The Nutcracker - E. T. A. Hoffmann
- goffmanon
- 31 oct. 2024
- 4 min de lecture
All I want for Christmas, is to save a toy.
December 2002: On Christmas Eve, the air was filled with the delicious aroma of dinner that my parents had spent all day preparing, mingling with the woody scent of our pine Christmas tree decorating our living room. My dad tended to the chimney, igniting the fire with soft crackles that radiated warmth throughout the house while my mum dolled up my sisters and I. In the background, we could hear the music of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, its enchanting melodies filling the air and wrapping us in a sense of wonder. As a seven-year-old girl, these elements—the comforting fire, the festive meal, and Tchaikovsky’s music—formed an idyllic scene, capturing the magic and joy of Christmas Eve. Can you believe, 'gentle reader,' as Hoffmann would write, that 22 years later I would read The Nutcracker and finally know the original story of how a Nuremberg boy was transformed into a wooden toy, that would become the object of unconditional love for a seven-year-old girl?
'Ah, I wonder what lovely presents Godfather Drosselmeier has made for us,'
- Marie (p.4)
Back to childhood: a beautiful toy...
The usual behaviour of both children and adults when receiving Christmas presents is to eagerly engage in play and exploration of the gifts shortly after they are given. This act of discovery is motivated by a desire for enjoyment, driven by the excitement, unexpectedness, and novelty of these items. This form of happiness, triggered by material possessions, often leads to a fascination with the new objects in our lives during the remainder of the Christmas holidays. And that is precisely what Hoffmann offers us with his short story: a true return to childhood. His precise prose beautifully captures a Christmas Eve that continues to resonate with us all today.
The delightful excitement of awaiting presents at the Stahlbaums' is captured in the children's imaginations, as they picture the gifts they are about to receive: Fritz dreams of a magnificent fortress complete with soldiers, while Marie envisions a splendid park with a lake full of swans adorned with golden neckbands. When Godfather Drosselmeier offers them a Nutcracker on Christmas Eve, the simple fascination of a gift swiftly deepens into an irrational obsession for Marie, where innocent curiosity is transformed into a spellbinding love that transcends reason.
...that becomes a pathological obsession.
In their collection of essays on the obsessive mind, psychologists Mancini, Fadda, and Rainone explain that an obsession often takes root in an event or an observation¹. In The Nutcracker, Marie's obsessive symptomology starts with Drosselmeier's gift-giving on Christmas Eve when she first sets eyes on the wooden toy. As a seven-year-old girl, she is first attracted to its princely aura and practicality, to wit, cracking nuts. But then, here is the twist. Fritz, Marie's brother, wants to play with the Nutcracker and assign it a different role than the one it has; he wants to test its military skills but ends up breaking three of its teeth. Consequently, Marie's first response is to isolate the Nutcracker from others so she can tend to it like an infant. She then 'wraps him more gingerly than before in her cloth. Cradling him in her arms like a baby' (p.16). Through her need to isolate the Nutcracker, Marie actually creates a dependency and a desire for possessiveness. In order to prevent anyone from jeopardising her relationship with the toy, Marie finds a solution and locks him up in the glass cabinet to protect him from further harm. Her dependency is further reinforced by Drosselmeier's 'Tale of the Hard Nut,' which imbues the Nutcracker with a life of his own, personal achievements, and a curse that Marie now feels compelled to break. From a mystical perspective, she believes it is her personal responsibility to love the toy unconditionally for him to resurrect.
'Such artistic work is not meant for senseless children.'
- Drosselmeier (p.11)
A Kantian nightmare!
Marie’s irrational fear of losing the Nutcracker manifests in vivid nightmares where battles rage in the living room and mice launch attacks, compelling her to come down and consistently check in on him, talking to him in a desperate attempt to ease her anxiety. This urgency drives her to act out her fear to the point of physically hurting herself; in one moment of desperation, she strikes her arm against the glass cabinet, convinced that 'the mice, frightened by the tinkling of the glass shards, had retreated to their own holes' (p.24). This irrational obsession, though unhinged, reveals an intentional behaviour rooted in her view of the Nutcracker as a symbol of masculine perfection. While paternal figures in her life—like the careless Fritz, the rude and cowardly Godfather Drosselmeier, and the disinterested Father—fail to meet her emotional needs, the Nutcracker embodies a princely ideal. Even though she loves a still and mute toy, it becomes a vessel for her deepest emotions, transforming her fear of loss into a profound attachment that transcends the boundaries of reason and reality.
This dynamic mirrors Kant's maxim of practical love, where love is framed as a duty. Interestingly, Marie’s pathological love, driven by her feelings, evolves into a practical love characterised by her commitment to the well-being of the Nutcracker at the expense of her own. Yet, Kant’s philosophy reminds us that moral actions must be universalisable; Marie’s excessive protectiveness nullifies this maxim, suggesting that if everyone were to act on such irrational love, it would lead to chaos rather than genuine care.
Contrary to popular belief :
1. Marie is only 7 years old (!), embodying the childlike wonder that fuels much of the story's fantastical elements. However, this innocence becomes shocking by the end for obvious reasons...
2. The Sugar Plum Fairy does not appear in Hoffmann's original The Nutcracker. She originates from Tchaikovsky's ballet adaptation of the story, The Nutcracker (1892).
3. In the 'Tale of the Hard Nut', Drosselmeier looks for the Krakatuk Nut for 15 years!
4. The Nutcracker is cursed twice: first by Frau Mouserinks, who transforms him into the wooden toy we know, and then by Princess Pirlipat, who rejects him due to his appearance. He waits for someone to love and accept him despite his cursed form.
Footnotes:
¹ Mancini, Francesco, Stefania Fadda and Antonella Rainone, 'The Characteristics of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and the Questions it Raises', in The Obsessive Mind: Understanding and Treating Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (New York: Routledge, 2019).
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