artificial intelligence and robotics.”
Interestingly, McNally and Inayatullah also speculate that:
“Aggressive AI research programs in Japan and India mean the
issue could reach their courts first, where it may well find easier
acceptance than in the West.”
Business consultant and technology writer Frank W. Sudia ar-
gues that there should be no problem granting legal rights to non
-human entities since corporations enjoy such rights. In his 2004
paper titled A Jurisprudence of Artilects: Blueprint for a Synthetic
Citizen, Sudia asserts that AIs will likely be model citizens be-
cause they will be “so dependent on a human legal and political
system.” He also sees AIs having “… elite professional corporate
sponsors to smooth the way for them,” and therefore enjoying
favored status when compared to other minority groups demand-
ing recognition.
More recently, a 2006 British government study has suggested
that within 20-50 years there could be a dramatic shift in atti-
tudes if robots can reproduce, improve themselves or develop
synthetic intelligence. The report Robo-rights: Utopian dream or
rise of the machines? predicts that robots with advanced arti-
ficial intelligence will demand health care, social
security, as well as housing benefits. In return,
robots may be obliged to vote, pay taxes, as well
as serve in the military. Therefore, real fears exist
that with advances in computational technology
“super intelligent robots” may one day take con-
trol or decide to destroy the human race.
Such scenarios are not the mere projections of
sci-fi fanatics or futurists, but of some of the
West’s leadings scientists and technologists. In
2001 Stephen Hawking warned: “...There is a
real danger that computers will develop intelli-
gence, and take over. We urgently need to de-
velop direct connections to the brain, so that
computers can add to human intelligence, ra-
ther than be in opposition.”
Hugo de Garis, an Australian scientist, brain
builder, and visionary, says that robot artificial
intelligence is evolving a million times faster
than human intelligence due to Moore’s law, which states that the
electronic performance of chips doubles every 12-18 months. de
Garis is highly respected for his eight-year CAM-Brain Machine
project that he worked on in Japan. The CAM-Brain Machine is
listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s larg-
est artificial brain. de Garis maintains that intelligent machines do
not pose a serious threat to humans during the next 30 years or
so, but in the long term he believes they will. He predicts that a
major war will be fought between humans who oppose the devel-
opment of artilects (artificial intellects) and those who consider it
human destiny to build machines that are “god-like, immortal,
have virtually unlimited memory capacities, and vast humanly in-
comprehensible intelligence levels.”
The British physicist and mathematician Roger
Penrose is among academics who argue
that there will never be intelligent, conscious
machines. John Searle, a professor of Philos-
ophy at the University of California, Berkley,
maintains that only real neurons in a brain can
produce consciousness and understanding,
while Rodney Brooks, Director of the Artifi-
cial Intelligence Laboratory at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), admits that sci-
entists may discover that they themselves are
just not intelligent enough to build self-
producing intelligent robots.
The Japanese scientific approach and expecta-
tions of robots and AI are far more down to
earth than those of their Western counterparts.
Certainly, future predictions made by Japanese
scientists are far less confrontational or sci-fi-
like. In an interview via email, Canadian tech-
nology journalist Tim N. Hornyak described the Japanese atti-
tude towards robots as being “that of the craftsman, not the phi-
losopher” and cited this as the reason for “so many rosy imagin-
ings of a future Japan in which robots are a part of people’s eve-
ryday lives.”
67
Hornyak, who is author of Loving the Machine: The Art and Sci-
ence of Japanese Robots, acknowledges that apocalyptic visions
do appear in manga and anime, but emphasizes that such fore-
casts do not exist in government circles or within Japanese com-
panies. Hornyak also added that while AI has for many years taken
a back seat to robot development in Japan, this situation is now
changing. Honda, for example, is working on giving better brains
to Asimo, which is already the world’s most advanced human-
oid robot. Japan is also already legislating early versions of Asi-
mov’s laws by introducing design requirements for next-
generation mobile robots.
On the subject of robo-rights and roboethics, Hornyak states that
“If robots and AI agents did develop to the
point where people recognized them as entities
deserving rights... I imagine Japan’s response
would be akin to its attitude toward foreigners
living in Japan -- they might be afforded certain
minimal privileges.
these are “not on the radar screen in Japan.”
Masahiro Mori has worked as a roboticist for more than 40
years. He is internationally renowned for his pioneering work on
the emotional responses of humans to non-human entities that
resulted in his “Uncanny Valley” theory. In 1974 Mori published
The Buddha in The Robot: A Robot Engineer’s Thoughts on Sci-
ence and Religion in which he wrote that he believed robots
68
have the Buddha-nature within them and
thus the potential to attain buddhahood.
By this Mori does not suggest that robots
will become conscious or have a will, but
that they possess an intrinsic spiritual
quality that can be fully realized. He con-
siders fears of a “machine master race”
taking over humans as a Western cultural
tendency to divide things in two, whereas
“Japan strives to make one thing match
with another -- one is an important con-
cept in Zen Buddhism.”
“In terms of playing go, or chess, or shogi,
even now AI is stronger than humans, so
in 20 years there is going to be something
fantastic, and in many ways the machine
will surpass human beings, but a robot is
morally neutral,” Mori said during an inter-
view at Mukta Research Institute, the To- Deep Blue was a chess-
playing computer devel-
kyo-based center he founded to promote
oped by IBM. In 1997, the
views on robotics and Buddhism. machine played a re-
match against world
“A robot can be used for useful purposes champion Garry Kasparov.
and for destructive purposes. The more Kasparov lost a six-game
evil the robot is, the more good it can be, match and accused IBM
and vice versa,” Mori said. He thinks that it of cheating. He demanded
a rematch, but IBM re-
is far too early to contemplate rights for
fused and dismantled
robots. Deep Blue. Kasparov said
that he unaccountably
“Even though I say in my book the robot is saw “deep intelligence
like the Buddha, if the robot is destroyed and creativity” in the ma-
in some way then that is that. It is better chine’s moves.
that we do not have a fixed concept and can move freely around phenomenon that blesses a community’s relationship with God.
an idea. Sometimes it may be better for us to think of the robot as Foerst believes that once we are willing to integrate robots into
just an object, but then sometimes it will be better if we can think our community, then they will become a part of nefes.
of the robot as a Buddha.
However, the social acceptance of robots will largely depend on
“I doubt that we will ever know if a robot has become conscious or what robots are used for, and in the West this is set to become a
has developed a will. We do not even know what consciousness or controversial issue. While the U.S. has fallen behind Japan, South
will truly are,” Mori concluded. Korea, Europe and Australia in various fields of robotics, it retains
world leadership in the field of military robots and, according to a
Robotics theologian and former AI researcher, Anne Foerst has 2005 Pentagon report, it plans to have robots making up one third
a more challenging take on the issue. She rejects the use of any of its fighting force by 2015. By 2035 the U.S. intends to have
empirical criteria to define when an AI is equal to humans by em- completely autonomous robot soldiers fighting out on the battle-
phasizing that whatever criteria is used to define an AI’s worth will field.
exclude human beings. For example, Foerst states that arguing
that an AI is “not aware” and can therefore be switched off would The use of robots for warfare raises huge ethical questions that
exclude all babies under three years old, Alzheimer’s patients, peo- have yet to be fully addressed. Other countries are also developing
ple in a coma and others. robots for warfare, and it is likely that Japan will eventually decide
to pursue the development of military robots too. Japan is leaning
Foerst’s spiritual attitude towards robots was influenced by her ex- increasingly towards the political right and is hoping to flex more
periences with Cog and Kismet, two early humanoid robots in the military muscle by changing its post-war pacifist constitu-
U.S. During her time in the mid-1990s at the Artificial Intelligence tion. China is also perceived as a growing economic and mili-
Laboratory at MIT, Foerst was surprised at how closely she bonded tary threat in the region.
with Cog and Kismet, and she believes that our attitude towards
robots can teach us much about discrimination in society. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Bill Gates is eager to merge robotics and
wireless connectivity. In an article he wrote for Scientific American ,
In her book God in The Machine: What Robots Teach Us About Gates outlines his plan for desktop computers to become the
Humanity and God, Foerst spurns the idea of “soul” being used “brain” of robots, and thus create a new class of peripheral devices
as an argument to deny robots the possibility of ever becoming that can be used for various everyday purposes.
like humans. She explains how the word “soul” lost its original
Jewish meaning when translated into Greek. Christians understand Beyond robots becoming more ubiquitous in our lives, a vanguard
the soul to be something separate from the body, something that of Western scientists asserts that humans will merge with the ma-
makes us humans special. But the Jewish concept of soul (nefes) is chine. Brooks says “... it is clear that robotic technology will merge
not something that anyone can possess, because it is an emergent with biotechnology in the first half of this century,” and he there-

69
fore concludes that “the distinction between us and robots is go- part of it.
ing to disappear.”
Shinto is also basically optimistic and focuses on the present.
Leading proponents of Strong AI state that humans will transcend There is also no absolute concept of good and evil in Shinto, while
biology and evolve to a higher level by merging with robot tech- in Buddhism sin is said not to exist. Although Buddhists hope to
nology. Ray Kurzweil, a renowned inventor, transhumanist, and transcend the wheel of samsara (rebirth), life as a human is con-
the author of several books on “spiritual machines,” claims that sidered the most elevated as it allows one to pursue the path to
immortality lies within the grasp of many of us alive today. enlightenment. There is no concept of heaven or hell in Shinto,
and in Japanese Buddhism heaven and hell are considered meta-
Kurzweil and Hans Moravec, the director of the Mobile Robot phors for one’s mental state. Also, in Japanese philosophy and re-
Laboratory of Carnegie Mellon University, maintain that technolo- ligion the mind and body are one and cannot be separated. Japa-
gy will soon make it possible for humans to rid themselves of their nese culture encourages a “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”
bodies and download their minds as software. The two scientists outlook on life, and therefore Japan thrives by denial or glosses
avow that as entities in simulated worlds we will be able to repli- over controversial issues.
cate ourselves across various systems, as well as far out in space.
Meanwhile, the West is influenced by the dualistic teachings of
According to Kurzweil and Moravec, within the next 40 years the Christianity, as well as biblical prophesies of a forthcoming Arma-
virtual world will become our real world. Kurzweil’s and Moravec’s geddon, cosmic purpose for humans, resurrection and an afterlife
theories have been criticized by opponents of Strong AI. Brooks in heaven.
points out “We are a long, long way from being able to download
ourselves into computers or robots. While in principle it will ulti- Robert M. Geraci states that both Japanese and U.S. scientists are
mately be possible, it is not a worthwhile place to look for person- influenced by the religious messages of their cultures, regardless
al salvation for those of us who are alive today.” of whether they themselves are religious or not. In his 2006 aca-
demic paper Spiritual Robots: Religion and Our Scientific View of
But this view of humans living on as misembodied virtual or cos- the Natural World, Geraci concludes:
mic entities emphasizes the vast difference in the approach and
expectations of Japanese and Western AI scientists. The two dis- Sacralization of the natural world and human technology in Shinto
tinct scientific visions and approaches reflect the religious beliefs and the positive spin given to human life in Shinto and Buddhism
of the respective cultures. The Japanese ease with technology can promote the development of robotic engineering and the glorifi-
be linked to both Buddhism and the country’s animistic indige- cation of the humanoid robot in Japan.
nous religion, Shinto. Japan’s fondness for humanoid robots high-
lights the high regard Japanese share for the role of humans with- Geraci says that the popularity of humanoid robots reveals the
in nature. Humans are viewed as not being above nature, but a “Japanese fondness for humanity; there is no trace of the disdain

70
so prevalent in the soteriological promises of U.S.
robotics.” He criticizes what he calls the
“Apocalyptic AI” ideology of key thinkers in the
field of AI in the U.S and in Europe:
“Just as Christians have looked forward to the es-
chatological kingdom and have eagerly sought
their salvation from earthly matter, many US re-
searchers attach meaning and value to a future of
ubiquitous computation, where cyber space
has engulfed the universe in “Mind Fire.” In the
United States--though not exclusively there--the
search for cosmic purpose and the promise of sal-
vation justify a focus upon information processes
in machines and human beings. “
Differences exist in the approach and expecta-
tions of Japanese and Western AI scientists due to
their religious, cultural and historical back-
grounds. Both Shinto and Buddhism have a posi-
tive view of humans, and thus the Japanese are
eager to develop humanoid robots to fill gaps in
the labor force and care for the country’s most
vulnerable citizens. Western scientists, however,
are influenced by Christian messages inherent in
their culture and are therefore more inclined to
pursue the development of intelligent machines
through which they believe humans can achieve
immortal “heavenly” existence. Alternatively, some
of the West’s leading AI scientists predict futures
of “Apocalyptic AI” in which “god-like machines”
exterminate humans.
“Biological
Whether such utopic or dystopic futures lie ahead
of us remains to be seen, but certainly robots will
play a significant role in our futures. Robots will
be increasingly used for warfare and humans will
start incorporating more robotic technology into
evolution is
their bodies. As Western countries are more liti-
gious than Japanese society, concepts of robot too slow for
rights and roboethics will be more widely debat-
ed. Evidence suggests that the West will offer
“human” rights first to robots, and not Japan.
the human
Japan’s legal system is poorly developed in com- species.
Over the
parison to that of Western countries, however, it
will be interesting to see what laws are changed
or introduced as China grows as an economic and
military power. Japan is becoming increasingly
rightwing and is making moves to revise its post-
next few
war pacifist constitution. It is therefore likely that
Japan will also have an interest in developing mili- decades, it's
tary robots. This will then undermine the image of
robots as “friends” in Japan.
going to be
Integrating robots into Japanese society is less
complex than in the West because Japanese re- left in the
vere both animate and inanimate objects, have
dust.”
historically taken a positive view of technology,
and enjoy a culture where robots are presented as
friends. Western dualistic thinking splits concepts
into “good” and “bad,” and historically and cultur-
--Ray Kurzweil
ally robots and technology have been perceived The Age of Spiritual Machines: When
as potential threats to humanity and God.
B
Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
71
“If my nightmare is a culture inhabited by
posthumans who regard their bodies as BOOK SHELF
fashion accessories rather than the
ground of being, Robot Ethics edited by By Patrick Lin, Keith Ab-
my dream is a ver- ney, George A. Bekey
sion of the posthu- What sort of people should there be? By Jonathan
man that embraces Glover

the possibilities of Robo Sapiens by Peter Merizel & Faith D’Aluisio

information tech- International Conference on Intelligent Robots and

Systems Workshop Art and Robots
nologies without
"The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis" By Dr.
being seduced by
David Chalmers
fantasies of unlim-
(PDF DOWNLOAD) Spiritual Robots: Religion and Our
ited power and disembodied immortality,
Scientific View of the Natural World By Robert M
that recognizes and celebrates finitude as Geraci
a condition of human being, and that un- (PDF DOWNLOAD) Elephants Don't Play Chess by
derstands human life is embedded in a Rodney A. Brooks
material world of great complexity, one on
which we depend for our continued sur-
vival.”-- Katherine Hayles How We Became Posthuman:
Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics

72
 POEM

To A Circadian Rhythm Eyes maladjusted to Dawn

her pale torch crowning the heavens
The sky is ever deliquescent flutter before a cascade of sharpening
mooting ephemeral light
sanguine pins
a juggernaut dancing gloveless Where druids gleaned laconic wisdom
in the architecture through a dusky flame
beyond torpid hostelries and the now derelict
words unravel characters moss-covered spires
fall and blackened men with footsteps rang
construct gauzy daydreams
‘neath a long, silent carapace Where voices trapped amid fluted yarn
:spawning dark agents spun hircine dreams
a cobbled web now
Meadows basque reaches to the sea.
purblind and bliss-weary
travelers on the damp leaves
restored by Summer’s fawning bouquet By Jason Alan Wilkinson
sprawl among those unabbreviated pas-
tures
to catch the whim of its lingering breath

