1

UNCANNY

VERNAL EQUINOX 2012 PEA GREEN BOAT

2

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

b Cinema: Tintin and The Uncanny Valley — 8 u r s t Poem:

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 u u History: Automa — 42 qrst Video: Automatonophobia- 44 vInterview: 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 u q r s t

IN THIS ISSUE

3

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

ABOUT THIS ISSUE

you to visit their websites to ex-

perience more of their incredi-

ble talent.

All links have been highlighted

in bright blue or enclosed in a

bright blue frame for easy iden-

tification. One significant

change for this issue is the in-

clusion of icons, where ever

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

“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-

interesting ideas to contem-

plate. While I started out asking

“Why are some people afraid of

dolls?” in the end I was left with

“What is it that makes up a

soul?”

Namaste.

4

QUERY

Where is the Uncanny Valley ?

Who put the uncanny”in Uncanny Valley?

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Do robots have souls?

What sort of people should there be?

What is Das Unheimliche?

What is Transhumanism?

Can a polygon make you cry? By Jonathan Joly

Clockwork Prayer: A 16th

-Century Mechanical Monk by Elizabeth King

How will we Game in the Future?

What is the Chinese room?

5 Utan gränser (No Boundaries) by Erik Johansson

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

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

Poem By Professor Nick Bostrom

POEM

6

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

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.

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.

OPINION

7

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

8

big fan of overly dramatic work where

everything is all arguments and tears and

nothing funny ever happens. I guess in that

way even as an adult I am still very much the

child (like) audience that Herge was writing

for.

When I first saw on a random Tumblr thread

there was a Tintin movie in the works, I

freaked out. I never felt Herge’s work had

never received the attention it deserves, be-

cause even though every library in the world

probably has at least a few copies of the

trade paper backs on their shelves, hardly

anyone ever seemed to know about it. You

could mention it to your typical comic book

collector and get nothing but a confused

look in return. After all, it sounds like a silly

children’s story. With a protagonist named

Tintin, who would ever take it seri-

ously? Because of this lack of main-

stream popularity, I assumed that the film

would be produced in a small but powerful

foreign independent studio. I pictured beau-

tiful, traditionally-lined work, along the lines

of The Triplets of Belleville or The Illusionist-

animation that had a lot of life and move-

ment- really classic stuff. Instead I found my-

self staring face-to-face with CGI animation

stills.

I was fairly disappointed, angry even, at the

style they had chosen to use to convey one

of my favorite classical works. CGI is without

doubt an extremely popular option- 3D GCI

even more so- but it has also been more

than a little played out of late. Everything

aimed at children seems to be presented in

The Uncanny Valley

Tintin and

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

CINEMA

9

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.

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.

10

Enough about that. Let’s get back to the re-

al reason for this article.

Right away I could tell the movie was go-

ing to be great. The music, the setting, and

the characters- everything felt perfectly…

Tintin. It was almost like watching fan art-

beautifully and lovingly rendered fan art-

come to life. The makers of this film really

had a love for the work they were doing.

The actors obviously enjoyed themselves as

you could hear it in their voices and see it in

the motions and gestures they used to cre-

ate the performance capture animation for

the movie. I could feel that the characters

were exactly who they are supposed to be;

it felt right. That was unexpected. I really

thought that the characters would be more

zombified, lifeless and expressionless dolls,

like past motion capture CGI films had given

us.

After all, the characters on

the screen didn’t look

like the characters from

the comic; they looked

like totally different

people. But at the

same time, they

didn’t look that dif-

ferent at all. Sure they were 3-

Dimensional, so they had fea-

tures like freckles and pores, de-

tailed hair and textured clothing

that the original designs didn’t have be-

cause of Herge’s simplistic drawing style.

But that didn’t really make them any less of

the characters they were supposed to be.

Tintin, for example, still has his signature

ginger cowlick even though in the movie

the hair is rendered with extreme realism.

Instead of a mere five or six lines making up

the outline of his hair he has a whole head

of hair, but though the detail is extreme it is

not distracting. The same goes for his face.

In Herge’s style Tintin’s eyes are mere dots,

his nose a simple half-circle and his mouth

a single curved line. In the movie his face is

full of details; you could easily study it for

hours. His eyes are a rich blue and his brows

and lashes reflect the light ginger color of

his hair. The nose and mouth are realistic,

yet still cartoon-like. It all comes together to

create a perfect interpretation of Tintin.

That’s really what the movie felt like to me,

a perfect interpretation of a fantastic work.

The combined creative powers of the direc-

tor, producers, actors and VFX (visual ef-

fects) artists really came together to create

a magical journey into a world of excite-

ment and adventure, coupled together with

appealing characters and a wonderful story-

line. I truly enjoyed Tintin as both a fan of

the comics and a fan of animation. I think

that anyone who only looks at this movie as

another CGI kids’ film is really missing out

on a one-of-a-kind remake of a classic ad-

venture tale which is loved by millions of

kids and adults the world over.

Tintin and

the Reason Why it was Not Nearly as Bad as I

thought it would be

tintin

.com

B

11 Droplets a visual poem by Thomas Wingfield

12

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,

13

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

been authenticated by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation, holders of the rights to

“Metropolis”, and restoration was still on a distant and hazy horizon.

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.

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.

CINEMA

By Livius Drusus B

“...an epic about

conflicts that are

ages old.”

13

14

Biting the SuN

Biting the Sun by Celine Loup 14

15

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.”

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).

15

16

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

17

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!

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.

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.”

17

18

"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

* Appeared in the Wikipedia entry for S.I.L.V.E.R. Series

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

19

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)

1980: "Red As Blood" (nominated, best short story)

1981: Kill The Dead (nominated, best novel)

1999: "Jedella Ghost" (nominated, best short story)

2000: "Where Does The Town Go At Night?" (nominated, best short story)

Daughter of the Night An Annotated

Tanith Lee Bibliography

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.

Guardian of the Book Illustration by Janet Jia-Ee Chui

20

At my reading

every day

language breathes

down my nature

on the podium

losing myself

in stolen words

as kisses

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.

By B.Z. Niditch

POEM

LANGUAGE

21

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

22

You created the term “democratic transhuman-

ism,” so how do you define it?

The term "democratic transhumanism" distin-

guishes a biopolitical stance that combines socially liberal or lib-

ertarian views (advocating internationalist, secular, free speech,

and individual freedom values), with economically egalitarian

views (pro-regulation, pro-redistribution, pro-social welfare val-

ues), with an openness to the transhuman benefits that science

and technology can provide, such as longer lives and expanded

abilities. It was an attempt to distinguish the views of most trans-

humanists, who lean Left, from the minority of highly visible Sili-

con Valley-centered libertarian transhumanists, on the one hand,

and from the Left bioconservatives on the other.

In the last six or seven years the phrase has been supplanted by

the descriptor "technoprogressive" which is used to describe the

same basic set of Enlightenment values and policy proposals:

human enhancement technologies, especially anti-aging ther-

apies, should be a priority of publicly financed basic research,

be well regulated for safety, and be included in programs of

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

Connecticut where he teaches health policy and serves as

Director of Institutional Research and Planning. Dr.

Hughes is author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Socie-

ties Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future.

The Future as we Fear It as we Fear It

INTERVIEW

23

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

24

Bio-Guardian collaboration by Thomas Wingfield and Joe Mclean

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

a tool without a will of its own, or a being that we can't communicate

or co-exist with. B

25

excerpt from How to Survive a Robot uprising by Daniel H. Wilson

PRETEND TO BE DAMAGED

A damaged robot may exhibit strange behavior while failing

to transmit identification.

CHANGE YOUR HEAT SIGNATURE

Stuff aluminum foil in your pants. Rub your exposed skin with

cool mud. Hang a hulking piece of gold metal around your

neck and slip into an Adidas jumpsuit. Your heat signature

will not match a healthy robot, nor will it match a healthy

human being.

MAKE SOME NOISE

An occasional screeching beep or boop should suffice. Make

it quick and strangled; this is no audition.

MOVE LIKE A ROBOT

Early robots exhibited a trademark clumsiness that

spawned a dance called the robot. Contemporary robots are

more dexterous - unless broken. Pretend you are either

damaged machinery or a well-oiled break-dancing machine,

and pop and lock your way into the heart of robot territory.

IF CONFRONTED KEEP MOVING AND DON'T LOOK BACK

You're just a poser, so ignore other robots and pretend to be

completely oblivious to the environment. Keep your head down and

shuffle forward with a steady, even pace. The fate of the entire hu-

man race may depend on it.

How to Pose as a Humanoid Robot

ADVICE

25

26

MEDIA

“...The robot monk

resides at Hotoku-ji,

a temple in Kakoga-

wa City, Hyogo Pre-

fecture. Fixed in a

kneeling position, it

features a smoothly

shaven head and

prominent ears, just

like its human coun-

terparts. Clad in

priestly robes, it

grasps a string

of juzu (Buddhist pray-

er beads) in its left hand.

So what does Hotoku-ji's robot priest do?

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)

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.

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

ROBO-MONK

Hotoku-ji monk hard at work

The future

is being

created

today.

“The bride, Inoue, works for the com-

pany that makes the i-Fairy, and her

husband, Shibata, is a client.

"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

wanted to try this sort of wedding,"

Shibata said after making his vows.

After saying "I do," the bride said that

she wanted to use her wedding to

show people that robots can easily fit

into their daily lives.

"I always felt that robots would be-

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

- Faith D'Aluisio

27

YOKOHAMA, JAPAN - The bearded

priest kneels on his cushion in front of

a Buddhist altar. Incense fills the air, as

he chants a sutra for the dead, pausing

after each verse to strike a small brass

gong.

"We are very proud of him," says Isao

Hirata, a hovering acolyte in a navy

blue business suit. "He's so lifelike ...

one of our finest creations."

First, they automated the humans out

of car-making; now, Japan's electronic

whiz-kids have made an even more

daring breakthrough: taking the priests

out of religion. Here, on a hillside in a

suburb of Japan's second city, a con-

struction magnate has spent $¥18 mil-

lion marrying the marvels of modern

robotics to the mysteries of the world's

oldest religions.

In this high-tech chapel, all glass and

stainless steel, computers and hydrau-

lics do the Lord's work.

Mr Hirata presses a button on his con-

trol pad and the priest switches to an-

other prayer routine - all recorded in

stereo. The priest bows his head and

moves his lips in sync with the chant.

Robo-Priest cost

nearly $¥500,000.

He is programmed

to deliver word-

perfect prayers ac-

cording to the rites

of seven different

Buddhist sects, Shinto and two Chris-

tian faiths.

At the push of a button, religious stat-

ues are hydraulically pumped into cen-

ter-stage ... seven different Buddhas, a

Catholic Christ on a cross, and a slightly

more haggard-looking one for the

Protestants. There are two vacant nich-

es to accommodate any Jewish or Hin-

du Yokohamans who may feel left out.

Robo-Priest is the centerpiece of a

chapel built to the design of Mr Hideo

Yoshino, 59, the head of a Yokohama

construction company who decided

last year to get into aging Japan's lu-

crative and highly competitive funeral

industry.

Behind the chapel is a cemetery where

Mr Yoshino hopes to make his profit.

There are 1,300 grave sites here (swept

and watered daily by a robot caretaker),

ROBO-PRIEST TAKES

CENTER STAGE

The Citizen Ottawa, Canada Monday April 22,

and buying a perpetual lease on one will

set you back $¥44,000. Funeral services

and rental of the chapel's many modern

facilities, which include tables and bench-

es which can be hydraulically raised and

lowered -could cost another $¥100,000

or more.

