3.5 Coraline revised

Coraline

Since published in 2002, Neil Gaiman’s horror fairytale “Coraline” has become a new favorite of both adults and kids, has received quite a few awards and was adopted as a 3-D animation and a graphic novel. The success and popularity of the book, the modern setting and the moral lessons Coraline learns throughout her adventure, as well as magic creatures she meets in the Other World became the reasons this novel has been compared to all-time favorite “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll, which is the best compliment in itself.

In its structure, “Coraline” is a typical monomyth, or “hero’s quest”, as called by Joseph Campbell - the writer, who studied the similarities and structures of many heroic narratives and summarized his observations in his seminal work “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”. According to Campbell, “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man”. Same happens to our Coraline – she leaves her normal world on the mission to find her missing parents, she finds out the properties of the Other World to be able to fight the wicked beldam and save the kids she feeds on souls of, she returns home from her nightmare adventure and finds herself more mature, wiser, more affectionate and understanding of her parents and more appreciating of her realities. She also finds a few new friends – 2 kids, one angel and a black cat, and gains recognition and gratitude from her neighbors.

Joseph Campbell identifies 17 steps of the hero’s journey, and we find many of them in Gaiman’s “Coralline”. Her call for adventure happens in the 1st chapter, at night – Coraline follows the dark shadow to the drawing room with the mysterious brick wall. In the 2nd chapter she meets the neighbors. Two former actresses, Misses Spink and Forcible, tell her fortune on the tea leaves, letting her know that she is in gravely danger, and gift her with a stone with a hole in it – the supernatural aid. Her neighbor from upstairs, an old man with moustache, passes over a strange message to Coraline from his mice: “Don’t go through the door” – he whispered in her ear. Next day, in the 3rd chapter, Coraline comes back to the drawing room while her mother is away. Explorer by nature, Coraline doesn’t obey the old man’s advice and – alas! – goes through the secret door, which for some magic reason happens not to be bricked over anymore. The door is the threshold, the border between the real, the known, the normal and everything on the other side of the spectrum. In the apartment that seems to be identical to her own, she meets a couple, who resemble her own parents, but not really. The other parents look very pale and have black shiny buttons instead of their eyes. They feed her yummy lunch and treat her nicely, not like her own parents, who never had time for her! Outside of the other Apartment she meets the black cat, who turns out to be her Mentor/Helper. The cat does not have a name, but he can talk human language for some reason. She also meets her other neighbors – who seem to be somewhat similar to the real ones, but with slightly different energy. After she explores the Other World and finds it ‘more interesting”, the Other Mother offers to saw buttons in Coraline’s eyes, for her to be able to stay in the Other World forever. This idea does not sound too appealing to the girl, and she comes back to the real world (refusal of the call) to realize, to her deep grief and worry, that her real parents are missing.

In the 5th chapter the black cat wakes Coraline up and brings her to the mirror in the corridor, where she sees her parents, “sad and alone” (p.53). This is the call the girl cannot refuse: she pulls herself together, braves up and sets herself up to save her parents from the other side of the mirror. She finds herself in the portal between the two worlds (belly of the whale), which “smells of dust and damp and mustiness” (p.59). Her Other Mother tricks the girl and keeps the key from the door, after having it locked. Coraline has no other choice but to get her adventure on (the road of trials).

In the 7th chapter Coraline finds herself carefully exploring the Other World and finding differences from the reality. She notices the ball of glass, a snow globe, on the mantelpiece in the drawing room, something that the real apartment did not have. From the conversation with the cat she finds out that the Other Mother is determined to keep her there and prepares for a tough battle. After Coraline calls her “sick and evil and weird” (p.78), the other Mother locks her in the world on the other side of the mirror (apotheosis or abyss), where the girl meets her new friends – “three shapes, each as faint and pale as the moon in the daytime sky” (p.84). Chatting to her new buddies she finds out that the wicked beldam “stole their hearts, and stole their souls, and took their lives away” (p.84) – which gives her heads up on what would happen to her if she let the other mother saw the black buttons into her eyes. Terrified and full of compassion, Coraline decides to try to save the souls of the poor kids, as well as her own parents’. “Look through the stone” - she hears whispered with a “barely-there” voice right into her ear, and it was a good piece of advice (Mentor/Helper).

In the 8th chapter Coraline sets up the rules of the game with the Other Mother: “ If I lose I’ll stay here with you forever and I’ll let you love me.” – …“And if you do not lose?” – “Then you let me go. You let everyone go – my real father and mother, the dead children, everyone you’ve trapped here”. The game outlines Coraline’s entire challenge. Throughout the next few chapters the girl fearlessly goes through her adventure – exploring room after the room, inspecting every corner through the stone with the hole in it. Every now and then she finds glowing marbles, “glowing gently, like a green coal” (p.95). In the cellar of the empty apartment she finds her Other Father (atonement with the father) and has to pull all her guts together to be able to obtain the marble he was holding. She also realizes the incredible super powers of the Other Mother manipulating the Father to hurt her. But as she goes along her road of trials, she finds out that every little victory makes the wicked beldam weaker and weaker – the house flattens out, as if in one dimension; the Other World seems to be gradually collapsing. In the apartment upstairs the old man with the moustache tempts her to stay in the Other World: “Stay here with us, we will listen to you, and play with you and laugh with you. Your other mother will build whole worlds for you to explore. […] Every day will be better and brighter than the one before” (p.119) (woman as temptress). After she collects all the marbles, something tells her, that her parents must have been trapped in the snow globe on the mantelpiece, and she manages to save them. She tricks the Other Mother to open the door for her and manages to escape with the help of the black cat. The way back to the real world seems to be scarier and longer than anything, but Coraline is brave and determined (the crossing of the return threshold).

When back at home, she finds her parents sane and safe, and meets the children from the world behind the mirror. Her new friends - the 2 kids who look very old-fashioned, an angel feeding on flowers (meeting with the goddess) and the affectionate black cat - are the ones to save her from her real world boredom, her neighbors are so proud and thankful to her, and these are the boons she gets after her journey. Last but not least, her general appreciation of life becomes more acute, it seems like she will never be bored again. And when she comes to the real father’s study and gives him a kiss, he picks her up and gives her a swirl, which he had not done in a while, which symbolizes the mutual affection and love within the family. But even after coming back to the real world, she still faces the Other Mother - her restless hand trying to get back the black key from the Other World. Finally, Coraline tricks the Other Hand to jump into a deep hollow well not far away from the house, calling the nightmare over.

I really enjoyed learning about monomyth through analyzing Coraline’s adventures in the Other World. I can really see the features of the hero quest in many other narratives: films, books, stories, animations. I saw the animation of the book before I actually read the original, and I must admit: the creative team behind this 3-D feature animation did an incredibly good job! I really did like the story too, a lot – it’s written in a simple, but sophisticated language, it is very visual and holds message for kids as well as adults.