Along the floss windows blush

their scarlet panes like burnished flowers

73
 It's all that I can do to keep
from counting Tron: Legacy
(2010, directed Joseph Kosinski)
as a horror movie. I mean, yeah. I
get it. It doesn't feel like a horror
movie, with its sleek, glazed sur-
faces and its visionary digital
landscapes and its weird, quasi-
fetish wardrobes. But the fact that
Tron: Legacy is Frankenstein is
completely inescapable to my
way of thinking. That it doubles
down on its roots in horror by
casting its monster as a doppel-
ganger only deepens its shadows.
It's a horror movie in the sense
By Christianne Benedict that Metropolis is a horror mov-
ie. It's a Gothic set in an auto-
clave. So screw it, it counts even
though I didn't intend for it to
count. For that matter, sci fi has
always been a Halloween-y genre
ever since Orson Welles terrified
the nation on that long-ago Hal-
loween in 1938.
Tron: Legacy is obviously
a follow-on waaaaay after the fact
of the original Tron from 1982. 28
years is an eon in special effects
years, and the state of the art on
display in the new movie makes
the state of the art in the old look
CINEMA almost like cave paintings. Rarely
74
have two movies shown the stark
truth of the march of technology.
Moore's Law has been implaca-
ble. I'll state right up front that
Tron: Legacy is gorgeous, a mar-
vel of special effects and produc-
tion design. It's more compelling
as a digital world than what you
find in any of the Matrix movies
and this film doesn't populate its
surface with a bunch of philo-
sophical faux-profundities. Which
isn't to say that they aren't there.
Jeff Bridges is channeling The
Dude for the older Kevin Flynn
after all, which takes an edge off
of the philosophy. The movie also
disguises a lot of this behind Dis-
ney's usual "daddy" issues.
The story here finds Sam
Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) growing
up without a father. His dad, Kev-
in Flynn (Jeff Bridges) vanished
many years ago. Sam has no in-
terest in his father's company, En-
com, which he views as a sell-out.
When we first see him, he's con-
ducting a bit of corporate sabo-
tage on Encom as a prank. The
irony of Disney, of all people,
making a movie about a couple
of open source socialists is not
lost on me, I should note. Shortly
after his prank, he's contacted by Alan
Bradley, his father's last remaining friend
on the board of Encom. He's received a
page from Flynn's old arcade, where, he
notes, the power and phones have been
turned off for years. Sam investigates. He
finds his dad's old projects in a secret
workshop and, sure enough, gets sucked
into the grid where his dad has been
trapped, lo these many years. Sam's pres-
ence upsets the balance of the power
struggle between Flynn and Clu, the pro-
gram he created to build his utopia. Clu,
for his part, is a renegade, who feels aban-
doned when Flynn discovers the Isos a new
form of digital life that has arisen on the
grid. Clu views the Isos as imperfections
and wipes them out in a genocidal purge.
All but one. Sam is taken on his arrival to
the games, where, like his dad before him,
he fights with data discs and rides a light-
cycle. He's busted out by his dad's major-
domo, Quorra (Olivia Wilde), and the rest
of the movie becomes a race to escape the
grid before Clu can wrest Flynn's data disc
from him and use it to invade our world.
He's built an army for that purpose.
Basically, Kevin Flynn has built his
Creature, Clu, in his own image. He should
have been his Adam, but was instead his
fallen angel. Clu, like Shelly's Creature, feels
betrayed by a creator who discards him.
Like Shelly's Creature, Clu vows to make
him pay. Tron: Legacy is canny here: Clu is
played by Jeff Bridges, too, forging a bond
between creature and creator that eludes
many Frankensteinian stories. The de-aging
of the actor with digital effects falls into the
valley of the uncanny, but that works to the
movie's advantage. Clu is a monster, after
all, and that hint of the uncanny serves his
monstrosity, because his visual
"wrongness" acts as a kind of mark of Cain.
(The movie is less sure-footed at the begin-
ning, when it uses the same effects to por-
tray Flynn himself as a younger man). As
a 21st century reworking of Frankenstein,
the filmmakers are able to contrast Kevin
Flynn's drive to play god on the grid he
created with the natural process of evolu-
tion that produces the Isos. This wouldn't
have occurred to Mary Shelly, even though
she knew of the work of Erasmus Darwin.
Darwin was an early proponent of the sur-
vival of the fittest. His grandson, Charles,
would frame the grand theory of evolution.
This movie favors letting nature take its
course, I think, in a weird variant of the
usual "there are things in which mankind
was not meant to meddle." There are other
horror movie tropes in Tron: Legacy, too,
not least of which is the specter of geno-
cide that hangs over things, as well as sci-
ence fictional horror's usual emphasis on
the shaky nature of identity. Clu, after all, is
Flynn's secret sharer, his doppelganger,
and when the movie ends, it makes a point
of fusing them back together. It's a striking
climax.
This kind of sci fi is about world
building and the world this movie builds
for its melodrama is a nightworld. The sun
does not shine in this movie. For all its
technological gloss, the grid is a Lovecrafti-
an landscape, with its mountains of crystal
looking like what I imagine "cyclopean"
stones would look like. The center of the
grid is no better; it's a nightmare version of
The Emerald City, populated by ravers and
fetishists. It's a world out of joint. Even the
lighted places have a coldness to them.
Flynn's lair, for instance, recalls the decor
on the other side of the stargate in Ku-
brick's 2001. It's not a comforting space by
any means. And it's not really a comforting
movie, either, in spite of the way it has ar-
ranged itself to end on the rising sun, as if
to say its heroes have come through their
long dark night of the soul, or as if they've
made it through the night when the vam-
pires were on all sides of them. I won't say
that this is unearned. The movie is gloomy
enough that I don't mind the sun rising at
the end. B
75
 HISTORY

“Can you turn it

off? Does it have
Watson
is an artificial intelligence computer system devel-
oped in IBM's DeepQA project, capable of answer-
an off/on switch? ing questions posed in natural language. In 2011,
as a test of its abilities, Watson competed on
Then it’s not alive.” the quiz show Jeopardy! in a human-versus-
machine two-game, combined point game against
-- Anon.
Jeopardy! Masters, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings.

76
 POEM

Rachel Davis Abstracted

Such strange ghosts people your sea of paintings.
Such exotic birds wind themselves inward
toward meals of fish from oceans or rivers, toward
or away
from flight.

At once
there was a burning brilliance of color
filling pain and distortion
with their own captive beauty

but also revealed

is that occasional darkness

undercoating this facile frame of color

with the grimness

of our age...

By Sam Silva
Arbete pa havet (Work on the Sea) by Erik Johansson

77
 “They suddenly appeared in all Euro-
pean capitals and tourist cities: the liv-
ing statues. Where did they come
from? What are they thinking while
they stand there, lifeless? What do
they do in winter? We came with
many questions and quite a few prej-
udices when we approached one of
the most peculiar occupations there is
… “Björn Lindahl
Living statue in Rome, Italy. Photographed by Adrian Pingstone
Oh It’s You, Welcome by J. Seward Johnson

ILLUSION

Can You Trust Your Eyes?

Hyperrealism describes an modern art movement and style which produces photorealistic ren-
derings of people and landscapes in painting and sculpture. The concept is similar to trompe l'oeil
or “fool the eye.” In the last decade a number of artists have created life-size figures engaged in
everyday activities. In many cases, it is easy to mistake the statue for a living person.

“Woman Eating” (1971) by artist Duane
Hanson, polyester resin, fiberglass with
clothes, table, chair, and accessories.
Smithsonian American Art Museum.
On the other hand, the mime technique of Living Statue involves the artist posing as a statue or
manikin, sometimes for hours, without moving. This type of act has its roots in tableau vivant, a
regular feature of medieval and Renaissance festivities. Modern mime artists use a variety of tech-
niques to mimic the look and feel of stone or metal surfaces. The result is often uncanny.

78
Go Your Own Road by Erik Johansson
79
 Das Unheimliche
(The Uncanny) By Sigmund Freud
is only rarely that a psycho-analyst feels impelled to in-
vestigate the subject of aesthetics, even when aesthetics
is understood to mean not merely the theory of beauty
but the theory of the qualities of feeling. He works in
other strata of mental life and has little to do with the subdued
emotional impulses which, inhibited in their aims and depend-
ent on a host of concurrent factors, usually furnish the material
for the study of aesthetics. But it does occasionally happen
that he has to interest himself in some particular province of
that subject; and this province usually proves to be a rather
remote one, and one which has been neglected in the special-
ist literature of aesthetics.
The subject of the 'uncanny' is a province of this kind. It
is undoubtedly related to what is frightening — to what arous-
es dread and horror; equally certainly, too, the word is not al-
ways used in a clearly definable sense, so that it tends to coin-
cide with what excites fear in general. Yet we may expect that a
special core of feeling is present which justifies the use of a spe-
cial conceptual term. One is curious to know what this common
core is which allows us to distinguish as 'uncanny'; certain things
which lie within the field of what is frightening.
As good as nothing is to be found upon this subject in compre-
hensive treatises on aesthetics, which in general prefer to concern them-
ESSAY selves with what is beautiful, attractive and sublime; that is, with feelings of
a positive nature; and with the circumstances and the objects that call them
forth, rather than with the opposite feelings of repulsion and distress. I know of
(Continued on page 81)

80
only one attempt in medico-psychological literature, a fertile but
not exhaustive paper by Jentsch (1906). But I must confess that I
have not made a very thorough examination of the literature,
especially the foreign literature, relating to this present modest
contribution of mine, for reasons which, as may easily be
guessed, lie in the times in which we live; so that my paper is
presented to the reader without any claim to priority.
In his study of the 'uncanny'; Jentsch quite rightly lays
stress on the obstacle presented by the fact that people vary so
very greatly in their sensitivity to this quality of feeling. The writ-
er of the present contribution, indeed, must himself plead guilty
to a special obtuseness in the matter, where extreme delicacy of
perception would be more in place. It is long since he has expe-
rienced or heard of anything which has given him an uncanny
impression, and he must start by translating himself into that
state of feeling, by awakening in himself the possibility of experi-
encing it. Still, such difficulties make themselves powerfully felt
in many other branches of aesthetics; we need not on that ac-
count despair of finding instances in which the quality in ques-
tion will be unhesitatingly recognized by most people.
Two courses are open to us at the outset. Either we can
find out what meaning has come to be attached to the word
'uncanny' in the course of its history; or we can collect all those
properties of persons, things, sense-impressions, experiences
and situations which arouse in us the feeling of uncanniness, and
then infer the unknown nature of the uncanny from what all the-
se examples have in common. I will say at once that both courses
lead to the same result: the uncanny is that class of the frighten-
ing which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar.
How this is possible, in what circumstances the familiar can be-
come uncanny and frightening, I shall show in what follows. Let
me also add that my investigation was actually begun by collect-
ing a number of individual cases, and was only later confirmed
by an examination of linguistic usage. In this discussion, howev-
er, I shall follow the reverse course.
he German word 'unheimlich' is obviously the opposite of
'heimlich' ['homely'], 'heimisch' ['native'] the opposite of
what is familiar; and we are tempted to conclude that what
is 'uncanny' is frightening precisely because it is not known
and familiar. Naturally not everything that is new and unfamiliar
is frightening, however; the relation is not capable of inversion.
We can only say that what is novel can easily become
frightening but not by any means all. Something has to be add-
ed to what is novel and unfamiliar in order to make it uncanny.
On the whole, Jentsch did not get beyond this relation of
the uncanny to the novel and unfamiliar. He ascribes the essen-
tial factor in the production of the feeling of uncanniness to in-
tellectual uncertainty; so that the uncanny would always, as it
were, be something one does not know one's way about in. The
better orientated in his environment a person is, the less readily
will he get the impression of something uncanny in regard to the
objects and events in it quite a new light on the concept of the
Unheimlich, for which we were certainly not prepared. According
to him, everything is unheimlich that ought to have remained
secret and hidden but has come to light.
II
hen we proceed to review things, persons, impressions,
events, and situations which are able to arouse in us a
feeling of the uncanny in a particularly forcible and defi-
nite form, the first requirement is obviously to select a
suitable example to start on. Jentsch has taken as a very good
instance ‘doubts whether an apparently animate being is really
(Continued on page 82)
81
alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might not be in fact
animate’; and he refers in this connection to the impression
made by waxwork figures, ingeniously constructed dolls and au-
tomata. To these he adds the uncanny effect of epileptic fits, and
of manifestations of insanity, because these excite in the specta-
tor the impression of automatic, mechanical processes at work
behind the ’ordinary appearance of mental activity. Without en-
tirely accepting this author’s view, we will take it as a starting
point for our own investigation because in what follows he re-
minds us of a writer who has succeeded in producing uncanny
effects better than anyone else.
Jentsch writes: 'In telling a story one of the most success-
ful devices for easily creating uncanny effects is to leave the
reader in uncertainty whether a particular figure in the story is a
human being or an automaton and to do it in such a way that
his attention is not focused directly upon his uncertainty, so that
he may not be led to go in-
to the matter and clear it up
immediately. That, as we ...doubts whether an apparently animate be- denied that such a person
have said, would quickly
dissipate the peculiar emo- ing is really alive; or conversely,
tional effect of the thing. E.
T. A. Hoffmann has repeat-
lifeless object might
edly employed this psycho-
logical artifice with success in his fantastic narratives.’
This observation, undoubtedly a correct one, refers pri-
marily to the story of “The Sand-Man" in Hoffmann’s
Nachtstücken, which contains the original of Olympia, the doll
that appears in the first act of Offenbach’s opera, Tales of Hoff-
mann. but I cannot think — and I hope most readers of the story
will agree with me — that the theme of the doll Olympia, who is
to all appearances a living being, is by any means the only, or
indeed the most important, element that must be held responsi-
82
ble for the quite unparalleled atmosphere of uncanniness
evoked by the story. Nor is this atmosphere heightened by the
fact that the author himself treats the episode of Olympia with a
faint touch of satire and uses it to poke fun at the young man’s
idealization of his mistress. The main theme of the story is, on
the contrary, something different, something which gives it its
name, and which is always re-introduced at critical moments: it
is the theme of the ‘Sand-Man’ who tears out children’s eyes.
This fantastic tale opens with the childhood recollections
of the student Nathaniel. In spite of his present happiness, he
cannot banish the memories associated with the mysterious and
terrifying death of his beloved father. On certain evenings his
mother used to send the children to bed early, warning them
that ‘the Sand-Man was coming’; and, sure enough, Nathaniel
would not fail to hear the heavy tread of a visitor, with whom his
father would then be occupied for the evening. When ques-
tioned about the Sand-
Man, his mother, it is true,
existed except as a figure
whether a of speech; but his nurse
could give him more defi-
not be in fact animate ... nite information: ‘He’s a
wicked man who comes
when children won’t go to bed, and throws handfuls of sand in
their eyes so that they jump out of their heads all bleeding. Then
he puts the eyes in a sack and carries them off to the half-moon
to feed his children. They sit up there in their nest, and their
beaks are hooked like owls’ beaks, and they use them to peck up
naughty boys’ and girls’ eyes with.’
Although little Nathaniel was sensible and old enough
not to credit the figure of the Sand-Man with such gruesome
attributes, yet the dread of him became fixed in his heart. He de-
termined to find out what the Sand-Man looked like; and one
evening, when the Sand-Man was expected again, he hid in his
father’s study. He recognized the visitor as the lawyer Coppelius,
a repulsive person whom the children were frightened of when
he occasionally came to a meal; and he now identified this Cop-
pelius with the dreaded Sand-Man. As regards the rest of the
scene, Hoffmann already leaves us in doubt whether what we are
witnessing is tee first delirium of the panic-stricken boy, or a suc-
cession of events which are to be regarded in the story as being
real. His father and the guest are at work at a brazier with glow-
ing flames. The little eavesdropper hears Coppelius call out: 'Eyes
here! Eyes here!' and betrays himself by screaming aloud. Cop-
pelius seizes him and is on the point of dropping bits of red-hot
coal from the fire into his eyes, and then of throwing them into
the brazier, but his father begs him off and saves his eyes. Af-
ter this the boy falls into a deep swoon; and a long illness brings
his experience to an end. Those who decide in favor of the ra-
tionalistic interpretation of the Sand-Man will not fail to recog-
nize in the child’s phantasy the persisting influence of his nurse’s
story. The bits of sand that are to be thrown into the child’s eyes
turn into bits of red-hot coal from the flames; and in both cases
they are intended to make his eyes jump out. In the course of
another visit of the Sand-Man’s, a year later, his father is killed in
his study by an explosion. The lawyer Coppelius disappears from
the place without leaving a trace behind.
Nathaniel, now a student, believes that he has recognized
this phantom of horror from his childhood in an itinerant opti-
cian, an Italian called Giuseppe Coppola, who at his university
town, offers him weather-glasses for sale. When Nathaniel refus-
es, the man goes on: ‘Not weather-glasses? not weather-glasses?
also got fine eyes, fine eyes!’ The student’s terror is allayed when
he finds that the proffered eyes are only harmless spectacles,
and he buys a pocket spy-glass from Coppola. With its aid he
looks across into Professor Spalanzani’s house opposite and
there spies Spalanzani’s beautiful, but strangely silent and mo-
tionless daughter, Olympia. He soon falls in love with her so vio-
lently that, because of her, he quite forgets the clever and sensi-
ble girl to whom he is betrothed. But Olympia is an automaton
whose clock-work has been made by Spalanzani, and whose eyes
have been put in by Coppola, the Sand-Man. The student sur-
prises the two Masters quarrelling over their handiwork. The op-
tician carries off the wooden eyeless doll; and the mechanician,
Spalanzani, picks up Olympia’s bleeding eyes from the ground
and throws them at Nathaniel’s breast, saying that Coppola had
stolen them from the student. Nathaniel succumbs to a fresh at-
tack of madness, and in his delirium his recollection of his fa-
ther’s death is mingled with this new experience. ‘Hurry up! hurry
up! ring of fire!’ he cries. ‘Spin about, ring of fire — Hurrah! Hurry
up, wooden doll! lovely wooden doll, spin about — .’ He then
falls upon the professor, Olympia’s ‘father’, and tries to strangle
him.
Rallying from a long and serious illness, Nathaniel seems
at last to have recovered. He intends to marry his betrothed, with
whom he has become reconciled. One day he and she are walk-
ing through the city market-place, over which the high tower of
the Town Hall throws its huge shadow. On the girl’s suggestion,
they climb the tower, leaving her brother, who is walking with
them, down below. From the top, Clara’s attention is drawn to a
curious object moving along the street. Nathaniel looks at this
thing through Coppola’s spy-glass, which he finds in his pocket,
and falls into a new attack of madness.
Shouting ‘Spin about, wooden doll!’ he tries to throw the
girl into the gulf below. Her brother, brought to her side by her
cries, rescues her and hastens down with her to safety. On the
tower above, the madman rushes round, shrieking ‘Ring of fire,
spin about!’ — and we know the origin of the words. Among the
83
people who begin to gather below there comes forward the fig-
ure of the lawyer Coppelius, who has suddenly returned. We may
suppose that it was his approach, seen through the spy-glass,
which threw Nathaniel into his fit of madness. As the onlookers
prepare to go up and overpower the madman, Coppelius laughs
and says: ‘Wait a bit; he’ll come down of himself.’ Nathaniel sud-
denly stands still, catches sight of Coppelius, and with a wild
shriek ‘Yes! "fine eyes — fine eyes"!’ flings himself over the para-
pet. While he lies on the paving-stones with a shattered skull the
Sand-Man vanishes in the throng.
This short summary leaves no doubt, I think, that the feel-
ing of something uncanny is directly attached to the figure of the
Sand-Man, that is, to the idea of being robbed of one’s eyes, and
that Jentsch’s point of an intellectual uncertainty has nothing to
do with the effect. Uncertainty whether an object is living or in-
animate, which admittedly applied to the doll Olympia, is quite
irrelevant in connection with this other, more striking instance of
uncanniness. It is true that the writer creates a kind of uncertain-
ty in us in the beginning by not letting us know, no doubt pur-
posely, whether he is taking us into the real world or into a pure-
ly fantastic one of his own creation. He has, of course, a right to
do either; and if he chooses to stage his action in a world peo-
pled with spirits, demons and ghosts, as Shakespeare does in
Hamlet, in Macbeth and, in a different sense, in The Tempest and
A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, we must bow to his decision and
treat his setting as though it were real for as long as we put our-
selves into this hands. But this uncertainty disappears in the
course of Hoffmann’s story, and we perceive that he intends to
make us, too, look through the demon optician’s spectacles or
spy-glass — perhaps, indeed, that the author in his very own
person once peered through such an instrument. For the conclu-
sion of the story makes it quite clear that Coppola the optician
84
really is the lawyer Coppelius and also, therefore, the Sand-Man.
There is no question therefore, of any intellectual uncer-
tainty here: we know now that we are not supposed to be look-
ing on at the products of a madman's imagination, behind which
we, with the superiority of rational minds, are able to detect the
sober truth; and yet this knowledge does not lessen the impres-
sion of uncanniness in the least degree. The theory of intellectual
uncertainty is thus incapable of explaining that impression.
know from psycho-analytic experience, however,
that the fear of damaging or losing one's eyes is a
terrible one in children. Many adults retain their ap-
prehensiveness in this respect, and no physical inju-
ry is so much dreaded by them as an injury to the eye. We are
accustomed to say, too, that we will treasure a thing as the apple
of our eye. A study of dreams, phantasies and myths has taught
us that anxiety about one's eyes, the fear of going blind, is often
enough a substitute for the dread of being castrated. The self-
blinding of the mythical criminal, Oedipus, was simply a mitigat-
ed form of the punishment of castration — the only punishment
that was adequate for him by the lex talionis. We may try on ra-
tionalistic grounds to deny that fears about the eye are derived
from the fear of castration, and may argue that it is very natural
that so precious an organ as the eye should be guarded by a
proportionate dread.
Indeed, we might go further and say that the fear of cas-
tration itself contains no other significance and no deeper secret
than a justifiable dread of this rational kind. But this view does
not account adequately for the substitutive relation between the
eye and the male organ which is seen to exist in dreams and
myths and phantasies; nor can it dispel the impression that the
(Continued on page 86)