Robo-Priest was built to promote this

automated necropolis, says the chapel's

curator, Mr Tohru Sakurai. The date of a

client's death will be programmed into

the computer, and every year the priest

will descend hydraulically from his attic in

the ceiling and say sutras for the soul of

the departed for half an hour.

"We are not trying to do live priests out

of business," Mr Sakurai said. "However,

the robot never forgets an anniversary, it

never makes a mistake and you get the

service free." Since the chapel opened in

October, Mr Sakurai says business has

been quite brisk - 200 grave sites have

been sold.

Sydney Morning Herald, May 4 1993

Mechanical priest perform-ing funeral rituals in Yoko-

hama, Japan © Don Farber

28

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)

THOUGHTS

By Danielle Elizabeth Tumminio

Would you accept a robot as your priest or vicar?

Image courtesy of The Smithsonian Institute

“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

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. Re-printed courtesy of guardian.co.uk

B

30

The War of the

Robots

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.

Robotoids have a "choice" -- according to

the Robot -- in the way they follow (or don't

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)

By John Kenneth Muir

OPINION

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

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

(like the Twilight Zone) and dominated by this clunky (but gorgeous)

"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.

Those sets and vehicles appear fantastic and realistic at the same time,

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

or Firefly isn't going to find a whole lot of meat here; or a whole lot of

complexity either. B

32

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

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-

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-

tween those two conversations. If the

aliens left the robot on the planet, why

can't they find it again? Similarly, I en-

joyed the Robot's explanation of the

subtle distinctions between robot and

robotoid, but how, exactly, does a Ro-

bot from Earth (from 20th century

Earth) come by this information about

advanced alien robotoids?

In the end, I suppose it doesn't

really matter. "The War of the Robots"

is a fable or lesson about jealousy, and

every other consideration is secondary.

And besides, if you grew up in the

1970s with an affection for Forbidden

Planet's Robby and the Lost in Space

Robot, there's no probably way on

Earth (or in space...) you can resist an

episode involving their robot-on-robot

smack down...

The Laws of

a robot may

not injure a human be-

ing, or through inac-

tion, allow a human

being to come to

harm;

a robot must obey the orders

given it by human beings except where

such orders would conflict with the First

Law;

a robot must protect its own

existence as long as such protection

does not conflict with the First or Second

Laws.”

B

33

There are a lot of formulaic movies out there that try to tap into

the underdog story. Movies like Rocky and The Karate Kid are

classics because we can put ourselves in the shoes of the main

character and the moment of victory is sweeter for it-- but what

happens when you're rooting for a robot?

Real Steel, a movie loosely based on a short story by Richard

Matheson, is the story of Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) and his

estranged son Max. Charlie is a former boxer trying to earn a living

in a world that no longer has any interest in boxing matches fea-

turing human fighters. Over time audiences have moved on from

the small spectacle of of traditional boxing matches and now only

pay the big money to watch robots slug it out in the ring, so Char-

lie chooses to eke out a living operating his own robot fighter.

Charlie is the kind of guy who only seems capable of making bad

decisions. He rushes into every situation with a gambler's impetu-

ousness but no eye for detail and is running out of options when

it comes to staying ahead of his debts. True to form Charlie ap-

proaches the unexpected appearance of his son Max as an oppor-

tunity to score some money rather than showing any interest in

the relationship for its own sake. But Max has more than his share

of stubbornness and before long is acting as his dad's fighting

partner.

After another disastrous bout, Charlie ends up at the junkyard

looking for parts to piece together another robot when Max liter-

ally falls over an old-school robot named Atom that turns out to

be just the thing to improve their fortunes.

Real Steel is one of those movies that has so many elements

from other films that very little comes across as new. Take a little

Rocky, sprinkle in The Champ and add some Rock 'Em Sock 'Em

Robots for good measure and you've got Real Steel. That said, it's

still a pretty good little movie.

Hugh Jackman has to get most of the credit for making "Real

Steel" a movie worth watching. Charlie isn't a sympathetic charac-

ter-- and Jackman doesn't try to make him one. He's schemes and

steals his way through life and the sudden arrival of a kid doesn't

change his character. Max goes toe-to-toe with Charlie but he's

one of those super-precocious kids that only exist in the movies.

He's sympathetic and cute in a predictably smart-mouthed kind of

way, but we've seen him before. Charlie isn't anything new either,

but at least he takes his time evolving into someone worthwhile.

The story isn't set that far into the future so the world hasn't

changed that much. The fights are a realistic combination of vide-

o/gladiatorial game that actually seem somewhat harmless com-

CINEMA Real Steel By Theresa Lucas

33

34

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

might wish that the film had explored the idea of re-

placing fighters with robots and Charlie's feelings

about that-- it seemed like a missed opportunity that

was mostly wasted on setting up the final shadow-

boxing scene. However Real Steel is strictly light en-

tertainment--but it's also good fun and sometimes

that's all you really need.

(TOSY Ping Pong Playing Robot) is a

bipedal humanoid robot designed by

TOSY, a robotics firm in Vietnam, to

play table tennis against a human. TOPIO 3.0 stands approxi-

mately 6' 2" (1.88m) tall and weighs 264 lbs (120 kg ).TOPIO

uses an advanced artificial intelligence system to learn and

continuously improve its skill level while playing. B

34

35

Minecraft at its simplest is a sandbox world where

you can dig holes, pits, caverns, etc. as well as build

hills, mountains, buildings, etc., but it can be so

much more. Indeed unless you change the difficulty

setting to “Peaceful”, the game is a survival game in

addition to a creative outlet. There are two ways to

play the game, single player and multiplayer. Both

are pretty much the same game except that single

player is played and the maps are stored on your

computer, while multiplayer is played over a net-

work connection and the maps are stored on a

server which you connect to in order to play.

The game starts you with no possessions whatso-

ever and you must find a way to survive the night

which comes all too soon. As night falls, skeletons,

zombies, giant spiders, and creatures known as

“creepers” appear and are out to kill you. Your ob-

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

you manage to craft torches, you will still need some kind of structure to protect

you until you can craft weapons to fight off the mobs. The most feared mob is

the Creeper, because unlike the rest of the mobs which just attack you, Creepers

will explode as they approach you. You must keep your wits about you, lest you

hear the dreaded “sssssssssSSSSSSSSS” which signals that they are about to ex-

plode, followed by the *BOOM!* of the explosion which will almost always kill

you instantly as well as destroying any nearby blocks or structures.

Setting aside the mobs, the game is a great creativity game. When you start you

only have your hands to gather resources. The only resources you can gather

with your hands are dirt, sand, and wood. Once you have some wood, you can

start making use of another great feature of Minecraft: crafting. Using different

materials in different configurations, you can make various tools, materials, re-

sources, and so on. At any given time, you have access to a 2x2 crafting table.

You can use this table to make small things such as torches, which requires a

stick below a piece of coal. The most common use of the 2x2 crafting square is

to make a crafting table by arranging 4 wooden planks with one in each square

of the 2x2 grid. The crafting table allows the use of a 3x3 crafting grid. Another

By Justin Yates

REVIEW

36

common use of the 2x2 grid is to process

wood. One block of wood gives 4 wooden

planks, two planks stacked one on top of

the other gives four sticks. Sticks are used

very often to craft axes, shov-

els, pickaxes, hoes, fishing

rods, swords, bows, arrows,

torches, and more. As you

may have guessed, each tool

has its use. Axes for wood;

shovels for sand, dirt, gravel,

and snow; pickaxes for stone;

hoes for farming; fishing rods

for fishing; swords, bows, and arrows for

battle; and torches for light. Using the tools

(except arrows and torches) causes wear on

them and eventually they will break. Using a

tool incorrectly, such as a shovel on stone,

will cause the tool to be worn more quickly

and break sooner.

The game itself is pretty basic; dig, build,

and survive, but it can be so much more

with a bit of creativity. People have created

huge recreations of characters, drawings,

scenes, buildings, etc. There have also been

working creations such as rollercoasters,

Rube Goldberg machines, cannons, and

since the introduction of redstone circuitry

there have even been rudimentary comput-

ers. Currently they are only 16-bit machines

which are basically just huge adding ma-

chines, but the potential is

amazing, especially as the

space available to build a

machine is nearly infinite

within the world of Mine-

craft. As technology im-

proves and people continue

to take the time to produce

such creations, the possibil-

ity of having a basic computer (as we think

of “computers”) within your computer is

amazing.

At the time of this writing, Minecraft is cur-

rently only in Beta, which means it is not the

final, full game. Notch is constantly working

on improving the game and adding fea-

tures. Every so often he will release an up-

dated version with a large batch of bug fix-

es, various improvements, and extra fea-

tures. These updates are free and automati-

cally downloaded when you launch the

game. The game is not free, but it is not too

expensive either. You can buy it now at a

discount (from what the full version will

cost) and get all future versions for free in-

cluding the full version when it is released.

The final version will sell for €20, but if you

buy it while it’s in Beta, it only costs €14.95.

The price is listed in Euros because Notch

(the creator) lives in Sweden, and the ex-

change rates vary every day.

Notch has a lot of ideas for Minecraft and I

can’t wait to see what come in the future.

You can learn more about Minecraft as well

as buy it at http://www.minecraft.net. If you

would like to follow the progress of Mine-

craft, you can view Notch’s blog or follow

@Notch on twitter. He will often announce

his progress on Minecraft improvements as

well as reveal future plans for Minecraft.

Minecraft 1.2 released March 1, 2012

All images courtesy Mojang

B

37 Black and White Still Life By Anh Duy Nguyen

38

“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.

Citizen Cyborg

39

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

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.

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,

The Mechanical Turk

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.

HISTORY

By Kresimir Josic

40

Eyebombing

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

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

THOUGHTS by Michael A. Arnzen

41

"returning the gaze." We might feel an aura of weirdness for

just the first moment we look at the object and see that it is

"looking back" when it's not supposed to. This reaction harkens

back to what Freud once termed the "surmounted" childhood

beliefs in an animistic world, in this case rendering everyday

urban life as fantastic as the trees that talk in fairy tales or the

Muppets of television childhood. Only now Oscar the Grouch

doesn't live a trashcan -- he IS the trashcan. From guard rails to

postal boxes, as the result of eyebombing, the objects of every-

day life become doll-like with those cheap stick-on "googly"

eyes so familiar to us from craft stores.

But googly eyes are plastic simulacra to begin with. They do

not "move of their own accord" per se -- in fact, it would prob-

ably be far more uncanny and disturbing to see human beings

with plastic eyes like these on their faces instead. In other

words, this is a representation of the gaze, a plastic staging of

the uncanny, rather than a genuinely haunting act of defamil-

iarization.

Yet it is still -- at least at first glance -- a little uncanny. Indeed,

it is the eyes themselves, far more than the objects they trans-

form, which I would say are the harbingers of the popular un-

canny. Is it not the familiarity of the googly eyes -- not of the

defamiliarized postal box, but the plastic eyes themselves --

used in such a strange way, that makes them seem so odd, if

not haunting? The googly eyes themselves are displaced from

the faces of dolls and other crafts and are now potentially

looking at us from anywhere, especially places where we would

not expect to encounter them. The "bombed" site -- a guard

rail, a trash can, a light switch -- is surprisingly looking at us

when we turn around, precisely like those eyes on the GEICO

dollar bill stack from advertising ("I always feel like somebody's

watching me.")

