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Maria then related the whole course of the battle, just as she had seen it, and was often interrupted by the loud laughter of her mother and Louise. Fred and Drosselmeier only remained serious. "Where does the child get all this strange stuff in her head?" said the doctor. "She has a lively imagination," replied the mother; "in fact, they are nothing but dreams caused by her violent fever."
This quotation reflects the myriad ways in which Hoffmann goes about emphasizing the bleakness of the Stahlbaums’ world. First, the family has an unabashedly condescending attitude toward Maria and her story. The harsh mood that this behavior creates contrasts significantly with the wonders of her imagination, suggesting that believing in the Nutcracker offers her an escape from her stifling life at home. References to Maria’s “violent fever” also add a macabre element to the story which highlight the dangers that permeate reality.
Her mother examined the little crowns in great astonishment; they were made of a strange but very shining metal, and were so delicately worked, that it seemed impossible that mortal hands could have formed them. Her father, likewise, could not gaze enough at them, and he insisted very seriously that Maria should confess how she obtained them. But she could give no other account of them, and kept firm to what she had said…
Even with physical evidence of her time engaging with the Nutcracker and the Mouse King, Dr. and Mrs. Stahlbaum still refuse to believe Maria’s tale. They are so committed to their practical worldview that they fail to acknowledge that extraordinary things can be possible. If the Stahlbaums are meant to be a reflection of the era’s bourgeois families, then Hoffmann seems to suggest that this limited perspective has significant consequences. Maria goes on to become quiet and sullen as a result of the judgement she endures.