Nightmare at the Opera
Ernst Theodor Wilhelm
Hoffmann (24 January 1776
– 25 June 1822), better
known by his pen
name E.T.A. Hoffmann (The
‘A’ stands for Amadeus), was
a German Romantic writer
and, composer.
Hoffmann’s writing style --
the tale as told by a narrator, using letters be-
tween concerned parties -- may not chill today’s
blood-and-gut-and-fear soaked audiences as
they did two hundred years ago. However, the
reader must keep in mind that when Hoffmann
published his dark tales, what made his audi-
ence experience das Unheimliche was the possi-
bility the story might be true.
Hoffmann published a number of tales of the
uncanny, including The Sand-man (see page
98), in Die Nachtstücke (The Night Pieces) in
1816. These tales have influenced a number of
other artists to create fantastical re-
interpretations for a wider audience and some-
where along the way the story’s meaning be-
come altered and eventually reversed.
Playwright Michel Carré’s staged Les contes
fantastiques d'Hoffmann (The Dreams of Hoff-
mann) on the Paris stage in 1851.
After seeing Carre’s work, Jacques Offenbach
created his opera The Tales of Hoffmann.
The fictional story has a Young Hoffmann re-
counting the tragic and strange tales of his
three great loves. Each act is based on one of
the real Hoffmann’s short stories. The first tale
features Olympia, an automa created by Spal-
anzani, and Young Hoffmann’s Nemesis, Cop-
pélius. Despite warnings from his friend,
Young Hoffmann, unaware of Olympia's true
nature, falls in love with her. At the stories cli-
max, Coppélius tears Olympia apart, leaving
Young Hoffmann humiliated and heart-broken.
The
other two acts recount similar morbid tales, with
the Nemesis making an appearance in each one,
until Young Hoffmann renounces love and de-
votes himself to his art.
After Offenbach’s dark opera, a popular comic
ballet, Coppélia, debuted in 1871 . In Cop-
pélia, the sinister Doctor Coppélius creates a
dancing doll that is incredibly life-like. The pro-
tagonist, Franz, falls in love with the doll, reject-
ing his true love, Swanhilde. Swanhilde then
tries to bring Franz to his senses by
dressing herself as a doll and pre-
tending to come to life.
In 1919, film maker Ernst Lubitsch
produced Die Puppe (The Doll)
loosely based on Coppélia. In Lu-
bitsch’s retelling, Lancelot, played
by German comic actor Hermann Thimig, is be-
ing forced into marriage by his wealthy uncle.
OPINION
But Lancelot has no experience with women and
is frightened by them. He is advised to go to the
supreme doll maker, Hilarius, and purchase a
doll to act as his bride. At Hilarius’ shop, he and
his Apprentice have just completed a life-like
doll based on Halarius’ own daughter, the mis-
chievous Ossi (played by Ossi Oswalda). When
Hilarius is greeting Lancelot, the Apprentice
hears music and begins to dance with the Ossi
Doll. This leads to the doll being broken and the
arrival of the real Ossi. To keep the Apprentice
out of trouble, Ossi decides to pose as the Ossi
Doll. Lancelot is pleased with
what he thinks is a marvelous
doll and takes her off to be
married. After a number of
humorous scenes, Lancelot
states he wishes the doll
were really alive, because then he wouldn’t
mind being married. Ossi then reveals who she
is and the two run off to be married for real.
B
By CReed Weber
85
(Continued from page 84)
threat of being castrated in especial excites a peculiarly violent
and obscure emotion, and that this emotion is what first gives
the idea of losing other organs its intense coloring. All further
doubts are removed when we learn the details of their
'castration complex' from the analysis of neurotic patients, and
realize its immense importance in their mental life.
Moreover, I would not recommend any opponent of the
psycho-analytic view to select this particular story of the Sand-
Man with which to support his argument that anxiety about the
eyes has nothing to do with the castration complex. For why
does Hoffmann bring the anxiety about eyes into such intimate
connection with the father's death? And why does the Sand-Man
always appear as a disturber of love? He separates the unfortu-
nate Nathaniel from his betrothed and from her brother, his best
friend; he destroys the second object of his love, Olympia, the
lovely doll; and he drives him into suicide at the moment when
he has won back his Clara and is about to be happily united to
her. Elements in the story like these, and many others, seem ar-
bitrary and meaningless so long as we deny all connection be-
tween fears about the eye and castration; but they become intel-
ligible as soon as we replace the Sand-Man by the dreaded fa-
ther at whose hands castration is expected.
We shall venture, therefore, to refer the uncanny effect of
the Sand-Man to the anxiety belonging to the castration com-
plex of childhood. But having reached the idea that we can make
an infantile factor such as this responsible for feelings of uncan-
niness, we are encouraged to see whether we can apply it to
other instances of the uncanny. We find in the story of the Sand-
Man the other theme on which Jentsch lays stress, of a doll
which appears to be alive. Jentsch believes that a particularly fa-
vorable condition for awakening uncanny feelings is created
86
when there is intellectual uncertainty whether an object is alive
or not, and when an inanimate object becomes too much like an
animate one. Now, dolls are of course rather closely connected
with childhood life. We remember that in their early games chil-
dren do not distinguish at all sharply between living and inani-
mate objects, and that they are especially fond of treating their
dolls like live people. In fact, I have occasionally heard a woman
patient declare that even at the age of eight she had still been
convinced that her dolls would be certain to come to life if she
were to look at them in a particular, extremely concentrated,
way. So that here, too, it is not difficult to discover a factor from
childhood. But, curiously enough, while the Sand-Man story
deals with the arousing of an early childhood fear, the idea of a
‘living doll’ excites no fear at all; children have no fear of their
dolls coming to life, they may even desire it. The source of un-
canny feelings would not, therefore, be an infantile fear in this
case, but rather an infantile wish or even merely an infantile be-
lief. There seems to be a contradiction here; but perhaps it is on-
ly a complication, which may be helpful to us later on.
offmann is the unrivalled master of the uncanny in litera-
ture. His novel, Die Elixire des Teufels [The Devil’s Elixir],
contains a whole mass of themes to which one is tempted
to ascribe the uncanny effect of the narrative; but it is too
obscure and intricate a story for us to venture upon a summary
...a particularly favorable condition for
awakening uncanny feelings is created
when there is intellectual uncertainty
whether an object is alive or not….
of it. Towards the end of the book the reader is told the facts,
hitherto concealed from him, from which the action springs; with
the result, not that he is at last enlightened, but that he falls into
a state of complete bewilderment. The author has piled up too
much material of the same kind. In consequence one’s grasp of
the story as a whole suffers, though not the impression it makes.
We must content ourselves with selecting those themes of un-
canniness which are most prominent, and with seeing whether
they too can fairly be traced back to infantile sources. These
themes are all concerned with the phenomenon of the ‘double’,
which appears in every shape and in every degree of develop-
ment.
Thus we have characters who are to be considered identi-
cal because they look alike. This relation is accentuated by men-
tal processes leaping from one of these characters to another —
by what we should call telepathy —, so that the one possesses
knowledge, feelings and experience in common with the other.
Or it is marked by the fact that the subject identifies himself with
someone else, so that he is in doubt as to which his self is, or
substitutes the extraneous self for his own. In other words, there
is a doubling, dividing and interchanging of the self. And finally
there is the constant recurrence of the same thing — the repeti-
tion of the same features or character-traits or vicissitudes, of
the same crimes, or even the same names through several con-
secutive generations.
The theme of the ‘double’ has been very thoroughly
treated by Otto Rank (1914). He has gone into the connections
which the ‘double’ has with reflections in mirrors, with shadows,
with guardian spirits, with the belief in the soul and with the fear
of death; but he also lets in a flood of light on the surprising
evolution of the idea. For the ‘double’ was originally an insur-
ance against the destruction of the ego, an ‘energetic denial of
the power of death’, as Rank says; and probably the ‘immortal’
soul was the first ‘double’ of the body. This invention of dou-
bling as a preservation against extinction has its counterpart in
the language of dreams, which is found of representing castra-
tion by a doubling or multiplication of a genital symbol. The
same desire led the Ancient Egyptians to develop the art of
making images of the dead in lasting materials. Such ideas, how-
ever, have sprung from the soil of unbounded self-love, from the
primary narcissism which dominates the mind of the child and of
primitive man. But when this stage has been surmounted, the
‘double’ reverses its aspect. From having been an assurance of
immortality, it becomes the uncanny harbinger of death.
The idea of the ‘double’ does not necessarily disappear
with the passing of primary narcissism, for it can receive fresh
meaning from the later stages of the ego’s development. A spe-
cial agency is slowly formed there, which is able to stand over
against the rest of the ego, which has the function of observing
and criticizing the self and of exercising a censorship within the
mind, and which we become aware of as our ‘conscience’. In the
pathological case of delusions of being watched, this mental
agency becomes isolated, dissociated from the ego, and discern-
ible to the physician’s eye. The fact that an agency of this kind
exists, which is able to treat the rest of the ego like an object —
the fact, that is, that man is capable of self-observation — ren-
ders it possible to invest the old idea of a ‘double’ with a new
meaning and to ascribe a number of things to it — above all,
those things which seem to self-criticism to belong to the old
surmounted narcissism of earliest times.
ut it is not only this latter material, offensive as it is to the
criticism of the ego, which may be incorporated in the idea
of a double. There are also all the unfulfilled but possible
futures to which we still like to cling in phantasy, all the
strivings of the ego which adverse external circumstances have
87
crushed, and all our suppressed acts of volition which nourish in
us the illusion of Free Will.
But after having thus considered the manifest motivation
of the figure of a 'double', we have to admit that none of this
helps us to understand the extraordinarily strong feeling of
something uncanny that pervades the conception; and our
knowledge of pathological mental processes enables us to add
that nothing in this more superficial material could account for
the urge towards defense which has caused the ego to project
that material outward as something foreign to itself. When all is
said and done, the quality of uncanniness can only come from
the fact of the 'double' being a creation dating back to a very
early mental stage, long since surmounted — a stage, incidental-
ly, at which it wore a more friendly aspect. The 'double' has
become a thing of terror, just as, after the collapse of
their religion, the gods turned into demons.
The other forms of ego-disturbance exploited by
Hoffmann can easily be estimated along the same lines as
the theme of the ‘double’. They are a harking-back to
particular phases in the evolution of the self-
regarding feeling, a regression to a time when
the ego had not yet marked itself off sharply
from the external world and from other peo-
ple. I believe that these factors are partly
responsible for the impression of uncanni-
ness, although it is not easy to isolate and
determine exactly their share of it.
The factor of the repetition of the
same thing will perhaps not appeal to every-
one as a source of uncanny feeling. From
what I have observed, this phenomenon does
undoubtedly, subject to certain conditions and
combined with certain circumstances, arouse an
88
uncanny feeling, which, furthermore, recalls the sense of help-
lessness experienced in some dream-states. As I was walking,
one hot summer afternoon, through the deserted streets of a
provincial town in Italy which was unknown to me, I found my-
self in a quarter of whose character I could not long remain in
doubt. nothing but painted women were to be seen at the win-
dows of the small houses, and I hastened to leave the narrow
street at the next turning. But after having wandered about for a
time without enquiring my way, I suddenly found myself back in
the same street, where my presence was now beginning to ex-
cite attention. I hurried away once more, only to arrive by anoth-
er detour at the same place yet a third time. Now, however, a
feeling overcame me which I can only describe as uncanny, and I
was glad enough to find myself back at the piazza I had left a
short while before, without any further voyages of discovery.
Other situations which have in common with my adventure an
unintended recurrence of the same situation, but which differ
radically from it in other respects, also result in the same feeling
of helplessness and of uncanniness. So, for instance, when,
caught in a mist perhaps, one has lost one’s way in a mountain
forest, every attempt to find the marked or familiar path may
bring one back again and again to one and the same spot, which
one can identify by some particular landmark. Or one may wan-
der about in a dark, strange room, looking for the door or the
electric switch, and collide time after time with the same piece of
furniture -- though it is true that Mark Twain succeeded by wild
exaggeration in turning this latter situation into something irre-
sistibly comic.
we take another class of things, it is easy to see that
there, too, it is only this factor of involuntary repetition
which surrounds what would otherwise by innocent
enough with an uncanny atmosphere, and forces upon
us the idea of something fateful and inescapable when other-
wise we should have spoken only of ‘chance’. For instance, we
naturally attach no importance to the event when we hand in an
overcoat and get a cloakroom ticket with the number, let us say,
62; or when we find that our cabin on a ship bears that number.
But the impression is altered if two such events, each in itself in-
different, happen close together — if we come across the num-
ber 62 several times in a single day, or if we begin to notice that
everything which has a number — addresses, hotel rooms, com-
partments in railway trains — invariably has the same one, or at
all events one which contains the same figures. We do feel this
to be uncanny. And unless a man is utterly hardened and proof
against the lure of superstition, he will be tempted to ascribe a
secret meaning to this obstinate recurrence of a number; he will
take it, perhaps, as an indication of the span of life allotted to
him. Or suppose one is engaged in reading the works of the fa-
mous physiologist, Hering, and within the space of a few days
receives two letters from two different countries, each from a
person called Hering, though one has never before had any
dealings with anyone of that name. Not long ago an ingenious
scientist (Kammerer, 1919) attempted to reduce coincidences of
this kind to certain laws, and so deprive them of their uncanny
effect. I will not venture to decide whether he has succeeded or
not.
How exactly we can trace back to infantile psychology the
uncanny effect of such similar recurrences is a question I can on-
ly lightly touch on in these pages; and I must refer the reader
instead to another work, already completed, in which this has
been gone into in detail, but in a different connection. For it is
possible to recognize the dominance in the unconscious mind of
a 'compulsion to repeat' proceeding from the instinctual impuls-
es and probably inherent in the very nature of the instincts — a
compulsion powerful enough to overrule the pleasure principle,
lending to certain aspects of the mind their daemonic character,
and still very clearly expressed in the impulses of small children;
a compulsion, too, which is responsible for a part of the course
taken by the analyses of neurotic patients. All these considera-
tions prepare us for the discovery that whatever reminds us of
this inner 'compulsion to repeat' is perceived as uncanny.
Now, however, it is time to turn from these aspects of the
matter, which are in any case difficult to judge, and look for
some undeniable instances of the uncanny, in the hope that an
analysis of them will decide whether our hypothesis is a valid
one.
In the story of "The Ring of Polycrates’, The king of Egypt
turns away in horror from his host, Polycrates, because he sees
that his friend’s every wish is at once fulfilled, his every care
promptly removed by kindly fate. His host has become ‘uncanny’
to him. His own explanation, that the too fortunate man has to
fear the envy of the gods, seems obscure to us; its meaning is
veiled in mythological language. We will therefore turn to anoth-
er example in a less grandiose setting.
In the case history of an obsessional neurotic, I have de-
scribed how the patient once stayed in a hydropathic establish-
ment and benefited greatly by it. He had the good sense, how-
ever, to attribute his improvement not to the therapeutic prop-
erties of the water, but to the situation of his room, which imme-
diately adjoined that of a very accommodating nurse. So on his
second visit to the establishment he asked for the same room,
but was told that it was already occupied by an old gentleman,
whereupon he gave vent to his annoyance in the words: ‘I wish
he may be struck dead for it.’ A fortnight later the old gentleman
really did have a stroke. My patient thought this an ‘uncanny’
experience. The impression of uncanniness would have been
stronger still if less time had elapsed between his words and the
untoward event, or if he had been able to report innumerable
89
similar coincidences. As a matter of fact, he had no difficulty in
producing coincidences of this sort; but then not only he but
every obsessional neurotic I have observed has been able to re-
late analogous experiences. They are never surprised at their in-
variably running up against someone they have just been think-
ing of, perhaps for the first time for a long while. If they say one
day 'I haven't had any news of so-and-so for a long time', they
will be sure to get a letter from him the next morning, and an
accident or a death will rarely take place without having passed
through their mind a little while before. They are in the habit of
referring to this state of affairs in the most modest manner, say-
ing that they have 'presentiments' which 'usually' come true.
One of the most uncanny and wide-spread forms of su-
perstition is the dread of the evil eye, which has been exhaust-
ively studied by the Hamburg oculist Seligmann (1910-11). There
never seems to have been any doubt about the source of this
dread. Whoever possesses something that is at once valuable
and fragile is afraid of other people's envy, in so far as he pro-
jects on to them the envy he would have felt in their place. A
feeling like this betrays itself by a look even though it is not put
into words; and when a man is prominent owing to noticeable,
and particularly owing to unattractive, attributes, other people
are ready to believe that his envy is rising to a more than usual
degree of intensity and that this intensity will convert it into ef-
fective action. What is feared is thus a secret intention of doing
harm, and certain signs are taken to mean that that intention has
the necessary power at its commend.
These last examples of the uncanny are to be referred to
the principle which I have called 'omnipotence of thoughts', tak-
ing, the name from an expression used by one of my patients.
And now we find ourselves on familiar ground. Our analysis of
instances of the uncanny has led us back to the old, animistic
90
conception of the universe. This was characterized by the idea
that the world was peopled with the spirits of human beings; by
the subject's narcissistic overvaluation of his own mental pro-
cesses; by the belief in the omnipotence of thoughts and the
technique of magic based on that belief; by the attribution to
various outside persons and things of carefully graded magical
powers, or 'mama'; as well as by all the other creations with the
help of which man, in the unrestricted narcissism of that stage of
development, strove to fend off the manifest prohibitions of re-
ality. It seems as if each one of us has been through a phase of
individual development corresponding to this animistic stage in
primitive men, that none of us has passed through it without
preserving certain residues and traces of it which are still capa-
ble of manifesting themselves, and that everything which now
strikes us as 'uncanny' fulfills the condition of touching those
residues of animistic mental activity within us and bringing them
to expression.
this point I will put forward two considerations
which, I think, contain the gist of this short study. In
the first place, if psycho-analytic theory is correct in
maintaining that every affect belonging to an emo-
tional impulse, whatever its kind, is transformed, if it is re-
pressed, into anxiety, then among instances of frightening things
there must be one class in which the frightening element can be
shown to be something repressed which recurs. This class of
frightening things would then constitute the uncanny; and it
must be a matter of indifference whether what is uncanny was
itself originally frightening or whether it carried some other af-
fect. In the second place, if this is indeed the secret nature of the
uncanny, we can understand why linguistic usage has extended
(Continued on page 91)
(Continued from page 90)
das Heimliche [‘homely’] into its opposite, das Unheimliche (p.
226); for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but
something which is familiar and old-established in the mind and
which has become alienated from it only through the process of
repression. This reference to the factor of repression enables us,
furthermore, to understand Schelling’s definition [p. 224] of the
uncanny as something which ought to have remained hidden
but has come to light.
It only remains for us to test our new hypothesis on one
or two more examples of the uncanny.
any people experience the feeling in the highest de-
gree in relation to death and dead bodies, to the return
of the dead, and to spirits and ghosts. As we have seen
some languages in use to-day can only render the Ger-
man expression ‘an unheimlich house’ by ‘a haunted house’. We
might indeed have begun our investigation with this example,
perhaps the most striking of all, of something uncanny, but we
refrained from doing so because the uncanny in it is too much
intermixed with what is purely gruesome and is in part overlaid
by it.
There is scarcely any other matter, however, upon which
our thoughts and feelings have changed so little since the very
earliest times, and in which discarded forms have been so com-
pletely preserved under a thin disguise, as our relation to death.
Two things account for our conservatism: the strength of our
original emotional reaction to death and the insufficiency of our
scientific knowledge about it. Biology has not yet been able to
decide whether death is the inevitable fate of every living being
or whether it is only a regular but yet perhaps avoidable event in
life. It is true that the statement ‘All men are mortal’ is paraded
in text-books of logic as an example of a general proposition;
but no human being really grasps it, and our unconscious has as
little use now as it ever had for the idea of its own mortality. Re-
ligions continue to dispute the importance of the undeniable
fact of individual death and to postulate a life after death; civil
governments still believe that they cannot maintain moral order
among the living if they do not uphold the prospect of a better
life hereafter as a recompense for mundane existence. In our
great cities, placards announce lectures that undertake to tell us
how to get into touch with the souls of the departed; and it can-
not be denied that not a few of the most able and penetrating
minds among our men of science have come to the conclusion,
especially towards the close of their own lives, that a contact of
this kind is not impossible. Since almost all of us still think as
savages do on this topic, it is no matter for surprise that the
primitive fear of the dead is still so strong within us and always
ready to come to the surface on any provocation. Most likely our
fear still implies the old belief that the dead man becomes the
enemy of his survivor and seeks to carry him off to share his new
life with him. Considering our unchanged attitude towards
death, we might rather enquire what has become of the repres-
sion, which is the necessary condition of a primitive feeling re-
curring in the shape of something uncanny. But repression is
there, too. All supposedly educated people have ceased to be-
lieve officially that the dead can become visible as spirits, and
have made any such appearances dependent on improbable and
remote conditions; their emotional attitude towards their dead,
moreover, once a highly ambiguous and ambivalent one, has
been toned down in the higher strata of the mind into an unam-
biguous feeling of piety.
We have now only a few remarks to add — for animism,
magic and sorcery, the omnipotence of thoughts, man's attitude
to death, involuntary repetition and the castration complex com-
91
prise practically all the factors which turn something fright-
ening into something uncanny.
can also speak of a living person as uncanny,
and we do so when we ascribe evil
intentions to him. But that is not all;
in addition to this we must feel that his
intentions to harm us are going to be carried out with
the help of special powers. A good instance of this is the
‘Gettatore’, that uncanny figure of Romanic superstition
which Schaeffer, with intuitive poetic feeling and profound
psycho-analytic understanding, has transformed into a sympa-
thetic character in his Josef Montfort. But the question of these
secret powers brings us back again to the realm of animism. It
was the pious Gretchen’s intuition that Mephistopheles possessed
secret powers of this kind that made him so uncanny to her.
Sic fühlt dass ich ganz sicher ein Genie,
Vielleieht sogar der Teufel bin.
The uncanny effect of epilepsy and of madness has the
same origin. The layman sees in them the working of forces hith-
erto unsuspected in his fellow-men, but at the same time he is
dimly aware of them in remote corners of his own being. The
Middle Ages quite consistently ascribed all such maladies to the
influence of demons, and in this their psychology was almost cor-
rect. Indeed, I should not be surprised to hear that psycho-
analysis, which is concerned with laying bare these hidden forces,
has itself become uncanny to many people for that very reason. In
one case, after I had succeeded — though none too rapidly — in
effecting a cure in a girl who had been an invalid for many years, I
myself heard this view expressed by the patient’s mother long af-
92
ter her recovery.
Dismembered limbs, a severed head, a hand cut
off at the wrist, as in a fairy tale of Hauff's, feet which
dance by themselves, as in the book by Schaeffer
which I mentioned above — all these have something
peculiarly uncanny about them, especially when, as in the
last instance, they prove capable of independent activity in
addition. As we already know, this kind of uncanniness
springs from its proximity to the castration complex. To
some people the idea of being buried alive by mistake is
the most uncanny thing of all. And yet psycho-analysis
has taught us that this terrifying phantasy is only a
transformation of another phantasy which had origi-
nally nothing terrifying about it at all, but was qualified
by a certain lasciviousness — the phantasy, I mean, of intra-
uterine existence.
There is one more point of general application which I
should like to add, though, strictly speaking, it has been included
in what has already been said about animism and modes of work-
ing of the mental apparatus that have been surmounted; for I
think it deserves special emphasis. This is that an uncanny effect is
often and easily produced when the distinction between imagina-
tion and reality is effaced, as when something that we have hith-
erto regarded as imaginary appears before us in reality, or when a
symbol takes over the full functions of the thing it symbolizes, and
so on. It is this factor which contributes not a little to the uncanny
effect attaching to magical practices. The infantile element in this,
which also dominates the minds of neurotics, is the over-
accentuation of psychical reality in comparison with material reali-
ty — a feature closely allied to the belief in the omnipotence of
thoughts. In the middle of the isolation of war-time a number of
the English Strand Magazine fell into my hands; and, among other
somewhat redundant matter, I read a story about a young married undergone repression and then returned from it, and that every-
couple who move into a furnished house in which there is a curi- thing that is uncanny fulfills this condition. But the selection of
ously shaped table with carvings of crocodiles on it. Towards material on this basis does not enable us to solve the problem of
evening an intolerable and very specific smell begins to pervade the uncanny. For our proposition is clearly not convertible. Not
the house; they stumble over something in the dark; they seem to everything that fulfills this condition — not everything that recalls
see a vague form gliding over the stairs — in short, we are given repressed desires and surmounted modes of thinking belonging
to understand that the presence of the table causes ghostly croco- to the prehistory of the individual and of the race — is on that ac-
diles to haunt the place, or that the wooden monsters come to life count uncanny.
in the dark, or something of that sort. It was a naïve enough story, Nor shall we conceal the fact that for almost every example
but the uncanny feeling it produced was quite remarkable. adduced in support of our hypothesis one may be found which
To conclude this collection of examples, which is certainly rebuts it. The story of the severed hand in Wilhelm Hauff’s fairy
not complete, I will relate an instance taken from psycho-analytic tale certainly has an uncanny effect, and we have traced that effect
experience; if it does not rest upon mere coincidence, it furnishes back to the castration complex; but most readers will probably
a beautiful confirmation of our theory of the uncanny. It often agree with me in judging that no trace of uncanniness is provoked
happens that neurotic men declare that they feel there is some- by Herodotus’s story of the treasure of Phampsinitus, in which the
thing uncanny about the female genital organs. This unheimlich master-thief, whom the princess tries to hold fast by the hand,
place, however, is the entrance to the former Heim [home] of all leaves his brother’s severed hand behind with her instead. Again,
human beings, to the place where each one of us lived once upon the prompt fulfillment of the wishes of Polycrates undoubtedly af-
a time and in the beginning. there is a joking saying that ‘Love is fects us in the same uncanny way as it did the king of Egypt; yet
home-sickness’; and whenever a man dreams of a place or a coun- our own fairy stories are crammed with instantaneous wish-
try and says to himself, while he is still dreaming: ‘this place is fa-
fulfillments which produce no uncanny effect whatever. In the sto-
miliar to me, I’ve been here before’, we may interpret the place as ry of ‘The Three Wishes’, the woman is tempted by the savory
being his mother’s genitals or her body. In this case too, then, the smell of a sausage to wish that she might have one too, and in an
unheimlich is what was once heimisch, familiar; the prefix ‘un’ [‘un-instant it lies on a plate before her. In his annoyance at her hasti-
’] is the token of repression. ness her husband wishes it may hang on her nose. And there it is,
dangling from her nose. All this is very striking but not in the least
III uncanny. Fairy tales quite frankly adopt the animistic standpoint of
the omnipotence of thoughts and wishes, and yet I cannot think of
the course of this discussion the reader will have felt cer- any genuine fairy story which has anything uncanny about it. We
tain doubts arising in his mind; and he must now have an have heard that it is in the highest degree uncanny when an inani-
opportunity of collecting them and bringing them for- mate object — a picture or a doll — comes to life; nevertheless in
ward. It may be true that the uncanny [unheimlich] is Hans Andersen’s stories the household utensils, furniture and tin
something which is secretly familiar [heimlich-heimisch], which has (Continued on page 94)