Of course, this is not really scaring anyone. Disturbing a few,

momentarily, perhaps. But we remain "surmounted" because

we are not fooled by the eyes -- they are not realistic the way

that, say, fantastically customized contact lenses or the eyeballs

from a "reborn doll" are. No -- these "craft" items are virtually

two-dimensional in all their clitter-clatter spinning disc glory,

and are located more in the realm of concepts than animals.

Indeed, they seem to make a statement more than talk for

themselves. The subversive act of rendering a public, hard ob-

ject as a personalized and personified object is still potent; it

can defamiliarize in a very palpable manner, like all good art --

but it does so in a way that is not felt as threatening. Its unre-

ality is domesticated -- which, while seemingly lacking in the

haunting power of the uncanny is nonetheless a a defining ele-

ment of many items of the _"popular"_ uncanny, which subli-

mates but never entirely buries repressed desire in its attempt

to make the unfamiliar more familiar -- often by employing the

tactics of childhood fantasy.

Eyebombing is the Fozzie-Bearification of the community prop-

erty -- the Jim Hensoning of the public square. There is a re-

turn of the repressed invoked here, but it very well may a re-

pressed belief in the power of folk art, which has been increas-

ingly "surmounted" by technology -- or even just a psychologi-

cal reawakening of some relationship to a children's puppet

from days gone by -- which here returns with a twinge of un-

canny recognition.

"Eyebombing is the act of setting googly eyes on inanimate things in the public space. Ultimately the goal is to humanize the streets, and bring sunshine to people passing by." -- Eyebombing.com

Bombs away! B

42

8th Century BCE

Homer writes

that Hephaes-

tus, blacksmith

to the Greek

gods, made 3-

legged servants

-- automata --

which moved

under their own

power and at

Edo period

(1603–1867)

automata known

as karakuri ningyō

are popular in Japan.

Many of these are

designed and creat-

ed in China, then

exported as novelties

1495

Leonardo da

Vinci sketches

the design for

a complex au-

tomated

knight, now

known as “da

Vinci robot”

1560 Mechanician

Juanelo Turriano

builds a praying

monk automa

for Holy Roman

Emperor Charles V

1206

Al-Jazari describes

complex program-

mable humanoid

automata he de-

signed and con-

structed in the Book

of Knowledge of In-

genious Mechanical

Devices including

one that could serve

drinks.

2nd Century BCE

Hero of Alexandria

designs many

hydraulic, pneu-

matic and me-

chanical autom-

ata including

singing birds,

temple tableaux,

and moving stat-

ues, document-

ing them in

Automata

c. 1600

Clockmakers in

Augsburg, Ger-

many create

“marvelous silver

creatures, chari-

ots and mechani-

cal tabletop gal-

leons.”

www.lessing-photo.com

1400

The advent

of clock-

work and

the use of

automata

in public

clocks

across

HISTORY Automaton

“acting of one’s own will”

43

1737

French engi-

neerJacques de Vau-

canson constructs

the Digesting Duck, a

mechanical duck that

gave the illusion of

eating and defecating.

Voltaire commented

wryly " without the

shitting duck there

would be nothing to

remind us of the glory

of France."

1662

Rene Descartes

envisions the

universe as a

machine with

every living

thing a complex

machine com-

posed of inter-

dependent

components

that could be

rationally un-

derstood.

1769

Wolfgang von

Kempelen

tours Europe

with a chess-

playing ma-

chine --The

Turk -- which

is thought to

be a hoax

c.1780

James Cox builds

The Peacock Clock

c.1800

The Jaquet

Droz automata

begin touring

to promote

watches

1850-1910

French Golden Age ,

Paris makers sup-

plied the world

with musical au-

tomata of artistry

and beauty.

1969 - 1985

The Mechanical Dark Age

Computers and the space race usurped all interest

in the potential of mechanism in popular culture.

44

''Our fascination with mechanical,

electrical devices to mimic human

behavior just seems to be unbound-

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

VIDEO

Automatonophobia is the fear of anything that

falsely represents a sentient being.

45

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

The House of Automa INTERVIEW

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.

46

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

47

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

48

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.”

HISTORY

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49

1976

Xavier Roberts designs a soft bod-

ied doll with a needle-molded face.

Joking with friends, he says he

“found them in the cabbage

patch.” Later, Robert creates a dis-

play of his soft-sculpture “Little

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

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

begins marketing his “Little Peo-

ple” at flea markets and craft fairs.

This leads to distribution deals

with independently owned small

businesses, mainly gift shops,

which take CPKs all over the na-

tion.

1978

Roberts purchases a turn of the

century medical facility in Cleve-

land, Georgia and renovates it into

a manufacturing and distribution

center he dubs Baby Land General.

1979

Popular national television show

“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.

The Chicago Tribune calls it the

“polyester baby boom.”

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

“unreserved endorsement.”

Concerned United Birthparents, a

national support group for families

who give up children for adoption

complains “ Cabbage Patch Kids

degrade the concept of adoption.”

A Georgia housewife advertises

babysitting for CPK at $10 a week.

Local press state her nursery aver-

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-

ey.”

49

50

In October, A riot over CPK dolls

breaks out in Philadelphia, Pennsyl-

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

heads of the crowd to a third per-

son waiting at the cash register.

Consumers mob stores in Florida,

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

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

his store a few at a time.:

When Sheriff’s deputies arrived the

frenzied group stomped on their

feet and kicked them.

In Pennsylvania, a department

store manager faced with 1,000

people, many who had been wait-

ing 8 hours, armed himself with a

baseball bat. The result was five

causalities, one a broken leg.

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.”

Brandeis University psychologist

Malcolm Watson releases a paper

stating the doll’s features

“releasing mechanism” that trig-

gers and instinct for nurturing in

both adults and children.

Unconfirmed rumors state: “a sig-

nificant number of hospitals” have

issued real blank birth certificates

to child wanting to adopt non-CPK

dolls.

Summit County Indiana residents

ask to officially register CPKs adop-

tions.

In Yonkers, New York a local paper

reports the popularity of Cabbage-

tizing – baptism of a CPK. Church

“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.”

“They knocked over tables

fighting with each other –

there were people in mid-air.

It got ugly.”

51

authorities deny these have taken

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

incidents in which a CPK doll, be-

ing treated as a living child by the

owner, was possessed by a

“demon.” Victims claim the dolls

order them to injure themselves

or others. In one case an exorcist

is bought in to deal with the

problem.

In Virginia Beach, Virginia a CPK

was stolen from the Thomas

House Adoption Center, but local

papers referred to the incident as

“kidnapping” and reported the

culprits were quickly arrested and

plead guilty.

Nation magazine reports: The

Reverend Jerry Falwell said that

the dolls were “blasphemous cari-

catures”…when he first heard of

the Cabbage Patch Kids, he ap-

proved of them because ‘they

taught little girls to think about

adoption rather than abortion.”

Now, however, he believes they

are ‘the spawn of Satan.’”

On February 29, 1984 a CPK

“couple” named Gerard and Jodie

Nelly are married in a service

broadcast live by KSTT-AM in

Davenport, Iowa. Doll owner

Norm Grimstead stated: “They’ve

been living together for several

months. We thought it was about

time.” Disc jockey Dave Schrop-

shire quips, “This may be the first

Cabbage Patch wedding. I hope it

doesn’t lead to the first doll di-

vorce.”

March 6, 1984 A CPK funeral

takes place in Corpus Christi, Tex-

as in a “tiny black pine casket”

Helen Williams organized the

event as a protest against CPK no

longer being exclusively distribut-

ed through small businesses, with

50 supporting small business

owners and 30 CPK mourners

wearing black armbands

Rumors begins to circulate about

the origins of CPK dolls, including

conspiracy theories involving

the government and Satanist.

Another rumor is damaged dolls

returned for repair are returned in

a coffin or the owner billed for a

funeral.

Information from Fantasy: The Incredible Cabbage Patch Phenomenon by William Hoffman (1984)

Photograph by Theresa Thanh Vu

Secret History

of the Cabbage

Patch Kids R

52

Robert Eugene Otto (1900-1974) was born to a

reasonably wealthy Key West, Florida family. In

1906, a family servant made Robert a doll de-

signed to look just like him. Local folklore con-

tends the servant practiced voodoo and used the

doll to curse the family.

Robert Otto and Robert the Doll were often seen

together, wearing matching outfits. The doll went

everywhere with him, sat with the family during

meals, and slept in the same bed. Eugene's parents

said they often heard him talking to the doll and

that the doll appeared to be talking back. Alt-

hough at first they assumed their imaginative son

was simply answering himself in a changed voice;

but according to local gossips, they later believed

that the doll was actually speaking. After a being

woken in the night by Robert Otto’s screams, his

parents became more seriously worried. Anything

that happened around the house, Robert Otto

pointed to the doll and said, “Robert did it!”

The fact that Robert Otto was an

only child is reason enough for him

to become attached to Robert the

Doll, but he never seemed to out-

grow his obsession with it. As an

adult, he kept the doll in his bed-

room and took it with him every-

where -- even after he married.

This quirk was seen as harmless by

friends and neighbors. According to locals, Robert

the Doll was often seen sitting in an upstairs win-

dow and some how this made people uncomforta-

ble. Some people swore they had seen the expres-

sion on the doll’s face twist into a frown or threat-

ening sneer. When Robert Otto died in 1974, Rob-

ert the Doll was placed in the attic.

After Robert Otto’s death, his widow rented out

the house with strict instructions that Robert the

Doll was to remain in the attic and not be taken

out for any reason. Her wishes were followed until

after her death and Robert the Doll found it’s way

into the collection of the Fort East Martello Museum.

Robert the Doll’s WEBSITE

Robert the Doll’s BLOG

Robert the Doll’s TWEETS

Robert the Doll’s WIKIPEDIA ENTRY

Robert the Doll on TRAVEL CHANNEL

Robert the Doll on YOUTUBE

Robert the Doll’s SINGLE

Robert the Doll GIFT SHOP

Robert the Doll FOLK LORE

R

53

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!

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

hut with no utilities. He kept to himself, turning away visitors

and seeing only family members. He decorated the trees on

his chinampa with the dolls and doll parts he found in near-

by canals and trash heaps. According to local folklore he was

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.

Pediophobia is a fear of dolls,

manikins, or

children.

“My Name is Talky

Tina and I am going

to kill you.”

Isla de Las Munecas

54

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

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

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-

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

rarely allowed that to happen.

All Dolls Go To Heaven

OPINION

By Dale Bridges

Photograph by Theresa Thanh Vu

55

“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-

56

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

God. He said that he did. I pushed him

under water for a few minutes, and that

was that.

At least that would have been that if I

hadn’t remembered the mob of unre-

pentant stuffed animals living in my bed-

room. There was Curious George and

Scooby Doo and Harry Dog and Theodo-

ra Bear. They were all heathens. How

could I have been so foolish? I ran to my

room and started hauling armloads of

stuffed animals to the bathroom. It was

quite a collection of furry anthropomor-

phized sinners. I rolled up my sleeves

and got to work. I was cleansing the

Cookie Monster’s soul when my mother

came home.

“I see we’ve been busy,” she said as she

stood in the bathroom doorway. She

looked at the pile of soggy animals in the

hamper. “Swimming lessons?”

