The Sandman is a feature-length screenplay adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s short story "Der Sandmann." The screenplay re-imagines the story as a contemporary horror film with surrealist underpinnings. The script draws heavily on the gothic tradition. It also draws on the German Romantic tradition out of which Hoffmann writes. The theoretical structure of the screenplay owes a great deal to Sigmund Freud’s ideas about the "uncanny" and concerning the Oedipus complex, the repetition-compulsion, and the death-drive. I do not hold slavishly to these theories so much as use them as points of departure. The story: the young Nathan discovers one day that the Sandman is not a fairytale but a very real creature seemingly bent on his destruction. After abusing Nathan and causing the death of his Father, the Sandman disappears, only to return as Nathan moves away from home to begin his studies at university. Nathan, already haunted by the events of his childhood, spirals further and further into madness. The screenplay is followed by two informal essays concerning the approach taken to the construction of the text. / May 2005

The Sandman is a feature-length screenplay adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s short story "Der Sandmann." The screenplay re-imagines the story as a contemporary horror film with surrealist underpinnings. The script draws heavily on the gothic tradition. It also draws on the German Romantic tradition out of which Hoffmann writes. The theoretical structure of the screenplay owes a great deal to Sigmund Freud’s ideas about the "uncanny" and concerning the Oedipus complex, the repetition-compulsion, and the death-drive. I do not hold slavishly to these theories so much as use them as points of departure. The story: the young Nathan discovers one day that the Sandman is not a fairytale but a very real creature seemingly bent on his destruction. After abusing Nathan and causing the death of his Father, the Sandman disappears, only to return as Nathan moves away from home to begin his studies at university. Nathan, already haunted by the events of his childhood, spirals further and further into madness. The screenplay is followed by two informal essays concerning the approach taken to the construction of the text.

The Sandman is a feature-length screenplay adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s short story "Der Sandmann." The screenplay re-imagines the story as a contemporary horror film with surrealist underpinnings. The script draws heavily on the gothic tradition. It also draws on the German Romantic tradition out of which Hoffmann writes. The theoretical structure of the screenplay owes a great deal to Sigmund Freud’s ideas about the "uncanny" and concerning the Oedipus complex, the repetition-compulsion, and the death-drive. I do not hold slavishly to these theories so much as use them as points of departure. The story: the young Nathan discovers one day that the Sandman is not a fairytale but a very real creature seemingly bent on his destruction. After abusing Nathan and causing the death of his Father, the Sandman disappears, only to return as Nathan moves away from home to begin his studies at university. Nathan, already haunted by the events of his childhood, spirals further and further into madness. The screenplay is followed by two informal essays concerning the approach taken to the construction of the text.

My master’s thesis consists of a screenplay adaptation of the Eighteenth Century novel The Excursion by Francis Brooke, as well as an Introduction that details the writing process of the main text. In order to prepare this manuscript, I began with a study of both Francis Brooke and her novel as part of Dr. Judith Slagle’s Eighteenth Century British Novel course and developed my work to completion through independent research on and application of my findings on the screenwriting genre. The concluding product is a three-act screenplay which maintains the original period setting, speech, and costuming while adding such contemporary elements as 20th century music. Such a combination of time periods enables the stillness of the page to become the action of the screen even as it highlights the universal themes of Brooke’s original text.