93
(Continued from page 93)
soldiers are alive, yet nothing could well be more remote from the
uncanny. And we should hardly call it uncanny when Pygmalion’s
beautiful statue comes to life.
pparent death and the re-animation of the dead have been
represented as most uncanny themes. But things of this
sort too are very common in fairy stories. Who would be so
bold as to call it uncanny, for instance, when Snow-White
opens her eyes once more? And the resuscitation of the dead in
accounts of miracles, as in the New Testament, elicits feelings
quite unrelated to the uncanny. Then, too, the theme that achieves
such an indubitably uncanny effect, the unintended recurrence of
the same thing, serves other and quite different purposes in an-
other class of cases. We have already come across one example in
which it is employed to call up a feeling of the comic; and we
could multiply instances of this kind. Or again, it works as a means
of emphasis, and so on. And once more: what is the origin of the
uncanny effect of silence, darkness and solitude?
Do not these factors point to the part played by danger in
the genesis of what is uncanny, notwithstanding that in children
these same factors are the most frequent determinants of the ex-
pression of fear [rather than of the uncanny]? And are we after all
justified in entirely ignoring intellectual uncertainty as a factor,
seeing that we have admitted its importance in relation to death?
It is evident therefore, that we must be prepared to admit
that there are other elements besides those which we have so far
laid down as determining the production of uncanny feelings. We
might say that these preliminary results have satisfied psycho-
analytic interest in the problem of the uncanny, and that what re-
mains probably calls for an aesthetic enquiry. But that would be to
open the door to doubts about what exactly is the value of our
94
general contention that the uncanny proceeds from something
familiar which has been repressed.
We have noticed one point which may help us to resolve
these uncertainties: nearly all the instances that contradict our hy-
pothesis are taken from the realm of fiction, of imaginative writing.
This suggests that we should differentiate between the uncanny
that we actually experience and the uncanny that we merely pic-
ture or read about.
What is experienced as uncanny is much more simply con-
ditioned but comprises far fewer instances. We shall find, I think,
that it fits in perfectly with our attempt at a solution, and can be
traced back without exception to something familiar that has been
repressed. But here, too, we must make a certain important and
psychologically significant differentiation in our material, which is
best illustrated by turning to suitable examples.
Let us take the uncanny associated with the omnipotence of
thoughts, with the prompt fulfillment of wishes, with secret injuri-
ous powers and with the return of the dead. The condition under
which the feeling of uncanniness arises here is unmistakable. We
— or our primitive forefathers — once believed that these possi-
bilities were realities, and were convinced that they actually hap-
pened. Nowadays we no longer believe in them, we have sur-
mounted these modes of thought; but we do not feel quite sure of
our new beliefs, and the old ones still exist within us ready to seize
upon any confirmation. As soon as something actually happens in
our lives which seems to confirm the old, discarded beliefs we get
a feeling of the uncanny; it is as though we were making a judg-
ment something like this: ‘So, after all, it is true that one can kill a
person by the mere wish!’ or, ‘So the dead do live on and appear
on the scene of their former activities!’ and so on. Conversely, any-
one who has completely and finally rid himself of animistic beliefs
will be insensible to this type of the uncanny. The most remarkable
coincidences of wish and fulfillment, the most mysterious repeti-
...an uncanny experience occurs either when
infantile complexes which have been re-
pressed are once more revived by some im-
pression, or when primitive beliefs which
have been surmounted seem once more to be
confirmed...
tion of similar experiences in a particular place or on a particular
date, the most deceptive sights and suspicious noises — none of
these things will disconcert him or raise the kind of fear which can
be described as ‘a fear of something uncanny’. The whole thing is
purely an affair of ‘reality-testing’, a question of the material reali-
ty of the phenomena.
The state of affairs is different when the uncanny proceeds
from repressed infantile complexes, from the castration complex,
womb-phantasies, etc.’ but experiences which arouse this kind of
uncanny feeling are not of very frequent occurrence in real life.
The uncanny which proceeds from actual experience belongs for
the most part to the first group [the group dealt with in the previ-
ous paragraph]. Nevertheless the distinction between the two is
theoretically very important. Where the uncanny comes from in-
fantile complexes the question of material reality does not arise;
its place is taken by psychical reality. What is involved is an actual
repression of some content of thought and a return of this re-
pressed content, not a cessation of belief in the reality of such a
content. We might say that in the one case what had been re-
pressed is a particular ideational content, and in the other the be-
lief in its (material) reality. But this last phrase no doubt extends
the term ‘repression’ beyond its legitimate meaning. It would be
more correct to take into account a psychological distinction
which can be detected here, and to say that the animistic beliefs
of civilized people are in a state of having been (to a greater or
lesser extent) surmounted [rather than repressed]. Our conclusion
could then be stated thus: an uncanny experience occurs either
when infantile complexes which have been repressed are once
more revived by some impression, or when primitive beliefs which
have been surmounted seem once more to be confirmed. Finally,
we must not let our predilection for smooth solutions and lucid
exposition blind us to the fact that these two classes of uncanny
experience are not always sharply distinguishable. When we con-
sider that primitive beliefs are most intimately connected with in-
fantile complexes, and are, in fact, based on them, we shall not be
greatly astonished to find that the distinction is often a hazy one.
The uncanny as it is depicted in literature, in stories and
imaginative productions, merits in truth a separate discussion.
Above all, it is a much more fertile province than the uncanny in
real life, for it contains the whole of the latter and something
more besides, something that cannot be found in real life. The
contrast between what has been repressed and what has been
surmounted cannot be transposed on to the uncanny in fiction
without profound modification; for the realm of phantasy de-
pends for its effect on the fact that its content is not submitted to
reality-testing. The somewhat paradoxical result is that in the first
place a great deal that is not uncanny in fiction would be so if it
happened in real life; and in the second place that there are many
more means of creating uncanny effects in fiction than there are
in real life.
The imaginative writer has this license among many others,
that he can select his world of representation so that it either co-
incides with the realities we are familiar with or departs from them
in what particulars he pleases. We accept his ruling in every case.
In fairy tales, for instance, the world of reality is left behind from
95
 the very start, and the animistic system of beliefs is frankly adopt-
ed. Wish-fulfillments, secret powers, omnipotence of thoughts,
animation of inanimate objects, all the elements so common in
fairy stories, can exert no uncanny influence here; for, as we have
learnt, that feeling cannot arise unless there is a conflict of judg-
ment as to whether things which have been 'surmounted' and are
regarded as incredible may not, after all, be possible; and this
problem is eliminated from the outset by the postulates of the
world of fairy tales. Thus we see that fairy stories, which have fur-
nished us with most of the contradictions to our hypothesis of the
uncanny, confirm the first part of our proposition — that in the
realm of fiction many things are not uncanny which would be so if
they happened in real life. In the case of these stories there are
other contributory factors, which we shall briefly touch upon later.
The creative writer can also choose a setting which though
less imaginary than the world of fairy tales, does yet differ from
the real world by admitting superior spiritual beings such as dae-
monic spirits or ghosts of the dead. So long as they remain within
their setting of poetic reality, such figures lose any uncanniness
which they might possess. The souls in Dante's Inferno, or the su-
pernatural apparitions in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Macbeth or Julius
Caesar, may be gloomy and terrible enough, but they are no more
really uncanny than Homer’s jovial world of gods. We adapt our
judgment to the imaginary reality imposed on us by the writer,
and regard souls, spirits and ghosts as though their existence had
the same validity as our own has in material reality. In this case
too we avoid all trace of the uncanny.
The situation is altered as soon as the writer pretends to
move in the world of common reality. In this case he accepts as
well all the conditions operating to produce uncanny feelings in
real life; and everything that would have an uncanny effect in real-
ity has it in his story. But in this case he can even increase his ef-
96
fect and multiply it far beyond what could happen in reality, by
bringing about events which never or very rarely happen in fact.
In doing this he is in a sense betraying us to the superstitiousness
which we have ostensibly surmounted; he deceives us by promis-
ing to give us the sober truth, and then after all overstepping it.
We react to his inventions as we would have reacted to real expe-
riences; by the time we have seen through his trick it is already
too late and the author has achieved his object. But it must be
added that his success is not unalloyed. We retain a feeling of dis-
satisfaction, a kind of grudge against the attempted deceit. I have
noticed this particularly after reading Schnitzler's Die Weissagung
[The Prophecy] and similar stories which flirt with the supernatu-
ral. However, the writer has one more means which he can use in
order to avoid our recalcitrance and at the same time to improve
his chances of success. He can keep us in the dark for a long time
about the precise nature of the presuppositions on which the
world he writes about is based, or he can cunningly and ingen-
iously avoid any definite information on the point to the last.
Speaking generally, however, we find a confirmation of the se-
cond part of our proposition — that fiction presents more oppor-
tunities for creating uncanny feelings than are possible in real life.
Strictly speaking, all these complications relate only to that
class of the uncanny which proceeds from forms of thought that
have been surmounted. The class which proceeds from repressed
complexes is more resistant and remains as powerful in fiction as
in real experience, subject to one exception. The uncanny belong-
ing to the first class — that proceeding from forms of thought
that have been surmounted — retains its character not only in ex-
perience but in fiction as well, so long as the setting is one of ma-
terial reality; but where it is given an arbitrary and artificial setting
in fiction, it is apt to lose that character.
 have clearly not exhausted the pos-
sibilities of poetic license and the
privileges enjoyed by story-writers in
evoking or in excluding an uncanny
feeling. In the main we adopt an unvarying passive
attitude towards real experience and are subject
to the influence of our physical environment. But
the story-teller has a peculiarly directive power
over us; by means of the moods he can put us in-
to, he is able to guide the current of our emotions,
to dam it up in one direction and make it flow in
another, and he often obtains a great variety of
effects from the same material. All this is nothing
new, and has doubtless long since been fully tak-
en into account by students of aesthetics. We
have drifted into this field of research half involun-
tarily, through the temptation to explain certain
instances which contradicted our theory of the
causes of the uncanny. Accordingly we will now
return to the examination of a few of those in-
stances.
We have already asked why it is that the
severed hand in the story of the treasure of
Rhampsinitus has no uncanny effect in the way
that the severed hand has in Hauff’s story. The
question seems to have gained in importance now
that we have recognized that the class of the un-
canny which proceeds from repressed complexes
is the more resistant of the two. The answer is
easy. In the Herodotus story our thoughts are con-
centrated much more on the superior cunning of
the master-thief than on the feelings of the prin-
cess. The princess may very well have had an un-
canny feeling, indeed she very probably fell into a
swoon; but we have no such sensations, for we
put ourselves in the thief's place, not in hers. In
Nestroy's farce, Der Zerrissene [The Torn Man],
another means is used to avoid any impression of
the uncanny in the scene in which the fleeing man,
convinced that he is a murderer, lifts up one trap-
door after another and each time sees what he
takes to be the ghost of his victim rising up out of
it. He calls out in despair, 'But I've only killed one
man. Why this ghastly multiplication?' We know
what went before this scene and do not share his
error, so what must be uncanny to him has an irre-
sistibly comic effect on us. Even a 'real' ghost, as in
Oscar Wilde's Canterville Ghost, loses all power of
at least arousing gruesome feelings in us as soon
as the author begins to amuse himself by being
ironical about it and allows liberties to be taken
with it. Thus we see how independent emotional
effects can be of the actual subject-matter in the
world of fiction. In fairy stories feelings of fear —
including therefore uncanny feelings — are ruled
out altogether. We understand this, and that is
why we ignore any opportunities we find in them
for developing such feelings.
Concerning the factors of silence, solitude
and darkness, we can only say that they are actu-
ally elements in the production of the infantile
anxiety from which the majority of human beings
have never become quite free. This problem has
been discussed from a psycho-analytic point of
view elsewhere.
97
 FICTION
The Sand-Man
NATHANAEL TO LOTHAIR