“Baptism,” I said.

“I see. Are you done?”

“Two more.”

She thought about this for a few seconds,

and then she took off her jacket and

picked up the hamper. “Finish up and

bring them downstairs,” she said. “You

have a big mess to clean up, young man.”

I finished baptizing Cookie Monster and

Big Bird, and then I joined my mother

downstairs, where the dryer was making a

heavy plunk-plunk-plunk sound as it ro-

tated.

“Are they okay in there?” I asked.

My mother nodded. “They’ll be fine. You

get some towels and clean up the bath-

room. I’ll keep an eye out on your disci-

ples.”

“Good thinking,” I said. I ran upstairs to

get rid of the evidence."

“It was a simple ceremony. I asked Jerry if he believed that Jesus was the son of God. He said that he did. I pushed

him under water for a few minutes, and that was that.”

R

57

CLICK HERE

to ENTER

the UNCANNY VALLEY

DESTINATION

When I was a smallish-sized person, Cabbage Patch Kids were all

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

they're still going strong -- and you can even visit the hospital

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

Yes, Cabbage

Patch Kids

Are Still

Creepy by Ramona Creel

Baby Land General images courtesy Theresa Thanh

58

serial killer.) Flush with success, Xavier hit the craft show circuit

and began selling his handmade "Little People" for an adoption

fee of $40 per doll. At the same time, he got some friends to help

renovate a turn-of-the-century medical clinic in the North Georgia

Mountains into a museum and store for his creations -- called Ba-

by Land General Hospital.

In the early 80's, Xavier signed a licensing agreement with Coleco

to create more durable, non-original, less-expensive versions of

these dolls under the name "Cabbage Patch Kids" for national dis-

tribution. These are the dolls most folks remember and still buy

today (with vinyl heads that smell disturbingly like baby powder.)

Millions were sold in the first year, but that didn't even come close

to meeting demand -- and during the holiday shopping season,

all you had to do was turn on the nightly news for shots of ugly

mall-mob scenes with grown women fighting over who was going

to get the last doll in stock. The marketing of Cabbage Patch Kids

is both a sad reminder of our lack of consumer perspective and

the most successful introduction of a new doll line in the history of

the toy industry -- and the whole thing started in backwoods

Georgia (go figure!)

Fast-forward 35 years from the beginning, and Baby Land General

has outgrown its original location -- the company recently built a

huge 70,000 square foot building on 96 acres facility that looks

more like an antebellum home than a toy store. This is where you

have to go for the seriously collectible original kids. Early "Little

People" can be valued at as much as $20,000 (insane, if you ask

me), and you can still adopt a hand-stitched cloth baby for around

$150. These days, they create dolls from teeny newborn "is-it-a-

boy-or-a-girl" babies, all the way up to what look like thuggish

and sullen adolescents. You can get kids of every nationality

(although they all have the same goofy-looking face, just different

skin color -- kind of like the legions of multi-cultural “It's A Small

World" children!) Whatever your taste, you can find it here --

blondes, brunettes, redheads, and baldies, kids with 'fros, kids with

stylable hair, and even kids that look like they are meant to have

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!

It's Even Weirder In Person

If you thought that walking through the Cabbage Patch section at

your local toy store was disconcerting, try a miniature theme park

filled with creepy little kids! The speakers play cheesy hip-hop ver-

sions of nursery rhymes (yo yo black sheep, gots you any wool?) --

and you are greeted by a terminally cheerful older lady in a

nurse's outfit, crooked lipstick, and too much pancake makeup.

She's clutching a doll to her ample bosom, talking in baby-speak,

and inadvertently frightening small children with her enthusiasm. I

couldn't help picturing her as one of those deranged women who

finds out she's infertile, kidnaps other people's newborns, and

passes them off as her own -- she's clearly been let out of prison

on work release and placed in what should be a "safe" environ-

ment for her

The front room is filled with cases of early collectible kids, each

with a price tag of $5,000-$15,000 (more expensive than adopting

a puppy, but less than the cost for a live child!) And new babies

59

are "birthed" every hour at the Magic Crystal Tree in

the back room -- a mother cabbage goes into la-

bor, animatronic bunnybees pollinate the dolls with

crystals (a very gender stereotypical blue for boys

and pink for girls), and a "LPN" (Licensed Patch

Nurse) runs over to assist with the delivery. She (no

male nurses at Baby Land) comments on how much

the tree is dilated (I'm sorry, but that's just wrong)

and injects the cabbage with "imagicillin"

(presumably to protect its offspring from being dull

and boring -- would that we had such a shot for

real people!) The youngest human in the room is

allowed to choose the first and middle names --

these are recorded on the birth certificate, the baby

is placed in one of the cribs scattered about the

hospital, and that kid is officially put out for adop-

tion.

Occasionally a c-section (cabbage, not cesarean)

may be required (shoulder dystocia? placental ab-

ruption?) Since not every birth goes the way nature

intended, the hospital Intensive Care Unit (seems

like it should be "Intensive Cabbage Unit," in keep-

ing with the theme) is lined with incubators full of

teeny unformed preemies -- just a decapitated

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

the hospital has moved toward a less regulated

procedure for those without insurance -- all around

the room, you can pluck your own baby from the

"garden" without professional assistance (which I

imagine will be the downfall of the CP health sys-

tem in coming years.) You can even bring your

original cloth dolls in to the "bathing camp" for

clean-up and refurbishing, but I didn't get a good

answer about what they do with discarded kids

whose owners have grown up and forgotten about

them. There's no "re-adoption" center for older

Cabbage Patch Kids (the ones with serious aban-

donment issues), and I didn't see a landfill or incin-

erator in the back -- so maybe they turn them into

nutrition for the newly growing buds ("soylent

green is cabbage!")

It's free, it's weird, it's nostalgic, and it's the only

thing to do in Cleveland, Georgia -- so I say Bab

Land General is worth a stop. But remember, this

place is really nothing more than a gigantic toy

store, filled with every bit of Cabbage Patch para-

phernalia you could possibly imagine. If you're

bringing a child with you, don't expect to escape

without dropping at least $50 in the process!

Copyright Ramona Creel, all rights reserved. Baby Land photographs courtesy Theresa Thanh Vu

R

60 Temple of Technology by James Rugg

61

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

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.”

ESSAY

&

By Mary King

62

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.

In Japan robots not only take an ac-

tive part in religious life, but can reg-

ularly be seen fulfilling other roles

too. Humanoid robots such as

Mitsubishi’s Wakamaru are designed

to become part of the family, to en-

tertain both young and old, as well as provide information and

security. Last year Ryota Hiura, a roboticist at Mitsubishi, told a

Chicago Tribune journalist about an elderly woman dying of

heart disease who had asked for her Wakamaru to attend her fu-

neral. Hiura explained that the old woman’s dying wish had been

respected.

Visitors to Tokyo University of Science are often surprised by the

presence of Saya, an android that has worked on the university’s

reception desk for the past four years. Saya is human-like in ap-

pearance. She wears a lemon-colored uniform and is able to an-

swer various questions. Saya has a range of expressions, and re-

sponds politely in Japanese if you flatter her but takes offense at

insults. Her creator, robot engineer Hiroshi Kobayashi, continues

to work on improving Saya’s appearance and motion, although

he has no plans for her to walk. Kobayashi does not consider

Saya to be intelligent. He also doubts that robot engineers will

succeed in developing a robot with the mental, physical and

emotional capacity of a child, let alone of an adult. (Note: This

has changed, see video “Robot learns like Toddler” left)

“The idea of a robot with the intelligence of an adult or even that

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.

Meanwhile, Hiroshi Ishiguro, who is Director of Osaka University’s

Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, has attracted attention by mod-

eling androids on real-life people, among them his daughter and

Geminoid Hl-1 and Hiroshi Ishiguro

63

Both the East and the West have an ancient history of mechanical

“machines,” toys and dolls that can be considered to be the fore-

runners of the robot. However, Leonardo da Vinci’s 1495 drawing

of a mechanical knight is reputed to be the first actual plan for a

humanoid robot. Stories of golem and of Frankenstein have also

held sway over Western imaginings of artificial man-made beings.

The word “robot,” with its connotations of beings that replace hu-

mans, derives from the Czech noun robota, meaning forced labor.

Czech playwright Karel Capek made the word famous

in Rossum’s Universal Robots (RUR), his play about mass-

produced robots that were actually made of flesh and blood.

First staged in 1921, many people interpreted RUR as an attack on

technology, but Capek aimed only to question the idea of humans

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

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.

Gakutensoku went on show that

same year in Kyoto and many Japa-

nese offered prayers to the golden

mechanical giant. Undoubtedly,

Gakutensoku reminded people of

the Buddha statues that adorn tem-

ples throughout the country.

Gakutensoku was impressive even

though it was basically little more than a huge relation of a kara-

kuri ningyo, the 18th-century mechanized dolls that charmed Jap-

anese by serving tea, writing auspicious Chinese characters or

shooting arrows at targets.

A scene from the play R.U.R by the Czech Playwrite Karel Čapek

Gakutensoku

64

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.

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.

Humanoid robots are particularly popular because studies show

that people enjoy interacting and bonding with them, so human-

oid robots are considered ideal for roles that entail caring for

Japan’s sick, elderly and children. But there are concerns that ro-

bots won’t be sophisticated enough in time to meet Japan’s

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

was a humanoid robot built by Westinghouse

Electric Corporation as a promotional tool.

Elektro stood 7’ tall, weighing 265 lbs. It could move its head and

arms, walk when commanded, speak 700 words, and smoke ciga-

rettes. His photoelectric eyes could distinguish red and green light.

He was on exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

65

insurance a robot could be rented to each household for 10,000

yen per month.

Ono, who launched the Robolympics campaign, also aims to see

Japan host the world’s first Olympics for robots. Meanwhile, Shu

Ishiguro, head of Robot Laboratory in Osaka, is con-

fident that by 2050 Japanese robots will beat the

human winners of World Cup Soccer.

Apart from having robots contribute to society, an-

other major incentive for robot development in Ja-

pan is undoubtedly financial. The Japan Robot As-

sociation has estimated that the market for person-

al robots could be worth as much as $50 billion by

2025.

Due to its achievements in robotics Japan is often

referred to as “Robot Kingdom,” but some U.S. and

European AI scientists are not impressed by Japan’s

progress in the field. During the 2005 International

Robotics Exhibition held in Tokyo, Joseph Engel-

berger, considered by many to be the “father of in-

dustrial robotics,” accused the Japanese robotics industry of wast-

ing time and money on “producing toys.” Engelberger berated Ja-

pan for focusing on developing humanlike robots instead of pro-

ducing robots with a specific function. He emphasized that robots

do not have to look human to be useful to humans.

However, Japan has also worked hard to develop non-humanoid

robots. Among them are walking robot chairs that can carry the

elderly or disabled, the HAL exoskeleton “bionic” suit that doubles

the strength of its wearer, as well as snake robots that can be used

for earthquake rescue services. European roboticists, meanwhile,

have expressed frustration at Japan for not providing “profound

feedback” on roboethics and the issues of applying robots to soci-

ety.

This European stance reflects a lack of understanding of Japan’s

religion, history, culture and society. It is probably

impossible to transpose the Japanese experience

with robots onto the West due to these differ-

ences. To begin with the Japanese recognize kami

(gods) in both animate and inanimate objects, a

concept difficult for monotheistic Westerners to

fully appreciate. For various cultural reasons the

Japanese will not problematize the issue of robots

in society in the same way as Westerners.

