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When I now saw this Coppelius, the frightful and terrific thought took possession of my soul, that indeed no one but he could be the Sandman. But the Sandman was no longer the bogey of a nurse’s tale…. No, he was a hideous, spectral monster, who brought with him grief, misery, and destruction—temporal and eternal—wherever he happened.

Nathaniel describes the moment in his father’s study when he conflates Coppelius and the Sandman character. Like the Sandman, Coppelius looks hideous, shows up at bedtime, torments children, and happily hurts people. However, while the Sandman was a mere character in a folk tale, albeit a scary one, Coppelius is an actual person who regularly comes to Nathaniel’s home and can cause real damage, which makes him much scarier. The fairy tale monster becoming one with the real-life person reflects the blurring of lines between fantasy and reality. Whether Coppelius is, as Clara suggests, imaginary doesn’t matter because he causes real pain.

…most disgusting to us children were his coarse brown hairy fists. Indeed, we did not like to eat anything he had touched with them. This he had noticed, and it was his delight…to touch a piece of cake or some nice fruit … just for the pleasure of seeing us turn away with tears in our eyes ….

Nathaniel recalls, with revulsion, family mealtimes during his childhood with Coppelius as a guest. Hoffmann describes Coppelius with “hairy fists” much like a mystical monster in a children’s story. Not only is he physically repulsive, in Nathaniel’s view, Coppelius also delights in frightening the children and ruining the treats made for them, showing his villainous cruelty. Nathaniel views Coppelius as a villain who has somehow infiltrated Nathaniel’s family home where he teases the children right under their parents’ noses.

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