I
know you are all very uneasy because I have not written for such a long, long time.
Mother, to be sure, is angry, and Clara, I dare say, believes I am living here in riot and
revelry, and quite forgetting my sweet angel, whose image is so deeply engraved upon
my heart and mind. But that is not so; daily and hourly do I think of you all, and my
lovely Clara's form comes to gladden me in my dreams, and smiles upon me with her bright
eyes, as graciously as she used to do in the days when I went in and out amongst you.
Oh! how could I write to you in the distracted state of mind in which I have been, and
which, until now, has quite bewildered me! A terrible thing has happened to me. Dark forebod-
ings of some awful fate threatening me are spreading themselves out over my head like black
clouds, impenetrable to every friendly ray of sunlight. I must now tell you what has taken place;
I must, that I see well enough, but only to think upon it makes the wild laughter burst from my
lips.
Oh! my dear, dear Lothair, what shall I say to make you feel, if only in an inadequate
way, that that which happened to me a few days ago could thus really exercise such a hostile
and disturbing influence upon my life? Oh that you were here to see for yourself! But now you
will, I suppose, take me for a superstitious ghost-seer. In a word, the terrible thing which I have
experienced, the fatal effect of which I in vain exert every effort to shake off, is simply that some
days ago, namely, on the 30th October, at twelve o'clock at noon, a dealer in weather-glasses
came into my room and wanted to sell me one of his wares. I bought nothing, and threatened
to kick him downstairs, whereupon he went away of his own accord.
You will conclude that it can only be very peculiar relations-- relations intimately inter-
twined with my life--that can give significance to this event, and that it must be the person of
this unfortunate hawker which has had such a very inimical effect upon me. And so it really is. I
will summon up all my faculties in order to narrate to you calmly and patiently as much of the

98
All woodcuts are by artist and printmaker Daniel Niklaus Chodowiecki, who is mentioned in this story.
early days of my youth as will suffice to put matters before you in such a way
that your keen sharp intellect may grasp everything clearly and distinctly, in
bright and living pictures. Just as I am beginning, I hear you laugh and Clara
say, "What's all this childish nonsense about!" Well, laugh at me, laugh heartily
at me, pray do. But, good God! my hair is standing on end, and I seem to be
entreating you to laugh at me in the same sort of frantic despair in which Franz
Moor entreated Daniel to laugh him to scorn. But to my story.
Except at dinner we, I and my brothers and sisters, saw but little of our
father all day long. His business no doubt took up most of his time. After our
evening meal, which, in accordance with an old custom, was served at seven
o'clock, we all went, mother with us, into father's room, and took our places
around a round table. My father smoked his pipe, drinking a large glass of beer
to it. Often he told us many wonderful stories, and got so excited over them
that his pipe always went out; I used then to light it for him with a spill, and this
formed my chief amusement. Often, again, he would give us picture-books to
look at, whilst he sat silent and motionless in his easy-chair, puffing out such
dense clouds of smoke that we were all as it were enveloped in mist.
On such evenings mother was very sad; and directly it struck nine she
said, "Come, children! off to bed! Come! The 'Sand-man' is come I see." And I
always did seem to hear something trampling upstairs with slow heavy steps;
that must be the Sand-man.
Once in particular I was very much frightened at this dull trampling and
knocking; as mother was leading us out of the room I asked her, "O mamma!
but who is this nasty Sand-man who always sends us away from papa? What
does he look like?" "There is no Sand-man, my dear child," mother answered; comes to little children when they won't go to bed and throws handfuls of sand
"when I say the Sand-man is come, I only mean that you are sleepy and can't in their eyes, so that they jump out of their heads all bloody; and he puts them
keep your eyes open, as if somebody had put sand in them." This answer of into a bag and takes them to the half-moon as food for his little ones; and they
mother's did not satisfy me; nay, in my childish mind the thought clearly un- sit there in the nest and have hooked beaks like owls, and they pick naughty
folded itself that mother denied there was a Sand-man only to prevent us be- little boys' and girls' eyes out with them."
ing afraid,--why, I always heard him come upstairs. After this I formed in my own mind a horrible picture of the cruel Sand-
Full of curiosity to learn something more about this Sand-man and man. When anything came blundering upstairs at night I trembled with fear
what he had to do with us children, I at length asked the old woman who acted and dismay; and all that my mother could get out of me were the stammered
as my youngest sister's attendant, what sort of a man he was--the Sand-man? words "The Sandman! the Sand-man!" whilst the tears coursed down my
"Why, 'than darling, don't you know?" she replied. "Oh! he's a wicked man, who cheeks.

99
Then I ran into my bedroom, and the whole night through tormented myself ther's room and there wait for the Sand-man.
with the terrible apparition of the Sand-man. One evening I perceived from my father's silence and mother's sadness
I was quite old enough to perceive that the old woman's tale about the that the Sand-man would come; accordingly, pleading that I was excessively
Sand-man and his little ones' nest in the half-moon couldn't be altogether true; tired, I left the room before nine o'clock and concealed myself in a hiding-place
nevertheless the Sand-man continued to be for me a fearful incubus, and I was close beside the door. The street door creaked, and slow, heavy, echoing steps
always seized with terror--my blood always ran cold, not only when I heard an- crossed the passage towards the stairs. Mother hurried past me with my broth-
ybody come up the stairs, but when I heard anybody noisily open my father's ers and sisters.
room door and go in. Often he stayed away for a long season altogether; then Softly--softly--I opened father's room door. He sat as usual, silent and
he would come several times in close succession. motionless, with his back towards it; he did not hear me; and in a moment I was
This went on for years, without my being able to accustom myself to in and behind a curtain drawn before my father's open wardrobe, which stood
this fearful apparition, without the image of the horrible Sand-man growing any just inside the room. Nearer and nearer and nearer came the echoing footsteps.
fainter in my imagination. His Intercourse with my father began to occupy my There was a strange coughing and shuffling and mumbling outside. My heart
fancy ever more and more; I was restrained from asking my father about him by beat with expectation and fear.
an unconquerable shyness; but as the years went on the desire waxed stronger A quick step now close, close beside the door, a noisy rattle of the han-
and stronger within me to fathom the mystery myself and to see the fabulous dle, and the door flies open with a bang. Recovering my courage with an effort,
Sand-man. He had been the means of disclosing to me the path of the wonder- I take a cautious peep out. In the middle of the room in front of my father
ful and the adventurous, which so easily find lodgment in the mind of the child. stands the Sand-man, the bright light of the lamp falling full upon his face. The
I liked nothing better than to hear or read horrible stories of goblins, witches, Sand-man, the terrible Sand-man, is the old advocate Coppelius who often
Tom Thumbs, and so on; but always at the head of them all stood the Sand- comes to dine with us.
man, whose picture I scribbled in the most extraordinary and repulsive forms But the most hideous figure could not have awakened greater trepida-
with both chalk and coal everywhere, on the tables, and cupboard doors, and tion in my heart than this Coppelius did. Picture to yourself a large broad-
walls. When I was ten years old my mother removed me from the nursery into a shouldered man, with an immensely big head, a face the color of yellow-ochre,
little chamber off the corridor not far from my father's room. We still had to grey bushy eyebrows, from beneath which two piercing, greenish, cat-like eyes
withdraw hastily whenever, on the stroke of nine, the mysterious unknown was glittered, and a prominent Roman nose hanging over his upper lip. His distort-
heard in the house. ed mouth was often screwed up into a malicious smile; then two dark-red spots
As I lay in my little chamber I could hear him go into father's room, and appeared on his cheeks, and a strange hissing noise proceeded from between
soon afterwards I fancied there was a fine and peculiar smelling steam spread- his tightly clenched teeth.
ing itself through the house. As my curiosity waxed stronger, my resolve to He always wore an ash-grey coat of an old-fashioned cut, a waistcoat
make somehow or other the Sand-man's acquaintance took deeper root. Often of the same, and nether extremities to match, but black stockings and buckles
when my mother had gone past, I slipped quickly out of my room into the cor- set with stones on his shoes. His little wig scarcely extended beyond the crown
ridor, but I could never see anything, for always before I could reach the place of his head, his hair was curled round high up above his big red ears, and plas-
where I could get sight of him, the Sand-man was well inside the door. At last, tered to his temples with cosmetic, and a broad closed hair-bag stood out
unable to resist the impulse any longer, I determined to conceal myself in fa- (Continued on page 101)

100
prominently from his neck, so that you could see the silver buckle that fastened
his folded neck-cloth.
Altogether he was a most disagreeable and horribly ugly figure; but
what we children detested most of all was his big coarse hairy hands; we could
never fancy anything that he had once touched. This he had noticed; and so,
whenever our good mother quietly placed a piece of cake or sweet fruit on our
plates, he delighted to touch it under some pretext or other, until the bright
tears stood in our eyes, and from disgust and loathing we lost the enjoyment of tures seemed to be drawn up by some dreadful convulsive pain into an ugly,
the tit-bit that was intended to please us. And he did just the same thing when
father gave us a glass of sweet wine on holidays. Then he would quickly pass his
hand over it, or even sometimes raise the glass to his blue lips, and he laughed
quite sardonically when all we dared do was to express our vexation in stifled
sobs.
He habitually called us the "little brutes;" and when he was present we
might not utter a sound; and we cursed the ugly spiteful man who deliberately
and intentionally spoiled all our little pleasures.
Mother seemed to dislike this hateful Coppelius as much as we did; for
as soon as he appeared her cheerfulness and bright and natural manner were
transformed into sad, gloomy seriousness. Father treated him as if he were a
being of some higher race, whose ill-manners were to be tolerated, whilst no
efforts ought to be spared to keep him in good-humor. He had only to give a
slight hint, and his favorite dishes were cooked for him and rare wine uncorked.
As soon as I saw this Coppelius, therefore, the fearful and hideous
thought arose in my mind that he, and he alone, must be the Sand-man; but I
no longer conceived of the Sand-man as the bugbear in the old nurse's fable,
who fetched children's eyes and took them to the half-moon as food for his
little ones--no! but as an ugly specter-like fiend bringing trouble and misery
and ruin, both temporal and everlasting, everywhere wherever he appeared.
I was spell-bound on the spot. At the risk of being discovered, and, as I well
enough knew, of being severely punished, I remained as I was, with my head
thrust through the curtains listening. My father received Coppelius in a ceremo-
nious manner.
"Come, to work!" cried the latter, in a hoarse snarling voice, throwing
off his coat. Gloomily and silently my father took off his dressing-gown, and
both put on long black smock-frocks. Where they took them from I forgot to
notice. Father opened the folding-doors of a cupboard in the wall; but I saw
that what I had so long taken to be a cupboard was really a dark recess, in
which was a little hearth.
Coppelius approached it, and a blue flame crackled upwards from it.
Round about were all kinds of strange utensils. Good God! as my old father
bent down over the fire how different he looked! His gentle and venerable fea-
repulsive Satanic mask. He looked like Coppelius.
Coppelius plied the red-hot tongs and drew bright glowing masses out
of the thick smoke and began assiduously to hammer them. I fancied that there
were men's faces visible round about, but without eyes, having ghastly deep
black holes where the eyes should have been. "Eyes here! Eyes here!" cried Cop-
pelius, in a hollow sepulchral voice. My blood ran cold with horror; I screamed
and tumbled out of my hiding-place into the floor.
Coppelius immediately seized upon me. "You little brute! You little
brute!" he bleated, grinding his teeth. Then, snatching me up, he threw me on
the hearth, so that the flames began to singe my hair. "Now we've got eyes--
eyes--a beautiful pair of children's eyes," he whispered, and, thrusting his hands
into the flames he took out some red-hot grains and was about to strew them
into my eyes. Then my father clasped his hands and entreated him, saying,
"Master, master, let my Nathanael keep his eyes--oh! do let him keep them."
Coppelius laughed shrilly and replied, "Well then, the boy may keep his
eyes and whine and pull his way through the world; but we will now at any rate
observe the mechanism of the hand and the foot." And therewith he roughly
laid hold upon me, so that my joints cracked, and twisted my hands and my
feet, pulling them now this way, and now that, "That's not quite right altogeth-
er! It's better as it was!--the old fellow knew what he was about." Thus lisped
and hissed Coppelius; but all around me grew black and dark; a sudden convul-
sive pain shot through all my nerves and bones; I knew nothing more.
I felt a soft warm breath fanning my cheek; I awakened as if out of the
sleep of death; my mother was bending over me. "Is the Sand-man still there?" I
stammered. "No, my dear child; he's been gone a long, long time; he'll not hurt
you." Thus spoke my mother, as she kissed her recovered darling and pressed
101