Naho Kitano, a roboticist at Tokyo’s Waseda Uni-

versity, defended Japan’s stance at the 2006 con-

ference of the European Robotics Research Net-

work (EURON). In her paper titled Roboethics: A

Comparative Analysis of Social Acceptance of Ro-

bots Between the West and Japan, Kitano explains

that in Japanese history Western technology was

never perceived as an “enemy to humans like the Luddites in Eng-

land.” The Japanese eagerly embraced technology in the mid-19th

century after the U.S. forced Japan out of more than two centuries

of self-imposed isolation. After the fall of the Tokugawa feudal

system, Japan forged ahead under the political banners of bun-

meikaika (modern culture and enlightenment) and fukokukyohei

(rich nation, strong military). The Japanese equated civilization

with technology and Westernization.

Capek’s RUR and Asimov’s robot stories are prime examples of

Western literature that present the robot as a threat, whereas in

The observation made in

1965 by Gordon Moore, co-

founder of Intel, that the

number of transistors per

square inch on integrated

circuits had doubled every

year since the integrated

circuit was invented. Moore

predicted that this trend

would continue for the fore-

seeable future..

66

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

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-

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-

Wikipedia.com

67

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.”

68

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

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

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-

kyo-based center he founded to promote

views on robotics and Buddhism.

“A robot can be used for useful purposes

and for destructive purposes. The more

evil the robot is, the more good it can be,

and vice versa,” Mori said. He thinks that it

is far too early to contemplate rights for

robots.

“Even though I say in my book the robot is

like the Buddha, if the robot is destroyed

in some way then that is that. It is better

“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.

Deep Blue was a chess-

playing computer devel-

oped by IBM. In 1997, the

machine played a re-

match against world

champion Garry Kasparov.

Kasparov lost a six-game

match and accused IBM

of cheating. He demanded

a rematch, but IBM re-

fused and dismantled

Deep Blue. Kasparov said

that he unaccountably

saw “deep intelligence

and creativity” in the ma-

chine’s moves.

69

that we do not have a fixed concept and can move freely around

an idea. Sometimes it may be better for us to think of the robot as

just an object, but then sometimes it will be better if we can think

of the robot as a Buddha.

“I doubt that we will ever know if a robot has become conscious or

has developed a will. We do not even know what consciousness or

will truly are,” Mori concluded.

Robotics theologian and former AI researcher, Anne Foerst has

a more challenging take on the issue. She rejects the use of any

empirical criteria to define when an AI is equal to humans by em-

phasizing that whatever criteria is used to define an AI’s worth will

exclude human beings. For example, Foerst states that arguing

that an AI is “not aware” and can therefore be switched off would

exclude all babies under three years old, Alzheimer’s patients, peo-

ple in a coma and others.

Foerst’s spiritual attitude towards robots was influenced by her ex-

periences with Cog and Kismet, two early humanoid robots in the

U.S. During her time in the mid-1990s at the Artificial Intelligence

Laboratory at MIT, Foerst was surprised at how closely she bonded

with Cog and Kismet, and she believes that our attitude towards

robots can teach us much about discrimination in society.

In her book God in The Machine: What Robots Teach Us About

Humanity and God, Foerst spurns the idea of “soul” being used

as an argument to deny robots the possibility of ever becoming

like humans. She explains how the word “soul” lost its original

Jewish meaning when translated into Greek. Christians understand

the soul to be something separate from the body, something that

makes us humans special. But the Jewish concept of soul (nefes) is

not something that anyone can possess, because it is an emergent

phenomenon that blesses a community’s relationship with God.

Foerst believes that once we are willing to integrate robots into

our community, then they will become a part of nefes.

However, the social acceptance of robots will largely depend on

what robots are used for, and in the West this is set to become a

controversial issue. While the U.S. has fallen behind Japan, South

Korea, Europe and Australia in various fields of robotics, it retains

world leadership in the field of military robots and, according to a

2005 Pentagon report, it plans to have robots making up one third

of its fighting force by 2015. By 2035 the U.S. intends to have

completely autonomous robot soldiers fighting out on the battle-

field.

The use of robots for warfare raises huge ethical questions that

have yet to be fully addressed. Other countries are also developing

robots for warfare, and it is likely that Japan will eventually decide

to pursue the development of military robots too. Japan is leaning

increasingly towards the political right and is hoping to flex more

military muscle by changing its post-war pacifist constitu-

tion. China is also perceived as a growing economic and mili-

tary threat in the region.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Bill Gates is eager to merge robotics and

wireless connectivity. In an article he wrote for Scientific American ,

Gates outlines his plan for desktop computers to become the

“brain” of robots, and thus create a new class of peripheral devices

that can be used for various everyday purposes.

Beyond robots becoming more ubiquitous in our lives, a vanguard

of Western scientists asserts that humans will merge with the ma-

chine. Brooks says “... it is clear that robotic technology will merge

with biotechnology in the first half of this century,” and he there-

70

fore concludes that “the distinction between us and robots is go-

ing to disappear.”

Leading proponents of Strong AI state that humans will transcend

biology and evolve to a higher level by merging with robot tech-

nology. Ray Kurzweil, a renowned inventor, transhumanist, and

the author of several books on “spiritual machines,” claims that

immortality lies within the grasp of many of us alive today.

Kurzweil and Hans Moravec, the director of the Mobile Robot

Laboratory of Carnegie Mellon University, maintain that technolo-

gy will soon make it possible for humans to rid themselves of their

bodies and download their minds as software. The two scientists

avow that as entities in simulated worlds we will be able to repli-

cate ourselves across various systems, as well as far out in space.

According to Kurzweil and Moravec, within the next 40 years the

virtual world will become our real world. Kurzweil’s and Moravec’s

theories have been criticized by opponents of Strong AI. Brooks

points out “We are a long, long way from being able to download

ourselves into computers or robots. While in principle it will ulti-

mately be possible, it is not a worthwhile place to look for person-

al salvation for those of us who are alive today.”

But this view of humans living on as misembodied virtual or cos-

mic entities emphasizes the vast difference in the approach and

expectations of Japanese and Western AI scientists. The two dis-

tinct scientific visions and approaches reflect the religious beliefs

of the respective cultures. The Japanese ease with technology can

be linked to both Buddhism and the country’s animistic indige-

nous religion, Shinto. Japan’s fondness for humanoid robots high-

lights the high regard Japanese share for the role of humans with-

in nature. Humans are viewed as not being above nature, but a

part of it.

Shinto is also basically optimistic and focuses on the present.

There is also no absolute concept of good and evil in Shinto, while

in Buddhism sin is said not to exist. Although Buddhists hope to

transcend the wheel of samsara (rebirth), life as a human is con-

sidered the most elevated as it allows one to pursue the path to

enlightenment. There is no concept of heaven or hell in Shinto,

and in Japanese Buddhism heaven and hell are considered meta-

phors for one’s mental state. Also, in Japanese philosophy and re-

ligion the mind and body are one and cannot be separated. Japa-

nese culture encourages a “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”

outlook on life, and therefore Japan thrives by denial or glosses

over controversial issues.

Meanwhile, the West is influenced by the dualistic teachings of

Christianity, as well as biblical prophesies of a forthcoming Arma-

geddon, cosmic purpose for humans, resurrection and an afterlife

in heaven.

Robert M. Geraci states that both Japanese and U.S. scientists are

influenced by the religious messages of their cultures, regardless

of whether they themselves are religious or not. In his 2006 aca-

demic paper Spiritual Robots: Religion and Our Scientific View of

the Natural World, Geraci concludes:

Sacralization of the natural world and human technology in Shinto

and the positive spin given to human life in Shinto and Buddhism

promote the development of robotic engineering and the glorifi-

cation of the humanoid robot in Japan.

Geraci says that the popularity of humanoid robots reveals the

“Japanese fondness for humanity; there is no trace of the disdain

71

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.

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

their bodies. As Western countries are more liti-

gious than Japanese society, concepts of robot

rights and roboethics will be more widely debat-

ed. Evidence suggests that the West will offer

“human” rights first to robots, and not Japan.

Japan’s legal system is poorly developed in com-

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-

war pacifist constitution. It is therefore likely that

Japan will also have an interest in developing mili-

tary robots. This will then undermine the image of

robots as “friends” in Japan.

Integrating robots into Japanese society is less

complex than in the West because Japanese re-

vere both animate and inanimate objects, have

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-

ally robots and technology have been perceived

as potential threats to humanity and God.

“Biological

evolution is

too slow for

the human

species.

Over the

next few

decades, it's

going to be

left in the

dust.” --Ray Kurzweil

The Age of Spiritual Machines: When

Computers Exceed Human Intelligence B

72

“If my nightmare is a culture inhabited by

posthumans who regard their bodies as

fashion accessories rather than the

ground of being,

my dream is a ver-

sion of the posthu-

man that embraces

the possibilities of

information tech-

nologies without

being seduced by

fantasies of unlim-

ited power and disembodied immortality,

that recognizes and celebrates finitude as

a condition of human being, and that un-

derstands human life is embedded in a

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

Robot Ethics edited by By Patrick Lin, Keith Ab-

ney, George A. Bekey

What sort of people should there be? By Jonathan

Glover

Robo Sapiens by Peter Merizel & Faith D’Aluisio

International Conference on Intelligent Robots and

Systems Workshop Art and Robots

"The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis" By Dr.

David Chalmers

(PDF DOWNLOAD) Spiritual Robots: Religion and Our

Scientific View of the Natural World By Robert M

Geraci

(PDF DOWNLOAD) Elephants Don't Play Chess by

Rodney A. Brooks

BOOK SHELF

73

To A Circadian Rhythm

The sky is ever deliquescent

mooting ephemeral

sanguine pins

a juggernaut dancing gloveless

in the architecture

beyond torpid hostelries

words unravel characters

fall and blackened men

construct gauzy daydreams

‘neath a long, silent carapace

:spawning dark agents

Meadows basque

purblind and bliss-weary

travelers on the damp leaves

restored by Summer’s fawning bouquet

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

Eyes maladjusted to Dawn

her pale torch crowning the heavens

flutter before a cascade of sharpening

light

Where druids gleaned laconic wisdom

through a dusky flame

and the now derelict

moss-covered spires

with footsteps rang

Where voices trapped amid fluted yarn

spun hircine dreams

a cobbled web now

reaches to the sea.

By Jason Alan Wilkinson

POEM

74

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

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

almost like cave paintings. Rarely

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 CINEMA

By Christianne Benedict

75

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

76

Watson is an artificial intelligence computer system devel-

oped in IBM's DeepQA project, capable of answer-

ing questions posed in natural language. In 2011,

as a test of its abilities, Watson competed on

the quiz show Jeopardy! in a human-versus-

machine two-game, combined point game against

Jeopardy! Masters, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings.

HISTORY

“Can you turn it

off? Does it have

an off/on switch?

Then it’s not alive.” -- Anon.

77

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

POEM

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

78

“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

Can You Trust Your Eyes?

“Woman Eating” (1971) by artist Duane

Hanson, polyester resin, fiberglass with

clothes, table, chair, and accessories.

Smithsonian American Art Museum.

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.

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.

