Spiritual elevation
In three stories, the characters seek some spiritual elevation; however, the reactions of the characters when they escape the real world are different: In “Clair the Lune,” the narrator disappears into regions of bliss when he meets his female classmates. In “Flying Carpets,” the boy ascents so high into the sky that he loses sight of the world and gets scared of it. When he descends again, he feels joy and relief. Finally, in “Balloon Flight, 1870,” the narrator explains that the flight has a practical purpose, which is to fly to the unoccupied regions of France, but soon gets lost in the clouds and--like the boy in “Flying Carpets,” loses sight of the world and breaks his bonds with humans. Similar to the boy, the narrator is relieved when he descends and discovers the familiar signs of human life.
Childhood
In the book, there are many instances where childhood is idealized and referred to with a sense of nostalgia. For example, in “The Knife Thrower,” the visit to the show triggers happy memories of “the smell of sawdust and cotton candy, the glittering woman on the turning wheel.” In “The Visit,” the narrator recalls “the crickets, whole fields and meadows of them, the great hum that I had always heard rising from back yards and vacant lots in childhood summers.” In “The Sisterhood of Night,” childhood is referred to as “better times” with “the party frocks and lollipops, the shimmer of trembling bubbles in blue summer air.” In contrast, the second last story, “Kaspar Hauser Speaks” introduces a character whose childhood was stolen from him, which evokes a strong feeling of pity after all the instances where childhood is presented as a magical time, a better time.
Individuality
Many stories include solitary characters who are placed against a community. For example, the first story puts the knife thrower against the audience, who is thrilled by his special act of harming volunteers. In “The Visit,” the narrator encounters the friend and his frog wife; in “The New Automaton Theater,” Heinrich Graum and his individual approach to the construction of automatons is juxtaposed with the reaction of the public; in “Paradise Park,” Sarabee constructs ever-daring amusement park sections in search of self-actualization, similar to the consortium constructing an increasingly fascinating department store; and finally, there is Kaspar Hauser, who directly addresses the public. He is also the only character who wants to be less extreme, while the other solidary entities move toward the extreme.