him to her heart. But why should I tire you, my dear Lothair? why do I dwell at
such length on these details, when there's so much remains to be said? Enough- lius," I cried, terror-struck, and leapt out of bed. Then I heard a wild heartrend-
-I was detected in my eavesdropping, and roughly handled by Coppelius. Fear
and terror had brought on a violent fever, of which I lay ill several weeks.
"Is the Sand-man still there?" these were the first words I uttered on
coming to myself again, the first sign of my recovery, of my safety. Thus, you
see, I have only to relate to you the most terrible moment of my youth for you
to thoroughly understand that it must not be ascribed to the weakness of my
eyesight if all that I see is colorless, but to the fact that a mysterious destiny has
hung a dark veil of clouds about my life, which I shall perhaps only break
through when I die.
Coppelius did not show himself again; it was reported he had left the
102
town. It was about a year later when, in pursuance of the old unchanged cus-
tom, we sat around the round table in the evening. Father was in very good
spirits, and was telling us amusing tales about his youthful travels. As it was
striking nine we all at once heard the street door creak on its hinges, and slow
ponderous steps echoed across the passage and up the stairs. "That is Coppe-
lius," said my mother, turning pale.
"Yes, it is Coppelius," replied my father in a faint broken voice. The tears
started from my mother's eyes. "But, must it be so?" she cried, "
"This is the last time," he replied; "this is the last time he will come to
me, I promise you. Go now, go and take the children. Go, go to bed--good-
night."
As for me, I felt as if I were converted into cold, heavy stone; I could not
get my breath. As I stood there immovable my mother seized me by the arm.
"Come, Nathanael! do come along!" I suffered myself to be led away; I went into
my room. "Be a good boy and keep quiet," mother called after me; "get into
bed and go to sleep." But, tortured by indescribable fear and uneasiness, I could
not close my eyes. That hateful, hideous Coppelius stood before me with his
glittering eyes, smiling maliciously down upon me; in vain did I strive to banish
the image.
Somewhere about midnight there was a terrific crack, as if a cannon
were being fired off. The whole house shook; something went rustling and clat-
tering past my door; the house-door was pulled to with a bang. "That is Coppe-
ing scream; I rushed into my father's room; the door stood open, and clouds of
suffocating smoke came rolling towards me. The servant-maid shouted, "Oh! my
master! my master!"
On the floor in front of the smoking hearth lay my father, dead, his face
burned black and fearfully distorted, my sisters weeping and moaning around
him, and my mother lying near them in a swoon. "Coppelius, you atrocious
fiend, you've killed my father," I shouted. My senses left me. Two days later,
when my father was placed in his coffin, his features were mild and gentle again
as they had been when he was alive. I found great consolation in the thought
(Continued on page 103)
that his association with the diabolical Coppelius could not have ended in his
everlasting ruin.
Our neighbors had been awakened by the explosion; the affair got
talked about, and came before the magisterial authorities, who wished to cite
Coppelius to clear himself. But he had disappeared from the place, leaving no
traces behind him.
Now when I tell you, my dear friend, that the weather-glass hawker I
spoke of was the villain Coppelius, you will not blame me for seeing impending
mischief in his inauspicious reappearance. He was differently dressed; but Cop-
pelius's figure and features are too deeply impressed upon my mind for me to
be capable of making a mistake in the matter. Moreover, he has not even
changed his name. He proclaims himself here, I learn, to be a Piedmontese
mechanician, and styles himself Giuseppe Coppola.
I am resolved to enter the lists against him and revenge my father's
death, let the consequences be what they may. Don't say a word to mother
about the reappearance of this odious monster. Give my love to my darling
Clara; I will write to her when I am in a somewhat calmer frame of mind.
Adieu, &c.
CLARA TO NATHANAEL
Y
ou are right, you have not written to me for a very long time,
but nevertheless I believe that I still retain a place in your mind
and thoughts. It is a proof that you were thinking a good deal
about me when you were sending off your last letter to brother not believed in the Sand-man, would have been to you a ghostly bugbear, es-
Lothair, for instead of directing it to him you directed it to me. With joy I tore
open the envelope, and did not perceive the mistake until I read the words,
"Oh! my dear, dear Lothair."
Now I know I ought not to have read any more of the letter, but ought
to have given it to my brother. But as you have so often in innocent raillery
made it a sort of reproach against me that I possessed such a calm, and, for a
woman, cool-headed temperament that I should be like the woman we read of-
-if the house was threatening to tumble down, I should, before hastily fleeing,
stop to smooth down a crumple in the window-curtains--I need hardly tell you
that the beginning of your letter quite upset me. I could scarcely breathe; there
was a bright mist before my eyes.
Oh! my darling Nathanael! what could this terrible thing be that had
happened? Separation from you--never to see you again, the thought was like
a sharp knife in my heart. I read on and on. Your description of that horrid Cop-
pelius made my flesh creep. I now learnt for the first time what a terrible and
violent death your good old father died. Brother Lothair, to whom I handed
over his property, sought to comfort me, but with little success.
That horrid weather-glass hawker Giuseppe Coppola followed me eve-
rywhere; and I am almost ashamed to confess it, but he was able to disturb my
sound and in general calm sleep with all sorts of wonderful dream-shapes. But
soon--the next day--I saw everything in a different light. Oh! do not be angry
with me, my best-beloved, if, despite your strange presentiment that Coppelius
will do you some mischief, Lothair tells you I am in quite as good spirits, and
just the same as ever.
I will frankly confess, it seems to me that all that was fearsome and ter-
rible of which you speak, existed only in your own self, and that the real true
outer world had but little to do with it. I can quite admit that old Coppelius may
have been highly obnoxious to you children, but your real detestation of him
arose from the fact that he hated children.
Naturally enough the gruesome Sand-man of the old nurse's story was
associated in your childish mind with old Coppelius, who, even though you had
pecially dangerous to children. His mysterious labors along with your father at
night-time were, I daresay, nothing more than secret experiments in alchemy,
with which your mother could not be over well pleased, owing to the large
sums of money that most likely were thrown away upon them; and besides,
103
your father, his mind full of the deceptive striving after higher
knowledge, may probably have become rather indifferent to his
family, as so often happens in the case of such experimentalists. So
also it is equally probable that your father brought about his death by
his own imprudence, and that Coppelius is not to blame for it.
I must tell you that yesterday I asked our experienced neighbor, the chemist,
whether in experiments of this kind an explosion could take place which would
have a momentarily fatal effect. He said, "Oh, certainly!" and described to me in
his prolix and circumstantial way how it could be occasioned, mentioning at the
same time so many strange and funny words that I could not remember them
at all.
Now I know you will be angry at your Clara, and will say, "Of the Mys-
terious which often clasps man in its invisible arms there's not a ray can find its
way into this cold heart. She sees only the varied surface of the things of the
world, and, like the little child, is pleased with the golden glittering fruit; at the
kernel of which lies the fatal poison."
Oh! my beloved Nathanael, do you believe then that the intuitive pres-
cience of a dark power working within us to our own ruin cannot exist also in
minds which are cheerful, natural, free from care? But please forgive me that I,
a simple girl, presume in any way to indicate to you what I really think of such
an inward strife. After all, I should not find the proper words, and you would
only laugh at me, not because my thoughts were stupid, but because I was so
foolish as to attempt to tell them to you.
If there is a dark and hostile power which traitorously fixes a thread in
our hearts in order that, laying hold of it and drawing us by means of it along a
dangerous road to ruin, which otherwise we should not have trod--if, I say,
there is such a power, it must assume within us a form like ourselves, nay, it
must be ourselves; for only in that way can we believe in it, and only so under-
stood do we yield to it so far that it is able to accomplish its secret purpose. So
long as we have sufficient firmness, fortified by cheerfulness, to always
acknowledge foreign hostile influences for what they really are, whilst we quiet-
ly pursue the path pointed out to us by both inclination and calling, then this
104
mysterious power perishes in its futile struggles to attain the
form which is to be the reflected image of ourselves.
It is also certain, Lothair adds, that if we have once volun-
tarily given ourselves up to this dark physical power, it often reproduc-
es within us the strange forms which the outer world throws in our way, so
that thus it is we ourselves who engender within ourselves the spirit which by
some remarkable delusion we imagine to speak in that outer form. It is the
phantom of our own self whose intimate relationship with, and whose powerful
influence upon our soul either plunges us into hell or elevates us to heaven.
Thus you will see, my beloved Nathanael, that I and brother Lothair have well
talked over the subject of dark powers and forces; and now, after I have with
some difficulty written down the principal results of our discussion, they seem
to me to contain many really profound thoughts.
Lothair's last words, however, I don't quite understand altogether; I
only dimly guess what he means; and yet I cannot help thinking it is all very
true, I beg you, dear, strive to forget the ugly advocate Coppelius as well as the
weather-glass hawker Giuseppe Coppola. Try and convince yourself that these
foreign influences can have no power over you, that it is only the belief in their
hostile power which can in reality make them dangerous to you. If every line of
your letter did not betray the violent excitement of your mind, and if I did not
sympathize with your condition from the bottom of my heart, I could in truth
jest about the advocate Sand-man and weather-glass hawker Coppelius.
Pluck up your spirits! Be cheerful! I have resolved to appear to you as
your guardian-angel if that ugly man Coppola should dare take it into his head
to bother you in your dreams, and drive him away with a good hearty laugh.
I'm not afraid of him and his nasty hands, not the least little bit; I won't let him
either as advocate spoil any dainty tit-bit I've taken, or as Sand-man rob me of
my eyes. My darling, darling Nathanael, Eternally your, &c. &c.
* * * * * *
NATHANAEL TO LOTHAIR.
I
am very sorry that Clara opened and read my last letter to you; of
course the mistake is to be attributed to my own absence of mind. She
has written me a very deep philosophical letter, proving conclusively
that Coppelius and Coppola only exist in my own mind and are phan-
toms of my own self, which will at once be dissipated, as soon as I look upon
them in that light. In very truth one can hardly believe that the mind which so
often sparkles in those bright, beautifully smiling, childlike eyes of hers like a
sweet lovely dream could draw such subtle and scholastic distinctions. She also
mentions your name. You have been talking about me. I suppose you have
been giving her lectures, since she sifts and refines everything so acutely.
But enough of this! I must now tell you it is most certain that the
weather-glass hawker Giuseppe Coppola is not the advocate Coppelius. I am
attending the lectures of our recently appointed Professor of Physics, who, like
the distinguished naturalist , is called Spalanzani, and is of Italian origin. He has
known Coppola for many years; and it is also easy to tell from his accent that he why I am not writing to her as well to-day.
really is a Piedmontese. Coppelius was a German, though no honest German, I
fancy.
Nevertheless I am not quite satisfied. You and Clara will perhaps take
me for a gloomy dreamer, but in no way can I get rid of the impression which
Coppelius's cursed face made upon me. I am glad to learn from Spalanzani that
he has left the town.
This Professor Spalanzani is a very queer fish. He is a little fat man, with
prominent cheek-bones, thin nose, projecting lips, and small piercing eyes. You
cannot get a better picture of him than by turning over one of the Berlin pocket
3
-almanacs and looking at Cagliostro's portrait engraved by Chodowiecki;
Spalanzani looks just like him.
Once lately, as I went up the steps to his house, I perceived that beside
the curtain which generally covered a glass door there was a small chink. What
it was that excited my curiosity I cannot explain; but I looked through. In the
room I saw a female, tall, very slender, but of perfect proportions, and splendid- any other eye, and all your words ended in sighs betokening some mystery.
ly dressed, sitting at a little table, on which she had placed both her arms, her
hands being folded together. She sat opposite the door, so that I could easily
see her angelically beautiful face.
She did not appear to notice me, and there was moreover a strangely
fixed look about her eyes, I might almost say they appeared as if they had no
power of vision; I thought she was sleeping with her eyes open.
I felt quite uncomfortable, and so I slipped away quietly into the
Professor's lecture-room, which was close at hand. Afterwards I learnt that the
figure which I had seen was Spalanzani's daughter, Olimpia, whom he keeps
locked in a most wicked and unaccountable way, and no man is ever allowed to
come near her. Perhaps, however, there is after all, something peculiar about
her; perhaps she's an idiot or something of that sort. But why am I telling you
all this? I could have told you it all better and more in detail when I see you. For
in a fortnight I shall be amongst you. I must see my dear sweet angel, my Clara,
again. Then the little bit of ill-temper, which, I must confess, took possession of
me after her fearfully sensible letter, will be blown away. And that is the reason
With all best wishes, &c.
N
othing more strange and extraordinary can be imagined, gra-
cious reader, than what happened to my poor friend, the young
student Nathanael, and which I have undertaken to relate to
you. Have you ever lived to experience anything that com-
pletely took possession of your heart and mind and thoughts to the utter ex-
clusion of everything else? All was seething and boiling within you; your blood,
heated to fever pitch, leapt through your veins and inflamed your cheeks. Your
gaze was so peculiar, as if seeking to grasp in empty space forms not seen of
Then your friends asked you, "What is the matter with you, my dear friend?
105
What do you see?" And, wishing to describe the inner pictures in all their vivid thing but laughable. I could not find any words which seemed fitted to reflect in
colors, with their lights and their shades, you in vain struggled to find words even the feeblest degree the brightness of the colors of my mental vision. I de-
with which to express yourself. But you felt as if you must gather up all the termined not to begin at all.
events that had happened, wonderful, splendid, terrible, jocose, and awful, in the So I pray you, gracious reader, accept the three letters which my friend
very first word, so that the whole might be revealed by a single electric dis- Lothair has been so kind as to communicate to me as the outline of the picture,
charge, so to speak. into which I will endeavor to introduce more and more color as I proceed with
Yet every word and all that partook of the nature of communication by my narrative. Perhaps, like a good portrait-painter, I may succeed in depicting
intelligible sounds seemed to be colorless, cold, and dead. Then you try and try more than one figure in such wise that you will recognize it as a good likeness
again, and stutter and stammer, whilst your friends' prosy questions strike like without being acquainted with the original, and feel as if you had very often
icy winds upon your heart's hot fire until they extinguish it. But if, like a bold seen the original with your own bodily eyes. Perhaps, too, you will then believe
painter, you had first sketched in a few audacious strokes the outline of the pic- that nothing is more wonderful, nothing more fantastic than real life, and that all
ture you had in your soul, you would then easily have been able to deepen and that a writer can do is to present it as a dark reflection from a dim cut mirror.
intensify the colors one after the other, until the varied throng of living figures In order to make the very commencement more intelligible, it is neces-
carried your friends away, and they, like you, saw themselves in the midst of the sary to add to the letters that, soon after the death of Nathanael's father, Clara
scene that had proceeded out of your own soul. and Lothair, the children of a distant relative, who had likewise died, leaving
Strictly speaking, indulgent reader, I must indeed confess to you, no one them orphans, were taken by Nathanael's mother into her own house. Clara and
has asked me for the history of young Nathanael; but you are very well aware Nathanael conceived a warm affection for each other, against which not the
that I belong to that remarkable class of authors who, when they are bearing slightest objection in the world could be urged. When therefore Nathanael left
anything about in their minds in the manner I have just described, feel as if eve- home to prosecute his studies in G----, they were betrothed. It is from G---- that
rybody who comes near them, and also the whole world to boot, were asking, his last letter is written, where he is attending the lectures of Spalanzani, the dis-
"Oh! what is it? Oh! do tell us, my good sir?" Hence I was most powerfully im- tinguished Professor of Physics.
pelled to narrate to you Nathanael's ominous life. I might now proceed comfortably with my narration, had not at this mo-
My soul was full of the elements of wonder and extraordinary peculiarity ment Clara's image rise up so vividly before my eyes that I cannot turn them
in it; but, for this very reason, and because it was necessary in the very begin- away from it, just as I never could when she looked upon me and smiled so
ning to dispose you, indulgent reader, to bear with what is fantastic--and that is sweetly. Nowhere would she have passed for beautiful; that was the unanimous
not a little thing--I racked my brain to find a way of commencing the story in a opinion of all who professed to have any technical knowledge of beauty. But
significant and original manner, calculated to arrest your attention. whilst architects praised the pure proportions of her figure and form, painters
To begin with "Once upon a time," the best beginning for a story, averred that her neck, shoulders, and bosom were almost too chastely modeled,
seemed to me too tame; with "In the small country town S---- lived," rather bet- and yet, on the other hand, one and all were in love with her glorious Magda-
ter, at any rate allowing plenty of room to work up to the climax; or to plunge at lene hair, and talked a good deal of nonsense about Battoni-like coloring. One
once ‘in medias res’, "'Go to the devil!' cried the student Nathanael, his eyes of them, a veritable romanticist, strangely enough likened her eyes to a lake by
blazing wildly with rage and fear, when the weather-glass hawker Giuseppe Ruisdael, in which is reflected the pure azure of the cloudless sky, the beauty of
Coppola"--well, that is what I really had written, when I thought I detected woods and flowers, and all the bright and varied life of a living landscape.
something of the ridiculous in Nathanael's wild glance; and the history is any- (Continued on page 107)

106
Poets and musicians went still further and said, "What's all this talk about seas
and reflections? How can we look upon the girl without feeling that wonderful
heavenly songs and melodies beam upon us from her eyes, penetrating deep
down into our hearts, till all becomes awake and throbbing with emotion? And
if we cannot sing anything at all passable then, why, we are not worth much;
and this we can also plainly read in the rare smile which flits around her lips
when we have the hardihood to squeak out something in her presence which
we pretend to call singing, in spite of the fact that it is nothing more than a few
single notes confusedly linked together."
And it really was so. Clara had the powerful fancy of a bright, innocent,
unaffected child, a woman's deep and sympathetic heart, and an understanding self to be free was merely the plaything of the cruel sport of mysterious powers,
clear, sharp, and discriminating. Dreamers and visionaries had but a bad time of and it was vain for man to resist them; he must humbly submit to whatever des-
it with her; for without saying very much--she was not by nature of a talkative
disposition--she plainly asked, by her calm steady look, and rare ironical smile,
"How can you imagine, my dear friends, that
I can take these fleeting shadowy images for
true living and breathing forms?"
For this reason many found fault
with her as being cold, prosaic, and devoid of
feeling; others, however, who had reached a
clearer and deeper conception of life, were
extremely fond of the intelligent, childlike,
large-hearted girl But none had such an af-
fection for her as Nathanael, who was a zeal-
ous and cheerful cultivator of the fields of
science and art. Clara clung to her lover with
all her heart; the first clouds she encountered
in life were when he had to separate from
her. With what delight did she fly into his
arms when, as he had promised in his last
letter to Lothair, he really came back to his
native town and entered his mother's room!
And as Nathanael had foreseen, the moment
he saw Clara again he no longer thought
about either the advocate Coppelius or her sensible letter; his ill-humor had
quite disappeared.
Nevertheless Nathanael was right when he told his friend Lothair that
the repulsive vendor of weather-glasses, Coppola, had exercised a fatal and dis-
turbing influence upon his life. It was quite patent to all; for even during the first
few days he showed that he was completely and entirely changed. He gave him-
self up to gloomy reveries, and moreover acted so strangely; they had never
observed anything at all like it in him before. Everything, even his own life, was
to him but dreams and presentiments.
His constant theme was that every man who delusively imagined him-
tiny had decreed for him. He went so far as to maintain that it was foolish to
believe that a man could do anything in art or science of his own accord; for the
inspiration in which alone any true artistic
work could be done did not proceed from
the spirit within outwards, but was the result
of the operation directed inwards of some
Higher Principle existing without and be-
yond ourselves.
This mystic extravagance was in the
highest degree repugnant to Clara's clear
intelligent mind, but it seemed vain to enter
upon any attempt at refutation. Yet when
Nathanael went on to prove that Coppelius
was the Evil Principle which had entered into
him and taken possession of him at the time
he was listening behind the curtain, and that
this hateful demon would in some terrible
way ruin their happiness, then Clara grew
grave and said, "Yes, Nathanael. You are
right; Coppelius is an Evil Principle; he can
do dreadful things, as bad as could a Satanic
power which should assume a living physical
107
form, but only--only if you do not banish him from your mind to present him in vivid colors in his literary efforts, in which
and thoughts. So long as you believe in him he exists and is at he played the part of the ghoul of Destiny. At length it en-
work; your belief in him is his only power." tered into his head to make his dismal presentiment that Cop-
Whereupon Nathanael, quite angry because Clara would only pelius would ruin his happiness the subject of a poem. He made
grant the existence of the demon in his own mind, began to dilate at himself and Clara, united by true love, the central figures, but repre-
large upon the whole mystic doctrine of devils and awful powers, but Clara sented a black hand as being from time to time thrust into their life and
abruptly broke off the theme by making, to Nathanael's very great disgust, plucking out a joy that had blossomed for them.
some quite commonplace remark. At length, as they were standing at the altar, the terrible Coppelius ap-
Such deep mysteries are sealed books to cold, unsusceptible characters, peared and touched Clara's lovely eyes, which leapt into Nathanael's own bos-
he thought, without being clearly conscious to himself that he counted Clara om, burning and hissing like bloody sparks. Then Coppelius laid hold upon him,
amongst these inferior natures, and accordingly he did not remit his efforts to and hurled him into a blazing circle of fire, which spun round with the speed of
initiate her into these mysteries. In the morning, when she was helping to pre- a whirlwind, and, storming and blustering, dashed away with him. The fearful
pare breakfast, he would take his stand beside her, and read all sorts of mystic noise it made was like a furious hurricane lashing the foaming sea-waves until
books to her, until she begged him--"But, my dear Nathanael, I shall have to they rise up like black, white-headed giants in the midst of the raging struggle.
scold you as the Evil Principle which exercises a fatal influence upon my coffee. But through the midst of the savage fury of the tempest he heard Clara's voice
For if I do as you wish, and let things go their own way, and look into your eyes calling, "Can you not see me, dear? Coppelius has deceived you; they were not
whilst you read, the coffee will all boil over into the fire, and you will none of my eyes which burned so in your bosom; they were fiery drops of your own
you get any breakfast." Then Nathanael hastily banged the book to and ran heart's blood. Look at me, I have got my own eyes still."
away in great displeasure to his own room. Nathanael thought, "Yes, that is Clara, and I am hers for ever." Then this
Formerly he had possessed a peculiar talent for writing pleasing, spar- thought laid a powerful grasp upon the fiery circle so that it stood still, and the
kling tales, which Clara took the greatest delight in listening to; but now his pro- riotous turmoil died away rumbling down a dark abyss. Nathanael looked into
ductions were gloomy, unintelligible, and wanting in form, so that, although Clara's eyes; but it was death whose gaze rested so kindly upon him.
Clara out of forbearance towards him did not say so, he nevertheless felt how Whilst Nathanael was writing this work he was very quiet and sober-
very little interest she took in them. minded; he filed and polished every line, and as he had chosen to submit him-
There was nothing that Clara disliked so much as what was tedious; at self to the limitations of meter, he did not rest until all was pure and musical.
such times her intellectual sleepiness was not to be overcome; it was betrayed When, however, he had at length finished it and read it aloud to himself he was
both in her glances and in her words. Nathanael's effusions were, in truth, ex- seized with horror and awful dread, and he screamed, "Whose hideous voice is
ceedingly tedious. His ill-humor at Clara's cold prosaic temperament continued this?" But he soon came to see in it again nothing beyond a very successful po-
to increase; Clara could not conceal her distaste of his dark, gloomy, wearying em, and he confidently believed it would enkindle Clara's cold temperament,
mysticism; and thus both began to be more and more estranged from each oth- though to what end she should be thus aroused was not quite clear to his own
er without exactly being aware of it themselves. mind, nor yet what would be the real purpose served by tormenting her with
The image of the ugly Coppelius had, as Nathanael was obliged to con- these dreadful pictures, which prophesied a terrible and ruinous end to her af-
fess to himself, faded considerably in his fancy, and it often cost him great pains (Continued on page 109)