Oh It’s You, Welcome by J. Seward Johnson Living statue in Rome, Italy. Photographed by Adrian Pingstone

ILLUSION

79

Go Your Own Road by Erik Johansson

80

ESSAY

Das Unheimliche 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-

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)

(The Uncanny) By Sigmund Freud

81

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)

82

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

have said, would quickly

dissipate the peculiar emo-

tional effect of the thing. E.

T. A. Hoffmann has repeat-

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-

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,

denied that such a person

existed except as a figure

of speech; but his nurse

could give him more defi-

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-

...doubts whether an apparently animate be-

ing is really alive; or conversely, whether a

lifeless object might not be in fact animate...

83

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

84

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

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)

85

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.

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.

By CReed Weber

B

Nightmare at the Opera

OPINION

86

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

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

(Continued from page 84)

...a particularly favorable condition for

awakening uncanny feelings is created

when there is intellectual uncertainty

whether an object is alive or not….

87

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

88

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

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

89

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

90

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

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)

91

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-

(Continued from page 90)

92

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-

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

93

somewhat redundant matter, I read a story about a young married

couple who move into a furnished house in which there is a curi-

ously shaped table with carvings of crocodiles on it. Towards

evening an intolerable and very specific smell begins to pervade

the house; they stumble over something in the dark; they seem to

see a vague form gliding over the stairs — in short, we are given

to understand that the presence of the table causes ghostly croco-

diles to haunt the place, or that the wooden monsters come to life

in the dark, or something of that sort. It was a naïve enough story,

but the uncanny feeling it produced was quite remarkable.

To conclude this collection of examples, which is certainly

not complete, I will relate an instance taken from psycho-analytic

experience; if it does not rest upon mere coincidence, it furnishes

a beautiful confirmation of our theory of the uncanny. It often

happens that neurotic men declare that they feel there is some-

thing uncanny about the female genital organs. This unheimlich

place, however, is the entrance to the former Heim [home] of all

human beings, to the place where each one of us lived once upon

a time and in the beginning. there is a joking saying that ‘Love is

home-sickness’; and whenever a man dreams of a place or a coun-

try and says to himself, while he is still dreaming: ‘this place is fa-

miliar to me, I’ve been here before’, we may interpret the place as

being his mother’s genitals or her body. In this case too, then, the

unheimlich is what was once heimisch, familiar; the prefix ‘un’ [‘un-

’] is the token of repression.

III

the course of this discussion the reader will have felt cer-

tain doubts arising in his mind; and he must now have an

opportunity of collecting them and bringing them for-

ward. It may be true that the uncanny [unheimlich] is

something which is secretly familiar [heimlich-heimisch], which has

undergone repression and then returned from it, and that every-

thing that is uncanny fulfills this condition. But the selection of

material on this basis does not enable us to solve the problem of

the uncanny. For our proposition is clearly not convertible. Not

everything that fulfills this condition — not everything that recalls

repressed desires and surmounted modes of thinking belonging

to the prehistory of the individual and of the race — is on that ac-

count uncanny.

Nor shall we conceal the fact that for almost every example

adduced in support of our hypothesis one may be found which

rebuts it. The story of the severed hand in Wilhelm Hauff’s fairy

tale certainly has an uncanny effect, and we have traced that effect

back to the castration complex; but most readers will probably

agree with me in judging that no trace of uncanniness is provoked

by Herodotus’s story of the treasure of Phampsinitus, in which the

master-thief, whom the princess tries to hold fast by the hand,

leaves his brother’s severed hand behind with her instead. Again,

the prompt fulfillment of the wishes of Polycrates undoubtedly af-

fects us in the same uncanny way as it did the king of Egypt; yet

our own fairy stories are crammed with instantaneous wish-

fulfillments which produce no uncanny effect whatever. In the sto-

ry of ‘The Three Wishes’, the woman is tempted by the savory

smell of a sausage to wish that she might have one too, and in an

instant it lies on a plate before her. In his annoyance at her hasti-

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

uncanny. Fairy tales quite frankly adopt the animistic standpoint of

the omnipotence of thoughts and wishes, and yet I cannot think of

any genuine fairy story which has anything uncanny about it. We

have heard that it is in the highest degree uncanny when an inani-

mate object — a picture or a doll — comes to life; nevertheless in

Hans Andersen’s stories the household utensils, furniture and tin

(Continued on page 94)

94

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

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-

(Continued from page 93)

95

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

...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...

96

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-

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.

97

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.

98

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

The Sand-Man FICTION

All woodcuts are by artist and printmaker Daniel Niklaus Chodowiecki, who is mentioned in this story.

99

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;

"when I say the Sand-man is come, I only mean that you are sleepy and can't

keep your eyes open, as if somebody had put sand in them." This answer of

mother's did not satisfy me; nay, in my childish mind the thought clearly un-

folded itself that mother denied there was a Sand-man only to prevent us be-

ing afraid,--why, I always heard him come upstairs.

Full of curiosity to learn something more about this Sand-man and

what he had to do with us children, I at length asked the old woman who acted

as my youngest sister's attendant, what sort of a man he was--the Sand-man?

"Why, 'than darling, don't you know?" she replied. "Oh! he's a wicked man, who

comes to little children when they won't go to bed and throws handfuls of sand

in their eyes, so that they jump out of their heads all bloody; and he puts them

into a bag and takes them to the half-moon as food for his little ones; and they

sit there in the nest and have hooked beaks like owls, and they pick naughty

little boys' and girls' eyes out with them."

After this I formed in my own mind a horrible picture of the cruel Sand-

man. When anything came blundering upstairs at night I trembled with fear

and dismay; and all that my mother could get out of me were the stammered

words "The Sandman! the Sand-man!" whilst the tears coursed down my

cheeks.

100

Then I ran into my bedroom, and the whole night through tormented myself

with the terrible apparition of the Sand-man.

I was quite old enough to perceive that the old woman's tale about the

Sand-man and his little ones' nest in the half-moon couldn't be altogether true;

nevertheless the Sand-man continued to be for me a fearful incubus, and I was

always seized with terror--my blood always ran cold, not only when I heard an-

ybody come up the stairs, but when I heard anybody noisily open my father's

room door and go in. Often he stayed away for a long season altogether; then

he would come several times in close succession.

This went on for years, without my being able to accustom myself to

this fearful apparition, without the image of the horrible Sand-man growing any

fainter in my imagination. His Intercourse with my father began to occupy my

fancy ever more and more; I was restrained from asking my father about him by

an unconquerable shyness; but as the years went on the desire waxed stronger

and stronger within me to fathom the mystery myself and to see the fabulous

Sand-man. He had been the means of disclosing to me the path of the wonder-

ful and the adventurous, which so easily find lodgment in the mind of the child.

I liked nothing better than to hear or read horrible stories of goblins, witches,

Tom Thumbs, and so on; but always at the head of them all stood the Sand-

man, whose picture I scribbled in the most extraordinary and repulsive forms

with both chalk and coal everywhere, on the tables, and cupboard doors, and

walls. When I was ten years old my mother removed me from the nursery into a

little chamber off the corridor not far from my father's room. We still had to

withdraw hastily whenever, on the stroke of nine, the mysterious unknown was

heard in the house.

As I lay in my little chamber I could hear him go into father's room, and

soon afterwards I fancied there was a fine and peculiar smelling steam spread-

ing itself through the house. As my curiosity waxed stronger, my resolve to

make somehow or other the Sand-man's acquaintance took deeper root. Often

when my mother had gone past, I slipped quickly out of my room into the cor-

ridor, but I could never see anything, for always before I could reach the place

where I could get sight of him, the Sand-man was well inside the door. At last,

unable to resist the impulse any longer, I determined to conceal myself in fa-

ther's room and there wait for the Sand-man.

One evening I perceived from my father's silence and mother's sadness

that the Sand-man would come; accordingly, pleading that I was excessively

tired, I left the room before nine o'clock and concealed myself in a hiding-place

close beside the door. The street door creaked, and slow, heavy, echoing steps

crossed the passage towards the stairs. Mother hurried past me with my broth-

ers and sisters.

Softly--softly--I opened father's room door. He sat as usual, silent and

motionless, with his back towards it; he did not hear me; and in a moment I was

in and behind a curtain drawn before my father's open wardrobe, which stood

just inside the room. Nearer and nearer and nearer came the echoing footsteps.

There was a strange coughing and shuffling and mumbling outside. My heart

beat with expectation and fear.

A quick step now close, close beside the door, a noisy rattle of the han-

dle, and the door flies open with a bang. Recovering my courage with an effort,

I take a cautious peep out. In the middle of the room in front of my father

stands the Sand-man, the bright light of the lamp falling full upon his face. The

Sand-man, the terrible Sand-man, is the old advocate Coppelius who often

comes to dine with us.

But the most hideous figure could not have awakened greater trepida-

tion in my heart than this Coppelius did. Picture to yourself a large broad-

shouldered man, with an immensely big head, a face the color of yellow-ochre,

grey bushy eyebrows, from beneath which two piercing, greenish, cat-like eyes

glittered, and a prominent Roman nose hanging over his upper lip. His distort-

ed mouth was often screwed up into a malicious smile; then two dark-red spots

appeared on his cheeks, and a strange hissing noise proceeded from between

his tightly clenched teeth.

He always wore an ash-grey coat of an old-fashioned cut, a waistcoat

of the same, and nether extremities to match, but black stockings and buckles

set with stones on his shoes. His little wig scarcely extended beyond the crown

of his head, his hair was curled round high up above his big red ears, and plas-

tered to his temples with cosmetic, and a broad closed hair-bag stood out

(Continued on page 101)

101

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

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-

tures seemed to be drawn up by some dreadful convulsive pain into an ugly,

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

102

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-

-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

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-

lius," I cried, terror-struck, and leapt out of bed. Then I heard a wild heartrend-

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)

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

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

not believed in the Sand-man, would have been to you a ghostly bugbear, es-

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,

104

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

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.

* * * * * *

105

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

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

-almanacs and looking at Cagliostro's3 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-

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

why I am not writing to her as well to-day.

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

any other eye, and all your words ended in sighs betokening some mystery.

Then your friends asked you, "What is the matter with you, my dear friend?

NATHANAEL TO LOTHAIR.

106

What do you see?" And, wishing to describe the inner pictures in all their vivid

colors, with their lights and their shades, you in vain struggled to find words

with which to express yourself. But you felt as if you must gather up all the

events that had happened, wonderful, splendid, terrible, jocose, and awful, in the

very first word, so that the whole might be revealed by a single electric dis-

charge, so to speak.

Yet every word and all that partook of the nature of communication by

intelligible sounds seemed to be colorless, cold, and dead. Then you try and try

again, and stutter and stammer, whilst your friends' prosy questions strike like

icy winds upon your heart's hot fire until they extinguish it. But if, like a bold

painter, you had first sketched in a few audacious strokes the outline of the pic-

ture you had in your soul, you would then easily have been able to deepen and

intensify the colors one after the other, until the varied throng of living figures

carried your friends away, and they, like you, saw themselves in the midst of the

scene that had proceeded out of your own soul.

Strictly speaking, indulgent reader, I must indeed confess to you, no one

has asked me for the history of young Nathanael; but you are very well aware

that I belong to that remarkable class of authors who, when they are bearing

anything about in their minds in the manner I have just described, feel as if eve-

rybody who comes near them, and also the whole world to boot, were asking,

"Oh! what is it? Oh! do tell us, my good sir?" Hence I was most powerfully im-

pelled to narrate to you Nathanael's ominous life.

