1. When you were young, did your parents or other caregivers ever refer to a "Sandman" sort of figure? If so, how does it compare with that in Hoffmann's story?
2. What is the significance of the "barometer dealer" Coppola? Do you believe that he is, as the narrator insists, the same man as the dreaded Dr. Coppelius? And why, when he returns, does offer to sell not barometers, but eyeglasses? And how are these connected to the eyes of Olympia?
3. Most readers today, and perhaps then, seem to suspect that Spalanzani's daughter Olympia is an automaton much sooner than does the narrator. What do you think blinds him to this realization?
4. Why, even more so today, do we seem fascinated with cyborgs, automata, or humanoid figures with artificial intelligence? Do they seem to you to be more of a promise, or a threat?
5. The "eyes" have it in many other such tales as well: the digital "eyes" of cyborgs from Westworld to Terminator; the man who "just does eyes" in Bladerunner, the retina-scanning software in Minority Report that obliges Tom Cruise's character to get an eye transplant? Why eyes?
2. What is the significance of the "barometer dealer" Coppola? Do you believe that he is, as the narrator insists, the same man as the dreaded Dr. Coppelius? And why, when he returns, does offer to sell not barometers, but eyeglasses? And how are these connected to the eyes of Olympia?
3. Most readers today, and perhaps then, seem to suspect that Spalanzani's daughter Olympia is an automaton much sooner than does the narrator. What do you think blinds him to this realization?
4. Why, even more so today, do we seem fascinated with cyborgs, automata, or humanoid figures with artificial intelligence? Do they seem to you to be more of a promise, or a threat?
5. The "eyes" have it in many other such tales as well: the digital "eyes" of cyborgs from Westworld to Terminator; the man who "just does eyes" in Bladerunner, the retina-scanning software in Minority Report that obliges Tom Cruise's character to get an eye transplant? Why eyes?