108
fection. violent quarrel, and also observed the fencing-master bring the rapiers in the
Nathanael and Clara sat in his mother's little garden. Clara was bright dusk of the evening. She had a presentiment of what was to happen. They both
and cheerful, since for three entire days her lover, who had been busy writing appeared at the appointed place wrapped up in the same gloomy silence, and
his poem, had not teased her with his dreams or forebodings. Nathanael, too, threw off their coats.
spoke in a gay and vivacious way of things of merry import, as he formerly Their eyes flaming with the bloodthirsty light of pugnacity, they were
used to do, so that Clara said, "Ah! now I have you again. We have driven away about to begin their contest when Clara burst through the garden door. Sob-
that ugly Coppelius, you see." Then it suddenly occurred to him that he had got bing, she screamed, "You savage, terrible men! Cut me down before you attack
the poem in his pocket which he wished to read to her. He at once took out the each other; for how can I live when my lover has slain my brother, or my broth-
manuscript and began to read. Clara, anticipating something tedious as usual, er slain my lover?" Lothair let his weapon fall and gazed silently upon the
prepared to submit to the infliction, and calmly resumed her knitting. But as the ground, whilst Nathanael's heart was rent with sorrow, and all the affection
somber clouds rose up darker and darker she let her knitting fall on her lap and which he had felt for his lovely Clara in the happiest days of her golden youth
sat with her eyes fixed in a set stare upon Nathanael's face. He was quite car- was awakened within him. His murderous weapon, too, fell from his hand; he
ried away by his own work, the fire of enthusiasm colored his cheeks a deep threw himself at Clara's feet. "Oh! can you ever forgive me, my only, my dearly
red, and tears started from his eyes. loved Clara? Can you, my dear brother Lothair, also forgive me?" Lothair was
At length he concluded, groaning and showing great lassitude; grasp- touched by his friend's great distress; the three young people embraced each
ing Clara's hand, he sighed as if he were being utterly melted in inconsolable other amidst endless tears, and swore never again to break their bond of love
grief, "Oh! Clara! Clara!" She drew him softly to her heart and said in a low but and fidelity.
very grave and impressive tone, "Nathanael, my darling Nathanael, throw that Nathanael felt as if a heavy burden that had been weighing him down
foolish, senseless, stupid thing into the fire." Then Nathanael leapt indignantly to the earth was now rolled from off him, nay, as if by offering resistance to the
to his feet, crying, as he pushed Clara from him, "You damned lifeless automa-
ton!" and rushed away. Clara was cut to the heart, and wept bitterly.
"Oh! he has never loved me, for he does not understand me," she
sobbed.
Lothair entered the arbor. Clara was obliged to tell him all that had tak-
en place. He was passionately fond of his sister; and every word of her com- dark power which had possessed him, he had rescued his own self from the
plaint fell like a spark upon his heart, so that the displeasure which he had long ruin which had threatened him. Three happy days he now spent amidst the
entertained against his dreamy friend Nathanael was kindled into furious anger. loved ones, and then returned to G----, where he had still a year to stay before
He hastened to find Nathanael, and upbraided him in harsh words for his irra- settling down in his native town for life.
tional behavior towards his beloved sister. The fiery Nathanael answered him in Everything having reference to Coppelius had been concealed from the
the same style. "A fantastic, crack-brained fool," was retaliated with, "A misera- mother, for they knew she could not think of him without horror, since she as
ble, common, everyday sort of fellow." A meeting was the inevitable conse- well as Nathanael believed him to be guilty of causing her husband's death.
quence. They agreed to meet on the following morning behind the garden-
wall, and fight, according to the custom of the students of the place, with sharp
rapiers. They went about silent and gloomy; Clara had both heard and seen the

109
 W
hen Nathanael came to the house where he lived, he was great-
ly astonished to find it burnt down to the ground, so that noth-
ing but the bare outer walls were left standing amidst a heap of
ruins. Although the fire had broken out in the laboratory of the
chemist who lived on the ground-floor, and had therefore spread upwards,
some of Nathanael's bold, active friends had succeeded in time in forcing a way
into his room in the upper story and saving his books and manuscripts and in-
struments. They had carried them all uninjured into another house, where they
engaged a room for him; this he now at once took possession of.
That he lived opposite Professor Spalanzani did not strike him particu-
larly, nor did it occur to him as anything more singular that he could, as he ob-
served, by looking out of his window, see straight into the room where Olimpia
often sat alone. Her figure he could plainly distinguish, although her features
were uncertain and confused. It did at length occur to him, however, that she
remained for hours together in the same position in which he had first discov-
ered her through the glass door, sitting at a little table without any occupation
whatever, and it was evident that she was constantly gazing across in his direc-
tion.
He could not but confess to himself that he had never seen a finer fig-
ure. However, with Clara mistress of his heart, he remained perfectly unaffected
by Olimpia's stiffness and apathy; and it was only occasionally that he sent a
fugitive glance over his compendium across to her--that was all. Affrighted, Nathanael cried, "You stupid man, how can you have eyes?--
He was writing to Clara; a light tap came at the door. At his summons to eyes--eyes?"
"Come in," Coppola's repulsive face appeared peeping in. Nathanael felt his But Coppola, laying aside his weather-glasses, thrust his hands into his
heart beat with trepidation; but, recollecting what Spalanzani had told him big coat-pockets and brought out several spy-glasses and spectacles, and put
about his fellow-countryman Coppola, and what he had himself so faithfully them on the table. "Theer! Theer! Spect'cles! Spect'cles to put 'n nose! Them's
promised his beloved in respect to the Sand-man Coppelius, he was ashamed at my oyes--foine oyes." And he continued to produce more and more spectacles
himself for this childish fear of specters. Accordingly, he controlled himself with from his pockets until the table began to gleam and flash all over. Thousands of
an effort, and said, as quietly and as calmly as he possibly could, "I don't want eyes were looking and blinking convulsively, and staring up at Nathanael; he
to buy any weather-glasses, my good friend; you had better go elsewhere." could not avert his gaze from the table. Coppola went on heaping up his spec-
Then Coppola came right into the room, and said in a hoarse voice, tacles, whilst wilder and ever wilder burning flashes crossed through and
screwing up his wide mouth into a hideous smile, whilst his little eyes flashed through each other and darted their blood-red rays into Nathanael's breast.
keenly from beneath his long grey eyelashes, "What! Nee weather-gless? Nee Quite overcome, and frantic with terror, he shouted, "Stop! stop! you
weather-gless? 've got foine oyes as well--foine oyes!" (Continued on page 111)

110
terrible man!" and he seized Coppola by the arm, which he had again thrust into friend." But Coppola did not leave the room without casting many peculiar side-
his pocket in order to bring out still more spectacles, although the whole table glances upon Nathanael; and the young student heard him laughing loudly on
was covered all over with them. With a harsh disagreeable laugh Coppola gently the stairs.
freed himself; and with the words "So! went none! Well, here foine gless!" he "Ah well!" thought he, "he's laughing at me because I've paid him too
swept all his spectacles together, and put them back into his coat-pockets, much for this little perspective--because I've given him too much money--that's
whilst from a breast-pocket he produced a great number of larger and smaller it" As he softly murmured these words he fancied he detected a gasping sigh as
perspectives. of a dying man stealing awfully through the room; his heart stopped beating
As soon as the spectacles were gone Nathanael recovered his equanim- with fear. But to be sure he had heaved a deep sigh himself; it was quite plain.
ity again; and, bending his thoughts upon Clara, he clearly discerned that the "Clara is quite right," said he to himself, "in holding me to be an incurable ghost
gruesome incubus had proceeded only from himself, as also that Coppola was a -seer; and yet it's very ridiculous--ay, more than ridiculous, that the stupid
right honest mechanician and optician, and far from being Coppelius's dreaded thought of having paid Coppola too much for his glass should cause me this
double and ghost. And then, besides, none of the glasses which Coppola now strange anxiety; I can't see any reason for it."
placed on the table had anything at all singular about them, at least nothing so Now he sat down to finish his letter to Clara; but a glance through the
weird as the spectacles; so, in order to square accounts with himself, Nathanael window showed him Olimpia still in her former posture. Urged by an irresistible
now really determined to buy something of the man. He took up a small, very impulse he jumped up and seized Coppola's perspective; nor could he tear him-
beautifully cut pocket perspective, and by way of proving it looked through the self away from the fascinating Olimpia until his friend and brother Siegmund
window. called for him to go to Professor Spalanzani's lecture.
Never before in his life had he had a glass in his hands that brought out The curtains before the door of the all-important room were closely
things so clearly and sharply and distinctly. Involuntarily he directed the glass drawn, so that he could not see Olimpia. Nor could he even see her from his
upon Spalanzani's room; Olimpia sat at the little table as usual, her arms laid own room during the two following days, notwithstanding that he scarcely ever
upon it and her hands folded. Now he saw for the first time the regular and ex- left his window, and maintained a scarce interrupted watch through Coppola's
quisite beauty of her features. The eyes, however, seemed to him to have a sin- perspective upon her room.
gular look of fixity and lifelessness. But as he continued to look closer and more On the third day curtains even were drawn across the window. Plunged
carefully through the glass he fancied a light like humid moonbeams came into into the depths of despair,--goaded by longing and ardent desire, he hurried
them. It seemed as if their power of vision was now being enkindled; their outside the walls of the town. Olimpia's image hovered about his path in the air
glances shone with ever-increasing vivacity. and stepped forth out of the bushes, and peeped up at him with large and lus-
Nathanael remained standing at the window as if glued to the spot by a trous eyes from the bright surface of the brook. Clara's image was completely
wizard's spell, his gaze riveted unchangeably upon the divinely beautiful Olim- faded from his mind; he had no thoughts except for Olimpia. He uttered his
pia. A coughing and shuffling of the feet awakened him out of his enchaining love-plaints aloud and in a lachrymose tone, "Oh! my glorious, noble star of
dream, as it were. love, have you only risen to vanish again, and leave me in the darkness and
Coppola stood behind him, "Tre zechini" (three ducats). Nathanael had hopelessness of night?"
completely forgotten the optician; he hastily paid the sum demanded. "Ain't 't? Returning home, he became aware that there was a good deal of noisy
Foine gless? foine gless?" asked Coppola in his harsh unpleasant voice, smiling bustle going on in Spalanzani's house. All the doors stood wide open; men were
sardonically. "Yes, yes, yes," rejoined Nathanael impatiently; "adieu, my good taking in all kinds of gear and furniture; the windows of the first floor were all

111
lifted off their hinges; busy maid-servants with immense hair-brooms were
driving backwards and forwards dusting and sweeping, whilst within could be
heard the knocking and hammering of carpenters and upholsterers. Utterly
astonished, Nathanael stood still in the street; then Siegmund joined him,
laughing, and said, "Well, what do you say to our old Spalanzani?" Nathanael
assured him that he could not say anything, since he knew not what it all
meant; to his great astonishment, he could hear, however, that they were turn-
ing the quiet gloomy house almost inside out with their dusting and cleaning
and making of alterations.
Then he learned from Siegmund that Spalanzani intended giving a
great concert and ball on the following day, and that half the university was
invited. It was generally reported that Spalanzani was going to let his daughter
Olimpia, whom he had so long so jealously guarded from every eye, make her
first appearance.
Nathanael received an invitation. At the appointed hour, when the car-
riages were rolling up and the lights were gleaming brightly in the decorated
halls, he went across to the Professor's, his heart beating high with expectation.
The company was both numerous and brilliant. Olimpia was richly and tasteful-
ly dressed. One could not but admire her figure and the regular beauty of her
features. The striking inward curve of her back, as well as the wasp-like small-
ness of her waist, appeared to be the result of too-tight lacing. T
here was something stiff and measured in her gait and bearing that
made an unfavorable impression upon many; it was ascribed to the constraint
imposed upon her by the company. The concert began. Olimpia played on the
piano with great skill; and sang as skillfully an ‘aria di bravura’, in a voice which
was, if anything, almost too sharp, but clear as glass bells.
Nathanael was transported with delight; he stood in the background
farthest from her, and owing to the blinding lights could not quite distinguish
her features. So, without being observed, he took Coppola's glass out of his
pocket, and directed it upon the beautiful Olimpia.
Oh! then he perceived how her yearning eyes sought him, how every
note only reached its full purity in the loving glance which penetrated to and
inflamed his heart. Her artificial ‘roulades’ seemed to him to be the exultant cry (Continued on page 113)