My soul was full of the elements of wonder and extraordinary peculiarity

in it; but, for this very reason, and because it was necessary in the very begin-

ning to dispose you, indulgent reader, to bear with what is fantastic--and that is

not a little thing--I racked my brain to find a way of commencing the story in a

significant and original manner, calculated to arrest your attention.

To begin with "Once upon a time," the best beginning for a story,

seemed to me too tame; with "In the small country town S---- lived," rather bet-

ter, at any rate allowing plenty of room to work up to the climax; or to plunge at

once ‘in medias res’, "'Go to the devil!' cried the student Nathanael, his eyes

blazing wildly with rage and fear, when the weather-glass hawker Giuseppe

Coppola"--well, that is what I really had written, when I thought I detected

something of the ridiculous in Nathanael's wild glance; and the history is any-

thing but laughable. I could not find any words which seemed fitted to reflect in

even the feeblest degree the brightness of the colors of my mental vision. I de-

termined not to begin at all.

So I pray you, gracious reader, accept the three letters which my friend

Lothair has been so kind as to communicate to me as the outline of the picture,

into which I will endeavor to introduce more and more color as I proceed with

my narrative. Perhaps, like a good portrait-painter, I may succeed in depicting

more than one figure in such wise that you will recognize it as a good likeness

without being acquainted with the original, and feel as if you had very often

seen the original with your own bodily eyes. Perhaps, too, you will then believe

that nothing is more wonderful, nothing more fantastic than real life, and that all

that a writer can do is to present it as a dark reflection from a dim cut mirror.

In order to make the very commencement more intelligible, it is neces-

sary to add to the letters that, soon after the death of Nathanael's father, Clara

and Lothair, the children of a distant relative, who had likewise died, leaving

them orphans, were taken by Nathanael's mother into her own house. Clara and

Nathanael conceived a warm affection for each other, against which not the

slightest objection in the world could be urged. When therefore Nathanael left

home to prosecute his studies in G----, they were betrothed. It is from G---- that

his last letter is written, where he is attending the lectures of Spalanzani, the dis-

tinguished Professor of Physics.

I might now proceed comfortably with my narration, had not at this mo-

ment Clara's image rise up so vividly before my eyes that I cannot turn them

away from it, just as I never could when she looked upon me and smiled so

sweetly. Nowhere would she have passed for beautiful; that was the unanimous

opinion of all who professed to have any technical knowledge of beauty. But

whilst architects praised the pure proportions of her figure and form, painters

averred that her neck, shoulders, and bosom were almost too chastely modeled,

and yet, on the other hand, one and all were in love with her glorious Magda-

lene hair, and talked a good deal of nonsense about Battoni-like coloring. One

of them, a veritable romanticist, strangely enough likened her eyes to a lake by

Ruisdael, in which is reflected the pure azure of the cloudless sky, the beauty of

woods and flowers, and all the bright and varied life of a living landscape.

(Continued on page 107)

107

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

clear, sharp, and discriminating. Dreamers and visionaries had but a bad time of

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-

self to be free was merely the plaything of the cruel sport of mysterious powers,

and it was vain for man to resist them; he must humbly submit to whatever des-

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

108

form, but only--only if you do not banish him from your mind

and thoughts. So long as you believe in him he exists and is at

work; your belief in him is his only power."

Whereupon Nathanael, quite angry because Clara would only

grant the existence of the demon in his own mind, began to dilate at

large upon the whole mystic doctrine of devils and awful powers, but Clara

abruptly broke off the theme by making, to Nathanael's very great disgust,

some quite commonplace remark.

Such deep mysteries are sealed books to cold, unsusceptible characters,

he thought, without being clearly conscious to himself that he counted Clara

amongst these inferior natures, and accordingly he did not remit his efforts to

initiate her into these mysteries. In the morning, when she was helping to pre-

pare breakfast, he would take his stand beside her, and read all sorts of mystic

books to her, until she begged him--"But, my dear Nathanael, I shall have to

scold you as the Evil Principle which exercises a fatal influence upon my coffee.

For if I do as you wish, and let things go their own way, and look into your eyes

whilst you read, the coffee will all boil over into the fire, and you will none of

you get any breakfast." Then Nathanael hastily banged the book to and ran

away in great displeasure to his own room.

Formerly he had possessed a peculiar talent for writing pleasing, spar-

kling tales, which Clara took the greatest delight in listening to; but now his pro-

ductions were gloomy, unintelligible, and wanting in form, so that, although

Clara out of forbearance towards him did not say so, he nevertheless felt how

very little interest she took in them.

There was nothing that Clara disliked so much as what was tedious; at

such times her intellectual sleepiness was not to be overcome; it was betrayed

both in her glances and in her words. Nathanael's effusions were, in truth, ex-

ceedingly tedious. His ill-humor at Clara's cold prosaic temperament continued

to increase; Clara could not conceal her distaste of his dark, gloomy, wearying

mysticism; and thus both began to be more and more estranged from each oth-

er without exactly being aware of it themselves.

The image of the ugly Coppelius had, as Nathanael was obliged to con-

fess to himself, faded considerably in his fancy, and it often cost him great pains

to present him in vivid colors in his literary efforts, in which

he played the part of the ghoul of Destiny. At length it en-

tered into his head to make his dismal presentiment that Cop-

pelius would ruin his happiness the subject of a poem. He made

himself and Clara, united by true love, the central figures, but repre-

sented a black hand as being from time to time thrust into their life and

plucking out a joy that had blossomed for them.

At length, as they were standing at the altar, the terrible Coppelius ap-

peared and touched Clara's lovely eyes, which leapt into Nathanael's own bos-

om, burning and hissing like bloody sparks. Then Coppelius laid hold upon him,

and hurled him into a blazing circle of fire, which spun round with the speed of

a whirlwind, and, storming and blustering, dashed away with him. The fearful

noise it made was like a furious hurricane lashing the foaming sea-waves until

they rise up like black, white-headed giants in the midst of the raging struggle.

But through the midst of the savage fury of the tempest he heard Clara's voice

calling, "Can you not see me, dear? Coppelius has deceived you; they were not

my eyes which burned so in your bosom; they were fiery drops of your own

heart's blood. Look at me, I have got my own eyes still."

Nathanael thought, "Yes, that is Clara, and I am hers for ever." Then this

thought laid a powerful grasp upon the fiery circle so that it stood still, and the

riotous turmoil died away rumbling down a dark abyss. Nathanael looked into

Clara's eyes; but it was death whose gaze rested so kindly upon him.

Whilst Nathanael was writing this work he was very quiet and sober-

minded; he filed and polished every line, and as he had chosen to submit him-

self to the limitations of meter, he did not rest until all was pure and musical.

When, however, he had at length finished it and read it aloud to himself he was

seized with horror and awful dread, and he screamed, "Whose hideous voice is

this?" But he soon came to see in it again nothing beyond a very successful po-

em, and he confidently believed it would enkindle Clara's cold temperament,

though to what end she should be thus aroused was not quite clear to his own

mind, nor yet what would be the real purpose served by tormenting her with

these dreadful pictures, which prophesied a terrible and ruinous end to her af-

(Continued on page 109)

109

fection.

Nathanael and Clara sat in his mother's little garden. Clara was bright

and cheerful, since for three entire days her lover, who had been busy writing

his poem, had not teased her with his dreams or forebodings. Nathanael, too,

spoke in a gay and vivacious way of things of merry import, as he formerly

used to do, so that Clara said, "Ah! now I have you again. We have driven away

that ugly Coppelius, you see." Then it suddenly occurred to him that he had got

the poem in his pocket which he wished to read to her. He at once took out the

manuscript and began to read. Clara, anticipating something tedious as usual,

prepared to submit to the infliction, and calmly resumed her knitting. But as the

somber clouds rose up darker and darker she let her knitting fall on her lap and

sat with her eyes fixed in a set stare upon Nathanael's face. He was quite car-

ried away by his own work, the fire of enthusiasm colored his cheeks a deep

red, and tears started from his eyes.

At length he concluded, groaning and showing great lassitude; grasp-

ing Clara's hand, he sighed as if he were being utterly melted in inconsolable

grief, "Oh! Clara! Clara!" She drew him softly to her heart and said in a low but

very grave and impressive tone, "Nathanael, my darling Nathanael, throw that

foolish, senseless, stupid thing into the fire." Then Nathanael leapt indignantly

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-

plaint fell like a spark upon his heart, so that the displeasure which he had long

entertained against his dreamy friend Nathanael was kindled into furious anger.

He hastened to find Nathanael, and upbraided him in harsh words for his irra-

tional behavior towards his beloved sister. The fiery Nathanael answered him in

the same style. "A fantastic, crack-brained fool," was retaliated with, "A misera-

ble, common, everyday sort of fellow." A meeting was the inevitable conse-

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

violent quarrel, and also observed the fencing-master bring the rapiers in the

dusk of the evening. She had a presentiment of what was to happen. They both

appeared at the appointed place wrapped up in the same gloomy silence, and

threw off their coats.

Their eyes flaming with the bloodthirsty light of pugnacity, they were

about to begin their contest when Clara burst through the garden door. Sob-

bing, she screamed, "You savage, terrible men! Cut me down before you attack

each other; for how can I live when my lover has slain my brother, or my broth-

er slain my lover?" Lothair let his weapon fall and gazed silently upon the

ground, whilst Nathanael's heart was rent with sorrow, and all the affection

which he had felt for his lovely Clara in the happiest days of her golden youth

was awakened within him. His murderous weapon, too, fell from his hand; he

threw himself at Clara's feet. "Oh! can you ever forgive me, my only, my dearly

loved Clara? Can you, my dear brother Lothair, also forgive me?" Lothair was

touched by his friend's great distress; the three young people embraced each

other amidst endless tears, and swore never again to break their bond of love

and fidelity.

Nathanael felt as if a heavy burden that had been weighing him down

to the earth was now rolled from off him, nay, as if by offering resistance to the

dark power which had possessed him, he had rescued his own self from the

ruin which had threatened him. Three happy days he now spent amidst the

loved ones, and then returned to G----, where he had still a year to stay before

settling down in his native town for life.

Everything having reference to Coppelius had been concealed from the

mother, for they knew she could not think of him without horror, since she as

well as Nathanael believed him to be guilty of causing her husband's death.

110

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.

He was writing to Clara; a light tap came at the door. At his summons to

"Come in," Coppola's repulsive face appeared peeping in. Nathanael felt his

heart beat with trepidation; but, recollecting what Spalanzani had told him

about his fellow-countryman Coppola, and what he had himself so faithfully

promised his beloved in respect to the Sand-man Coppelius, he was ashamed at

himself for this childish fear of specters. Accordingly, he controlled himself with

an effort, and said, as quietly and as calmly as he possibly could, "I don't want

to buy any weather-glasses, my good friend; you had better go elsewhere."

Then Coppola came right into the room, and said in a hoarse voice,

screwing up his wide mouth into a hideous smile, whilst his little eyes flashed

keenly from beneath his long grey eyelashes, "What! Nee weather-gless? Nee

weather-gless? 've got foine oyes as well--foine oyes!"

Affrighted, Nathanael cried, "You stupid man, how can you have eyes?--

eyes--eyes?"

