Sigismund, strong as he was, was not able to master the mad Nathaniel, who kept crying out in a frightening voice: ‘Spin round, wooden doll!’ and laid about him with clenched fists… His words were merged into one hideous roar like that of a brute, and in this insane condition he was taken raging to the mad-house.

The scene when Nathaniel witnesses Olympia’s detached glass eyes and finally realizes she is an automaton causes his mental break and evokes horror as it calls back to Nathaniel’s childhood encounter with Coppelius trying to burn his eyes out. The scene causes Nathaniel to fly into a rage and attempt to strangle Spalanzani to death, which is only prevented by his friend Sigismund and a crowd of strangers.

Nathaniel’s descent into madness is horrifying, as all the fears and fantasies that have occupied him since childhood have now completely taken him over. His voice, which was once that of a poet and thinker, is now that of a roaring brute. The scene is an inversion of the attack he suffered as a child, as now Nathaniel has become the attacker. In the aftermath of this episode, Nathaniel’s friends are cautious about what they say around him out of fear that their words could trigger painful memories or even send him into a relapse of anger and madness. Their caution foreshadows Nathaniel’s final mental break atop the tower with Clara.

Nathaniel mechanically put his hand into his breast pocket—he found Coppola’s telescope, and pointed it to one side. Clara was in the way of the glass. His pulse and veins leapt convulsively. Pale as death, he stared at Clara, and soon streams of fire flashed and glared his rolling eyes, he roared frightfully, like a hunted beast.

The scene preceding Nathaniel’s death depicts something like post-traumatic stress disorder in frightening detail. Although psychological triggers and traumas were not well understood at the time, instances of trauma and their effects certainly existed. For Nathaniel, catching sight of Clara in the telescope triggers his memory of watching Olympia through it and causes him to have a psychological break. Nathaniel’s break is described in a way that intentionally evokes fear and horror. As the scene progresses, Nathaniel attacks Clara, just as he attacked Spalanzani after discovering Olympia was an automaton. Nathaniel’s inner thought process and the subsequent attack demonstrate that he can no longer tell the real from the imagined.

The scene is written in disturbing detail, demonstrating how a person can be calm in one instant and driven to a homicidal fury in the next. Furthermore, a seemingly calm person can be driven to inflict harm on their nearest and dearest, as Nathaniel tries to throw Clara over the balcony railing in a manner similar to Coppelius flinging Olympia about in Spalanzani’s room. The story has repeated itself in the worst way possible at the top of the tower, and it ends tragically for Nathaniel.