112
towards heaven of the soul refined by love; and when at last, after the ‘cadenza’,
the long trill rang shrilly and loudly through the hall, he felt as if he were sud-
denly grasped by burning arms and could no longer control himself,--he could
not help shouting aloud in his mingled pain and delight, "Olimpia!" All eyes
were turned upon him; many people laughed. The face of the cathedral organist
wore a still more gloomy look than it had done before, but all he said was,
"Very well!"
The concert came to an end, and the ball began. Oh! to dance with her--
with her--that was now the aim of all Nathanael's wishes, of all his desires. But
how should he have courage to request her, the queen of the ball, to grant him
the honor of a dance? And yet he couldn't tell how it came about, just as the
dance began, he found himself standing close beside her, nobody having as yet
asked her to be his partner; so, with some difficulty stammering out a few words,
he grasped her hand. It was cold as ice; he shook with an awful, frosty shiver.
But, fixing his eyes upon her face, he saw that her glance was beaming upon him
with love and longing, and at the same moment he thought that the pulse be-
gan to beat in her cold hand, and the warm life-blood to course through her
veins. And passion burned more intensely in his own heart also; he threw his
arm round her beautiful waist and whirled her round the hall. He had always
thought that he kept good and accurate time in dancing, but from the perfectly
rhythmical evenness with which Olimpia danced, and which frequently put him
quite out, he perceived how very faulty his own time really was.
Notwithstanding, he would not dance with any other lady; and every-
body else who approached Olimpia to call upon her for a dance, he would have
liked to kill on the spot. This, however, only happened twice; to his astonishment
Olimpia remained after this without a partner, and he failed not on each occa-
sion to take her out again. If Nathanael had been able to see anything else ex-
cept the beautiful Olimpia, there would inevitably have been a good deal of un-
pleasant quarrelling and strife; for it was evident that Olimpia was the object of
the smothered laughter only with difficulty suppressed, which was heard in vari-
ous corners amongst the young people; and they followed her with very curious
looks, but nobody knew for what reason.
Nathanael, excited by dancing and the plentiful supply of wine he had
consumed, had laid aside the shyness which at other times characterized him.
He sat beside Olimpia, her hand in his own, and declared his love enthusiastical-
ly and passionately in words which neither of them understood, neither he nor
Olimpia. And yet she perhaps did, for she sat with her eyes fixed unchangeably
upon his, sighing repeatedly, "Ach! Ach! Ach!"
Upon this Nathanael would answer, "Oh, you glorious heavenly lady!
You ray from the promised paradise of love! Oh! what a profound soul you have!
My whole being is mirrored in it!" and a good deal more in the same strain. But
Olimpia only continued to sigh "Ach! Ach!" again and again.
Professor Spalanzani passed by the two happy lovers once or twice, and
smiled with a look of peculiar satisfaction. All at once it seemed to Nathanael,
albeit he was far away in a different world, as if it were growing perceptibly
darker down below at Professor Spalanzani's.
He looked about him, and to his very great alarm became aware that
there were only two lights left burning in the hall, and they were on the point of
going out. The music and dancing had long ago ceased. "We must part--part!"
he cried, wildly and despairingly; he kissed Olimpia's hand; he bent down to her
mouth, but ice-cold lips met his burning ones.
As he touched her cold hand, he felt his heart thrilled with awe; the leg-
end of "The Dead Bride" shot suddenly through his mind. But Olimpia had
drawn him closer to her, and the kiss appeared to warm her lips into vitality.
Professor Spalanzani strode slowly through the empty apartment, his
footsteps giving a hollow echo; and his figure had, as the flickering shadows
played about him, a ghostly, awful appearance. "Do you love me? Do you love
me, Olimpia? Only one little word--Do you love me?" whispered Nathanael, but
she only sighed, "Ach! Ach!" as she rose to her feet.
"Yes, you are my lovely, glorious star of love," said Nathanael, "and will
shine for ever, purifying and ennobling my heart" "Ach! Ach!" replied Olimpia, as
she moved along.
Nathanael followed her; they stood before the Professor. "You have had
an extraordinarily animated conversation with my daughter," said he, smiling;
"well, well, my dear Mr. Nathanael, if you find pleasure in talking to the stupid
girl, I am sure I shall be glad for you to come and do so." Nathanael took his
leave, his heart singing and leaping in a perfect delirium of happiness.
During the next few days Spalanzani's ball was the general topic of con-
113
versation. Although the Professor had done everything to make the thing a
splendid success, yet certain gay spirits related more than one thing that had
occurred which was quite irregular and out of order.
They were especially keen in pulling Olimpia to pieces for her taciturnity
and rigid stiffness; in spite of her beautiful form they alleged that she was hope-
lessly stupid, and in this fact they discerned the reason why Spalanzani had so
long kept her concealed from publicity. Nathanael heard all this with inward
wrath, but nevertheless he held his tongue; for, thought he, would it indeed be
worth while to prove to these fellows that it is their own stupidity which pre-
vents them from appreciating Olimpia's profound and brilliant parts?
One day Siegmund said to him, "Pray, brother, have the kindness to tell
me how you, a sensible fellow, came to lose your head over that Miss Wax-face-
-that wooden doll across there?"
Nathanael was about to fly into a rage, but he recollected himself and
replied, "Tell me, Siegmund, how came it that Olimpia's divine charms could es-
cape your eye, so keenly alive as it always is to beauty, and your acute percep-
114
tion as well? But Heaven be thanked for it, otherwise I should have had you for a
rival, and then the blood of one of us would have had to be spilled."
Siegmund, perceiving how matters stood with his friend, skillfully inter-
posed and said, after remarking that all argument with one in love about the
object of his affections was out of place, "Yet it's very strange that several of us
have formed pretty much the same opinion about Olimpia. We think she is--you
won't take it ill, brother?--that she is singularly statuesque and soulless. Her fig-
ure is regular, and so are her features, that can't be gainsaid; and if her eyes
were not so utterly devoid of life, I may say, of the power of vision, she might
pass for a beauty. She is strangely measured in her movements, they all seem as
if they were dependent upon some wound-up clock-work. Her playing and sing-
ing has the disagreeably perfect, but insensitive time of a singing machine, and
her dancing is the same. We felt quite afraid of this Olimpia, and did not like to
have anything to do with her; she seemed to us to be only acting ‘like’ a living
creature, and as if there was some secret at the bottom of it all."
Nathanael did not give way to the bitter feelings which threatened to
master him at these words of Siegmund's; he fought down and got the better of
his displeasure, and merely said, very earnestly, "You cold prosaic fellows may
very well be afraid of her. It is only to its like that the poetically organized spirit
unfolds itself. Upon me alone did her loving glances fall, and through my mind
and thoughts alone did they radiate; and only in her love can I find my own self
again. Perhaps, however, she doesn't do quite right not to jabber a lot of non-
sense and stupid talk like other shallow people. It is true, she speaks but few
words; but the few words she docs speak are genuine hieroglyphs of the inner
world of Love and of the higher cognition of the intellectual life revealed in the
intuition of the Eternal beyond the grave. But you have no understanding for all
these things, and I am only wasting words."
"God be with you, brother," said Siegmund very gently, almost sadly,
"but it seems to me that you are in a very bad way. You may rely upon me, if all-
-No, I can't say any more." It all at once dawned upon Nathanael that his cold
prosaic friend Siegmund really and sincerely wished him well, and so he warmly
shook his proffered hand.
Nathanael had completely forgotten that there was a Clara in the world,
whom he had once loved--and his mother and Lothair. They had all vanished
from his mind; he lived for Olimpia alone. He sat beside her every day for hours
together, rhapsodizing about his love and sympathy enkindled into life, and
about psychic elective affinity --all of which Olimpia listened to with great rever-
ence. He fished up from the very bottom of his desk all the things that he had
ever written--poems, fancy sketches, visions, romances, tales, and the heap was
increased daily with all kinds of aimless sonnets, stanzas, canzonets. All these he
read to Olimpia hour after hour without growing tired; but then he had never
had such an exemplary listener. She neither embroidered, nor knitted; she did
not look out of the window, or feed a bird, or play with a little pet dog or a fa-
vourite cat, neither did she twist a piece of paper or anything of that kind round
her finger; she did not forcibly convert a yawn into a low affected cough--in
short, she sat hour after hour with her eyes bent unchangeably upon her lover's
face, without moving or altering her position, and her gaze grew more ardent
and more ardent still. And it was only when at last Nathanael rose and kissed her
lips or her hand that she said, "Ach! Ach!" and then "Good-night, dear."
Arrived in his own room, Nathanael would break out with, "Oh! what a
brilliant--what a profound mind! Only you--you alone understand me." And his
heart trembled with rapture when he reflected upon the wondrous harmony
which daily revealed itself between his own and his Olimpia's character; for he
fancied that she had expressed in respect to his works and his poetic genius the
identical sentiments which he himself cherished deep down in his own heart in
respect to the same, and even as if it was his own heart's voice speaking to him.
And it must indeed have been so; for Olimpia never uttered any other words
than those already mentioned. And when Nathanael himself in his clear and so-
ber moments, as, for instance, directly after waking in a morning, thought about
her utter passivity and taciturnity, he only said, "What are words--but words?
The glance of her heavenly eyes says more than any tongue of earth. And how
can, anyway, a child of heaven accustom herself to the narrow circle which the
exigencies of a wretched mundane life demand?"
Professor Spalanzani appeared to be greatly pleased at the intimacy
that had sprung up between his daughter Olimpia and Nathanael, and showed
the young man many unmistakable proofs of his good feeling towards him; and
when Nathanael ventured at length to hint very delicately at an alliance with
Olimpia, the Professor smiled all over his face at once, and said he should allow
his daughter to make a perfectly free choice. Encouraged by these words, and
with the fire of desire burning in his heart, Nathanael resolved the very next day
to implore Olimpia to tell him frankly, in plain words, what he had long read in
her sweet loving glances,--that she would be his for ever. He looked for the ring
which his mother had given him at parting; he would present it to Olimpia as a
symbol of his devotion, and of the happy life he was to lead with her from that
time onwards.
Whilst looking for it he came across his letters from Clara and Lothair;
he threw them carelessly aside, found the ring, put it in his pocket, and ran
across to Olimpia. Whilst still on the stairs, in the entrance-passage, he heard an
extraordinary hubbub; the noise seemed to proceed from Spalanzani's study.
There was a stamping--a rattling--pushing—knocking against the door, with
curses and oaths intermingled.
"Leave hold--leave hold--you monster--you rascal--staked your life and
honour upon it?--Ha! ha! ha! ha!--That was not our wager--I, I made the eyes--I
the clock-work.--Go to the devil with your clock-work—you damned dog of a
watch-maker--be off--Satan--stop--you paltry turner--you infernal beast!--stop-
-begone--let me go." The voices which were thus making all this racket and
rumpus were those of Spalanzani and the fearsome Coppelius.
Nathanael rushed in, impelled by some nameless dread. The Professor
was grasping a female figure by the shoulders, the Italian Coppola held her by
the feet; and they were pulling and dragging each other backwards and for-
wards, fighting furiously to get possession of her. Nathanael recoiled with horror
on recognizing that the figure was Olimpia.
Boiling with rage, he was about to tear his beloved from the grasp of
the madmen, when Coppola by an extraordinary exertion of strength twisted the
figure out of the Professor's hands and gave him such a terrible blow with her,
that he reeled backwards and fell over the table all amongst the phials and re-
torts, the bottles and glass cylinders, which covered it: all these things were
smashed into a thousand pieces. But Coppola threw the figure across his shoul-
der, and, laughing shrilly and horribly, ran hastily down the stairs, the figure's
ugly feet hanging down and banging and rattling like wood against the steps.
Nathanael was stupefied;--he had seen only too distinctly that in Olimpia's pallid
waxed face there were no eyes, merely black holes in their stead; she was an
inanimate puppet.
115
 Spalanzani was rolling on the floor; the pieces of glass had cut his head
and breast and arm; the blood was escaping from him in streams. But he gath-
ered his strength together by an effort.
"After him--after him! What do you stand staring there for? Coppelius--
Coppelius--he's stolen my best automaton--at which I've worked for twenty
years--staked my life upon it--the clock-work-- speech--movement--mine--
your eyes--stolen your eyes--damn him—curse him--after him--fetch me back
Olimpia--there are the eyes."
And now Nathanael saw a pair of bloody eyes lying on the floor staring
at him; Spalanzani seized them with his uninjured hand and threw them at him,
so that they hit his breast Then madness dug her burning talons into him and
swept down into his heart, rending his mind and thoughts to shreds. "Aha! aha!
aha! Fire-wheel--fire-wheel! Spin round, fire-wheel! merrily, merrily! Aha! wood-
en doll! spin round, pretty wooden doll!" and he threw himself upon the Profes-
sor, clutching him fast by the throat. He would certainly have strangled him had
not several people, attracted by the noise, rushed in and torn away the mad-
man; and so they saved the Professor, whose wounds were immediately
dressed.
Siegmund, with all his strength, was not able to subdue the frantic lu-
natic, who continued to scream in a dreadful way, "Spin round, wooden doll!"
and to strike out right and left with his doubled fists. At length the united
strength of several succeeded in overpowering him by throwing him on the against the public; and it had been so craftily contrived that it had escaped un-
floor and binding him. His cries passed into a brutish bellow that was awful to observed by all except a few preternaturally acute students, although every-
hear; and thus raging with the harrowing violence of madness, he was taken body was very wise now and remembered to have thought of several facts
away to the madhouse. which occurred to them as suspicious. But these latter could not succeed in
Before continuing my narration of what happened further to the unfor- making out any sort of a consistent tale. For was it, for instance, a thing likely to
tunate Nathanael, I will tell you, indulgent reader, in case you take any interest occur to any one as suspicious that, according to the declaration of an elegant
in that skillful mechanician and fabricator of automata, Spalanzani, that he re- beau of these tea-parties, Olimpia had, contrary to all good manners, sneezed
covered completely from his wounds. He had, however, to leave the university, oftener than she had yawned? The former must have been, in the opinion of
for Nathanael's fate had created a great sensation; and the opinion was pretty this elegant gentleman, the winding up of the concealed clock-work; it had al-
generally expressed that it was an imposture altogether unpardonable to have ways been accompanied by an observable creaking, and so on.
smuggled a wooden puppet instead of a living person into intelligent tea- The Professor of Poetry and Eloquence took a pinch of snuff, and, slap-
circles,--for Olimpia had been present at several with success. Lawyers called it ping the lid to and clearing his throat, said solemnly, "My most honorable ladies
a cunning piece of knavery, and all the harder to punish since it was directed and gentlemen, don't you see then where the rub is? The whole thing is an alle-

116
gory, a continuous metaphor. You understand me? Sapienti sat. " mother and his beloved, and his friends, he quickly recovered his strength
But several most honorable gentlemen did not rest satisfied with this again. Good fortune had in the meantime visited the house; a niggardly old
explanation; the history of this automaton had sunk deeply into their souls, and uncle, from whom they had never expected to get anything, had died, and left
an absurd mistrust of human figures began to prevail. Several lovers, in order Nathanael's mother not only a considerable fortune, but also a small estate,
to be fully convinced that they were not paying court to a wooden puppet, re- pleasantly situated not far from the town. There they resolved to go and live,
quired that their mistress should sing and dance a little out of time, should em- Nathanael and his mother, and Clara, to whom he was now to be married, and
broider or knit or play with her little pug, &c., when being read to, but above all Lothair.
things else that she should do something more than merely listen--that she Nathanael was become gentler and more childlike than he had ever
should frequently speak in such a way as to really show that her words presup- been before, and now began really
posed as a condition some thinking and feeling. The bonds of love were in to understand Clara's supremely
many cases drawn closer in consequence, and so of course became more en- pure and noble character. None of
gaging; in other instances they gradually relaxed and fell away. them ever reminded him, even in
"I cannot really be made responsible for it," was the remark of more the remotest degree, of the past.
than one young gallant. At the tea-gatherings everybody, in order to ward off But when Siegmund took leave of
suspicion, yawned to an incredible extent and never sneezed. Spalanzani was him, Nathanael said, "By heaven,
obliged, as has been said, to leave the place in order to escape a criminal brother! I was in a bad way, but an
charge of having fraudulently imposed an automaton upon human society. angel came just at the right moment
Coppola, too, had also disappeared. and led me back upon the path of
light. Yes, it was Clara." Siegmund

W
hen Nathanael awoke he felt as if he had been oppressed by a would not let him speak further,
terrible nightmare; he opened his eyes and experienced an in- fearing lest the painful recollections
describable sensation of mental comfort, whilst a soft and most of the past might arise too vividly
beautiful sensation of warmth pervaded his body. He lay on his and too intensely in his mind.
own bed in his own room at home; Clara was bending over him, and at a little The time came for the four
distance stood his mother and Lothair. happy people to move to their little
"At last, at last, O my darling Nathanael; now we have you again; now property. At noon they were going
you are cured of your grievous illness, now you are mine again." And Clara's through the streets. After making
words came from the depths of her heart; and she clasped him in her arms. several purchases they found that
The bright scalding tears streamed from his eyes, he was so overcome the lofty tower of the town-house
with mingled feelings of sorrow and delight; and he gasped forth, "My Clara, was throwing its giant shadows
my Clara!" Siegmund, who had staunchly stood by his friend in his hour of across the market-place. "Come,"
need, now came into the room. Nathanael gave him his hand--"My faithful said Clara, "let us go up to the top
brother, you have not deserted me." once more and have a look at the
Every trace of insanity had left him, and in the tender hands of his distant hills." No sooner said than

117
done. Both of them, Nathanael and Clara, went up the tower; their mother, how-
ever, went on with the servant-girl to her new home, and Lothair, not feeling in-
clined to climb up all the many steps, waited below. There the two lovers stood
arm-in-arm on the topmost gallery of the tower, and gazed out into the sweet-
scented wooded landscape, beyond which the blue hills rose up like a giant's city.
"Oh! do look at that strange little grey bush, it looks as if it were actually
walking towards us," said Clara. Mechanically he put his hand into his side pocket;
he found Coppola's perspective and looked for the bush; Clara stood in front of
the glass. Then a convulsive thrill shot through his pulse and veins; pale as a
corpse, he fixed his staring eyes upon her; but soon they began to roll, and a fiery
current flashed and sparkled in them, and he yelled fearfully, like a hunted animal.
Leaping up high in the air and laughing horribly at the same time, he be-
gan to shout, in a piercing voice, "Spin round, wooden doll! Spin round, wooden
Lothair ran down with his insensible sister in his arms. She was saved. But
Nathanael ran round and round the gallery, leaping up in the air and shouting,
"Spin round, fire-wheel! Spin round, fire-wheel!" The people heard the wild
shouting, and a crowd began to gather. In the midst of them towered the advo-
cate Coppelius, like a giant; he had only just arrived in the town, and had gone
straight to the market-place.
Some were going up to overpower and take charge of the madman, but
Coppelius laughed and said, "Ha! ha! wait a bit; he'll come down of his own ac-
cord;" and he stood gazing upwards along with the rest.
All at once Nathanael stopped as if spell-bound; he bent down over the
railing, and perceived Coppelius. With a piercing scream, "Ha! Foine oyes! foine
oyes!" he leapt over. When Nathanael lay on the stone pavement with a broken
head, Coppelius had disappeared in the crush and confusion.

S
doll!" With the strength of a giant he laid hold upon Clara and tried to hurl her everal years afterwards it was reported that, outside the door of a pretty
over, but in an agony of despair she clutched fast hold of the railing that went country house in a remote district, Clara had been seen sitting hand in
round the gallery. hand with a pleas-
Lothair heard the madman raging and Clara's scream of terror: a fearful ant gentleman,
presentiment flashed across his mind. He ran up the steps; the door of the se- whilst two bright boys
cond flight was locked. Clara's scream for help rang out more loudly. Mad with were playing at her feet.
rage and fear, he threw himself against the door, which at length gave way. From this it may be con-
Clara's cries were growing fainter and fainter,--"Help! save me! save me!" and her cluded that she eventually
voice died away in the air. found that quiet domestic
"She is killed--murdered by that madman," shouted Lothair. The door to happiness which her
the gallery was also locked. Despair gave him the strength of a giant; he burst the cheerful, blithesome char-
door off its hinges. Good God! there was Clara in the grasp of the madman Na- acter required, and which
thanael, hanging over the gallery in the air; she only held to the iron bar with one Nathanael, with his
hand. tempest-tossed soul, could
Quick as lightning, Lothair seized his sister and pulled her back, at the never have been able to
same time dealing the madman a blow in the face with his doubled fist, which give her.

B
sent him reeling backwards, forcing him to let go his victim.

"The Sand-man" forms the first of a series of tales called "The Night-pieces," and was published in 1817. This version was provided by Project Gutenberg Weird
Tales. Vol. I by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Translated by J. T. Bealby Release Date: February 23, 2010 [EBook #31377] www.gutenberg.net

118
 acknowledgments
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

“The Sand-Man” was provided by Project Gutenberg Weird Tales. Vol. I by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Translated by J. T. Bealby Release Date: Feb-
ruary 23, 2010 [EBook #31377] www.gutenberg.net
“Das Unheimliche” was provided by Laurel Amtower of San Diego State University
Twin Marker font designed by Tom Raaijmakers
Brankovic font designed by Amy Van Torre
Lostrobo designed by dasmuse and used with permission http://www.dasmuse.net/font
Tintin font and Ebrima font downloaded from http://www.urbanfonts.com
Screen shots from The Polar Expression and Tintin courtesy Internet Movie Database
All woodcuts on pages 98 - 118 by Daniel Niklaus Chodowiecki
photograph page 47 captured off of http://www.weddingbee.com/2011/01/26/childhood-photos-at-wedding/
Photograph on page 38 by Anna Beth Weber

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