But Coppola, laying aside his weather-glasses, thrust his hands into his

big coat-pockets and brought out several spy-glasses and spectacles, and put

them on the table. "Theer! Theer! Spect'cles! Spect'cles to put 'n nose! Them's

my oyes--foine oyes." And he continued to produce more and more spectacles

from his pockets until the table began to gleam and flash all over. Thousands of

eyes were looking and blinking convulsively, and staring up at Nathanael; he

could not avert his gaze from the table. Coppola went on heaping up his spec-

tacles, whilst wilder and ever wilder burning flashes crossed through and

through each other and darted their blood-red rays into Nathanael's breast.

Quite overcome, and frantic with terror, he shouted, "Stop! stop! you

(Continued on page 111)

111

terrible man!" and he seized Coppola by the arm, which he had again thrust into

his pocket in order to bring out still more spectacles, although the whole table

was covered all over with them. With a harsh disagreeable laugh Coppola gently

freed himself; and with the words "So! went none! Well, here foine gless!" he

swept all his spectacles together, and put them back into his coat-pockets,

whilst from a breast-pocket he produced a great number of larger and smaller

perspectives.

As soon as the spectacles were gone Nathanael recovered his equanim-

ity again; and, bending his thoughts upon Clara, he clearly discerned that the

gruesome incubus had proceeded only from himself, as also that Coppola was a

right honest mechanician and optician, and far from being Coppelius's dreaded

double and ghost. And then, besides, none of the glasses which Coppola now

placed on the table had anything at all singular about them, at least nothing so

weird as the spectacles; so, in order to square accounts with himself, Nathanael

now really determined to buy something of the man. He took up a small, very

beautifully cut pocket perspective, and by way of proving it looked through the

window.

Never before in his life had he had a glass in his hands that brought out

things so clearly and sharply and distinctly. Involuntarily he directed the glass

upon Spalanzani's room; Olimpia sat at the little table as usual, her arms laid

upon it and her hands folded. Now he saw for the first time the regular and ex-

quisite beauty of her features. The eyes, however, seemed to him to have a sin-

gular look of fixity and lifelessness. But as he continued to look closer and more

carefully through the glass he fancied a light like humid moonbeams came into

them. It seemed as if their power of vision was now being enkindled; their

glances shone with ever-increasing vivacity.

Nathanael remained standing at the window as if glued to the spot by a

wizard's spell, his gaze riveted unchangeably upon the divinely beautiful Olim-

pia. A coughing and shuffling of the feet awakened him out of his enchaining

dream, as it were.

Coppola stood behind him, "Tre zechini" (three ducats). Nathanael had

completely forgotten the optician; he hastily paid the sum demanded. "Ain't 't?

Foine gless? foine gless?" asked Coppola in his harsh unpleasant voice, smiling

sardonically. "Yes, yes, yes," rejoined Nathanael impatiently; "adieu, my good

friend." But Coppola did not leave the room without casting many peculiar side-

glances upon Nathanael; and the young student heard him laughing loudly on

the stairs.

"Ah well!" thought he, "he's laughing at me because I've paid him too

much for this little perspective--because I've given him too much money--that's

it" As he softly murmured these words he fancied he detected a gasping sigh as

of a dying man stealing awfully through the room; his heart stopped beating

with fear. But to be sure he had heaved a deep sigh himself; it was quite plain.

"Clara is quite right," said he to himself, "in holding me to be an incurable ghost

-seer; and yet it's very ridiculous--ay, more than ridiculous, that the stupid

thought of having paid Coppola too much for his glass should cause me this

strange anxiety; I can't see any reason for it."

Now he sat down to finish his letter to Clara; but a glance through the

window showed him Olimpia still in her former posture. Urged by an irresistible

impulse he jumped up and seized Coppola's perspective; nor could he tear him-

self away from the fascinating Olimpia until his friend and brother Siegmund

called for him to go to Professor Spalanzani's lecture.

The curtains before the door of the all-important room were closely

drawn, so that he could not see Olimpia. Nor could he even see her from his

own room during the two following days, notwithstanding that he scarcely ever

left his window, and maintained a scarce interrupted watch through Coppola's

perspective upon her room.

On the third day curtains even were drawn across the window. Plunged

into the depths of despair,--goaded by longing and ardent desire, he hurried

outside the walls of the town. Olimpia's image hovered about his path in the air

and stepped forth out of the bushes, and peeped up at him with large and lus-

trous eyes from the bright surface of the brook. Clara's image was completely

faded from his mind; he had no thoughts except for Olimpia. He uttered his

love-plaints aloud and in a lachrymose tone, "Oh! my glorious, noble star of

love, have you only risen to vanish again, and leave me in the darkness and

hopelessness of night?"

Returning home, he became aware that there was a good deal of noisy

bustle going on in Spalanzani's house. All the doors stood wide open; men were

taking in all kinds of gear and furniture; the windows of the first floor were all

112

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)

113

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-

114

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-

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

115

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.

116

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

floor and binding him. His cries passed into a brutish bellow that was awful to

hear; and thus raging with the harrowing violence of madness, he was taken

away to the madhouse.

Before continuing my narration of what happened further to the unfor-

tunate Nathanael, I will tell you, indulgent reader, in case you take any interest

in that skillful mechanician and fabricator of automata, Spalanzani, that he re-

covered completely from his wounds. He had, however, to leave the university,

for Nathanael's fate had created a great sensation; and the opinion was pretty

generally expressed that it was an imposture altogether unpardonable to have

smuggled a wooden puppet instead of a living person into intelligent tea-

circles,--for Olimpia had been present at several with success. Lawyers called it

a cunning piece of knavery, and all the harder to punish since it was directed

against the public; and it had been so craftily contrived that it had escaped un-

observed by all except a few preternaturally acute students, although every-

body was very wise now and remembered to have thought of several facts

which occurred to them as suspicious. But these latter could not succeed in

making out any sort of a consistent tale. For was it, for instance, a thing likely to

occur to any one as suspicious that, according to the declaration of an elegant

beau of these tea-parties, Olimpia had, contrary to all good manners, sneezed

oftener than she had yawned? The former must have been, in the opinion of

this elegant gentleman, the winding up of the concealed clock-work; it had al-

ways been accompanied by an observable creaking, and so on.

The Professor of Poetry and Eloquence took a pinch of snuff, and, slap-

ping the lid to and clearing his throat, said solemnly, "My most honorable ladies

and gentlemen, don't you see then where the rub is? The whole thing is an alle-

117

gory, a continuous metaphor. You understand me? Sapienti sat. "

But several most honorable gentlemen did not rest satisfied with this

explanation; the history of this automaton had sunk deeply into their souls, and

an absurd mistrust of human figures began to prevail. Several lovers, in order

to be fully convinced that they were not paying court to a wooden puppet, re-

quired that their mistress should sing and dance a little out of time, should em-

broider or knit or play with her little pug, &c., when being read to, but above all

things else that she should do something more than merely listen--that she

should frequently speak in such a way as to really show that her words presup-

posed as a condition some thinking and feeling. The bonds of love were in

many cases drawn closer in consequence, and so of course became more en-

gaging; in other instances they gradually relaxed and fell away.

"I cannot really be made responsible for it," was the remark of more

than one young gallant. At the tea-gatherings everybody, in order to ward off

suspicion, yawned to an incredible extent and never sneezed. Spalanzani was

obliged, as has been said, to leave the place in order to escape a criminal

charge of having fraudulently imposed an automaton upon human society.

Coppola, too, had also disappeared.

W hen Nathanael awoke he felt as if he had been oppressed by a

terrible nightmare; he opened his eyes and experienced an in-

describable sensation of mental comfort, whilst a soft and most

beautiful sensation of warmth pervaded his body. He lay on his

own bed in his own room at home; Clara was bending over him, and at a little

distance stood his mother and Lothair.

"At last, at last, O my darling Nathanael; now we have you again; now

you are cured of your grievous illness, now you are mine again." And Clara's

words came from the depths of her heart; and she clasped him in her arms.

The bright scalding tears streamed from his eyes, he was so overcome

with mingled feelings of sorrow and delight; and he gasped forth, "My Clara,

my Clara!" Siegmund, who had staunchly stood by his friend in his hour of

need, now came into the room. Nathanael gave him his hand--"My faithful

brother, you have not deserted me."

Every trace of insanity had left him, and in the tender hands of his

mother and his beloved, and his friends, he quickly recovered his strength

again. Good fortune had in the meantime visited the house; a niggardly old

uncle, from whom they had never expected to get anything, had died, and left

Nathanael's mother not only a considerable fortune, but also a small estate,

pleasantly situated not far from the town. There they resolved to go and live,

Nathanael and his mother, and Clara, to whom he was now to be married, and

Lothair.

Nathanael was become gentler and more childlike than he had ever

been before, and now began really

to understand Clara's supremely

pure and noble character. None of

them ever reminded him, even in

the remotest degree, of the past.

But when Siegmund took leave of

him, Nathanael said, "By heaven,

brother! I was in a bad way, but an

angel came just at the right moment

and led me back upon the path of

light. Yes, it was Clara." Siegmund

would not let him speak further,

fearing lest the painful recollections

of the past might arise too vividly

and too intensely in his mind.

The time came for the four

happy people to move to their little

property. At noon they were going

through the streets. After making

several purchases they found that

the lofty tower of the town-house

was throwing its giant shadows

across the market-place. "Come,"

said Clara, "let us go up to the top

once more and have a look at the

distant hills." No sooner said than

118

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

doll!" With the strength of a giant he laid hold upon Clara and tried to hurl her

over, but in an agony of despair she clutched fast hold of the railing that went

round the gallery.

Lothair heard the madman raging and Clara's scream of terror: a fearful

presentiment flashed across his mind. He ran up the steps; the door of the se-

cond flight was locked. Clara's scream for help rang out more loudly. Mad with

rage and fear, he threw himself against the door, which at length gave way.

Clara's cries were growing fainter and fainter,--"Help! save me! save me!" and her

voice died away in the air.

"She is killed--murdered by that madman," shouted Lothair. The door to

the gallery was also locked. Despair gave him the strength of a giant; he burst the

door off its hinges. Good God! there was Clara in the grasp of the madman Na-

thanael, hanging over the gallery in the air; she only held to the iron bar with one

hand.

Quick as lightning, Lothair seized his sister and pulled her back, at the

same time dealing the madman a blow in the face with his doubled fist, which

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

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 everal years afterwards it was reported that, outside the door of a pretty

country house in a remote district, Clara had been seen sitting hand in

hand with a pleas-

ant gentleman,

whilst two bright boys

were playing at her feet.

From this it may be con-

cluded that she eventually

found that quiet domestic

happiness which her

cheerful, blithesome char-

acter required, and which

Nathanael, with his

tempest-tossed soul, could

never have been able to

give her.

"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

B

119

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

COVER ART

Front Cover illustration by C & K Weber 2012

Back Cover : Antecedent Terminus by Vitaly S Alexius

PEA GREEN BOAT : Uncanny, Vernal Equinox 2012

The Pea Green Boat (PGB) e-zine is a product of Cathy Weber of the CR & K Group, LLC. The PBG e-zine is copyright © CR & K Group LLC,

2012. Each contributor retains the copyright to their own works. Reproduction or distribution in any form is not allowed without the ex-

press written permission of the author/artist. For further information, please write Cathy Weber (P.O. Box 3568, Carmel, IN 46082) with

your questions, comments, or suggestions. [March 21th, 2012]

acknowledgments

120 Antecedent Terminus by Vitaly S Alexius

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