G.

G. is the university city where the young student Nathaniel resides during the central events of E. T. A. Hoffmann's "The Sandman." It is the setting for Nathaniel's academic life, his encounter with the barometer salesman who reawakens his childhood trauma, and his disastrous infatuation with the automaton Olympia. The city functions as the stage upon which Nathaniel's psychological unraveling unfolds, a place where the boundaries between reality and delusion become catastrophically blurred.

Setting and Academic Life

Nathaniel moves to G. to pursue his studies after leaving his hometown. It is in G. that he attends the lectures of the recently arrived Professor of Physics, Spalanzani, a man of Italian descent whom Nathaniel compares to the famous charlatan Cagliostro. The university environment provides the context for Nathaniel's social and intellectual life, but it also becomes the arena for his psychological deterioration. His friend and fellow student Siegmund is present in G., calling out to remind Nathaniel of lecture times and later witnessing his friend's transformation.

The Encounter with Coppola and the Looking-Glass

G. is the site of Nathaniel's second, devastating encounter with the figure of Coppelius, now calling himself Giuseppe Coppola, a Piedmontese mechanic and lens grinder. After his apartment burns down in a fire that started in the apothecary's laboratory, Nathaniel moves into a room directly opposite Spalanzani's house. It is there that Coppola appears, offering not barometers but "a pair o' lovely peepers" — spectacles and telescopes. Nathaniel purchases a small, finely crafted pocket looking-glass from Coppola, a device that, when he peers through it at Spalanzani's window, reveals Olympia's face with unprecedented clarity and makes her eyes appear to flash open with life. This looking-glass becomes the instrument of Nathaniel's obsession, and he remains "glued to the window, riveted by Olympia's alluring visage" until Siegmund calls him away to a lecture.

The Site of Obsession and Revelation

From his window in G., Nathaniel constantly observes Olympia through Coppola's looking-glass, and when the curtain is pulled shut in her room, he experiences desperate pining, running out to her front door. The city is also the location of Spalanzani's grand party, where Olympia is introduced to society and where Nathaniel, using the looking-glass, becomes completely captivated. The most horrific scene in G. occurs when Nathaniel, hearing a strange din from Spalanzani's study, bursts in to find Spalanzani and Coppola fighting over Olympia's figure. He witnesses the revelation that Olympia is a lifeless doll with black hollows where her eyes should be, and Spalanzani flings a pair of bloody eyes at Nathaniel's breast. This shock drives Nathaniel into madness, and he is taken to a madhouse in G., raving about a "ring of fire" and a "wooden doll."

Aftermath and Significance

After Nathaniel's recovery, he returns to his hometown, but G. remains the place where his fate was sealed. Spalanzani is forced to leave the university due to the public uproar over the automaton swindle, and Coppola also vanishes from the city. G. thus represents the urban, academic environment where the rational world of science and the irrational forces of Nathaniel's psyche collide, producing a catastrophe that reverberates beyond the city limits and into the final tragedy at the tower in Nathaniel's hometown.