# Gottfried Plattner — Short Fiction character guide

> Gottfried Plattner in Short Fiction by H. G. Wells.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** The Plattner, Plattner, Mr. Plattner, Mr. Gottfried Plattner

**First appearance:** 0029-the-plattner-story

## Snapshot

A mild schoolmaster whose quiet life is upended by an inexplicable dislocation, forcing him to reckon with a self split loose from ordinary time and space.

## Who they are

Plattner belongs to the small, unremarkable world of schoolmasters and provincial routine, the sort of man whose life offers no obvious purchase for the marvellous. Yet his experience of a strange dislocation leaves him divided from his own body and circumstances, a walking puzzle that unsettles everyone who knows him. His predicament drives the story's central question: what happens to identity when the ordinary continuities of self and world quietly come apart?

## In the story

### [The Plattner Story](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_25_se/chapters/the-plattner-story)

The protagonist, a schoolmaster who disappears for nine days after an explosion and returns with his left and right sides transposed.

### [A Vision of Judgment](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_25_se/chapters/a-vision-of-judgment)

Present as one of the resurrected dead, experiencing the judgment.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_25_se/characters/gottfried-plattner
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_25_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_25_se/characters