The only difference lies in the fact that the story primarily focusses on children rather than adults. In point of style, themes and narrative technique it is as superbly crafted as any of Hoffmann’s other tales. What is so wonderful about the Nutcracker is the fact that it appeals to child and adult alike and that Hoffmann did not ’write down’ for his intended child readers.

There are aspects of the story that children would not be expected to grasp (literary allusions, asides, narrative tricks), but most of it is perfectly comprehensible to intelligent children such as those of Hoffmann’s friend Julius Eduard Hitzig, for whom the story was written. The question is raised as much as anything because the story operates on more than one level. This is a question that is often raised, but the title of the 1816 volume clearly indicates Hoffmann’s intention. The story was later republished in the first volume of Hoffmann’s own collection, Die Serapionsbrüder (The Serapion Brethren) (1819-20), where its suitability for children is debated. Not only Marie, the chief protagonist of the story, but also the reader may have difficulty in distinguishing the two.ĢThe German original was first published in 1816 in a volume entitled Kinder-Mährchen (Children’s Stories), which included tales by Carl Wilhelm Contessa, Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué and Hoffmann himself.

Like many of Hoffmann’s other tales the boundaries between fantasy and reality are blurred. It is a more realistic kind of fantasy in that the nocturnal events actually unfold in the same place that the children themselves inhabit. Almost fifty years before Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland it incorporates its original audience as characters within the story, but whereas Alice blends fantasy with parody and comedy the Nutcracker displays a less whimsical, perhaps more subtle sense of humour. 1Hoffmann’s Nußknacker und Mausekönig is an extraordinarily innovative and unusual piece of writing for children, way ahead of its time in its complete abandonment of didacticism and moral instruction.

Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffmann