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Coraline

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This article is about the novella. For the film adaptation, see Coraline (film). For other uses, see Coraline (disambiguation).
“Coraline”
Front cover by Dave McKean
AuthorNeil Gaiman
IllustratorDave McKean
Cover artistPaul A. Hotaling
LanguageEnglish
GenreFantasy
Horror
PublisherBloomsbury (UK)
Harper Collins (US)
Publication date
2002
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint, e-book, audiobook
Pages163
ISBN0061139378

Coraline is a fantasy/horror novella by British author Neil Gaiman, published in 2002 by Bloomsbury and Harper Collins. It was awarded the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novella, the 2003 Nebula Award for Best Novella, and the 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Best Work for Young Readers. It has been compared to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and has been adapted into a 2009 stop-motion film directed by Henry Selick.

Plot

As the tale begins, Coraline and her parents move into a new apartment (Pink Palace). Coraline's parents are always busy with their work and pay her little attention. Isolated, Coraline goes off to explore. She meets the other inhabitants of the house, Ms. Spink and Ms. Forcible, two elderly women retired from the stage, and an even older man, Mr. Bobo, who trains mice to play music. She also encounters a naughty black cat.

Coraline finds a locked door in the drawing room, though the entrance beyond is bricked up. The next day she takes the key to the door, opens it, and finds a dark corridor leading to an apartment identical to her own. This alternate world is inhabited by her Other Mother and Other Father, who are near-replicas of her real parents, except they have buttons for eyes. She also sees the cat, which can speak there. These Other parents at first seem more interesting, fun and caring than her real parents. At the day's end, Coraline's Other Mother offers her a chance to stay in this world forever if Coraline will sew buttons over her eyes. Coraline decides she would rather go home, much to the disappointment of her Other Mother.

Upon her return to her apartment, Coraline finds her real parents are missing. They do not return by the next day, and Coraline, discovering they were kidnapped by her Other Mother, resolves to rescue them. Coraline returns to the Other Mother's world with a seeing stone given to her by her neighbors. The cat gives her advice about how the Other Mother loves games and challenges.

The Other Mother becomes angry when Coraline refuses to accept gifts or love, and the Other Mother imprisons Coraline behind a mirror as punishment. There she meets the souls of three children from different eras whom the Other Mother entrapped then tossed aside when she wearied of them. After the Other Mother decides to take Coraline out of the room, Coraline challenges the Other Mother in a game to find the children's souls and her parents within the Other world, using her wits and a seeing stone received from her neighbours. Coraline finds the children's souls with the seeing-stone and finds her parents in a snowglobe. She throws the cat at the Other Mother, and then escapes to the real world, forcing the door closed on the Other Mother and severing her hand. Back in her apartment, Coraline finds her parents safe and sound.

The next night, Coraline discovers her task is still not done: The Other Mother's severed hand is still in Coraline's world. It attempts to steal the key so the Other Mother can come through the door into the real world. Coraline lures the hand to a well and tricks it into falling in with the key, ridding the world of the danger of the Other Mother forever.

Characters

  • Coraline Jones – The young heroine, she is clever, curious, resourceful, and brave. Coraline loves the rain, but is irritated by her parents who are too self-engrossed in their own ambitions, She is overly adventurous which leads her to situations which pose great danger to herself and those she loves, though she does not realize her feelings until later.
  • Mrs. Jones – Coraline's mother works as a counterpart to her father in creating a gardening catalogue. She is very busy most of the time, and sometimes a little inattentive, but she loves and cares about Coraline. She is pretty, nice, helpful, and outgoing, though Coraline considers her to be rather boring.
  • Mr. Jones – Coraline's father works at his house on the computer which he spends most of his time on his job creating a gardening catalogue. He cares about Coraline very much and is very nice, gentlemanly, handsome, and helpful. But like Coraline's mother, she finds him rather boring.
  • The Cat – A black cat from Coraline's world. The cat acts as a mentor to Coraline and guides her through her journey. It claims to have no name, explaining that cats do not need names to tell each other apart. Unlike many of the characters in the novel, it does not have an "other world" counterpart, saying that unlike other creatures cats can "keep themselves together". It moves freely from one world to the next, although it can talk in the Other Mother's world. It is very sarcastic towards Coraline and defiant of the Other Mother, but seems to tremble at the thought of being stuck in the Other Mother's world.
  • The Other Mother or The Beldam – The creature that created much of the 'Other' world for her own entertainment. She is almost identical to Coraline's real mother but taller and thinner, with long black hair that seems to move by itself, black button eyes, paper-white skin, and extremely long, twitchy fingers with long dark red nails. It is likely she uses energy from the love of previous target children to take the shape of her current target's real mother. She cannot create, but only copy, twist and change things from the real world when constructing her version of it. She collects children, with whom she quickly becomes bored or frustrated, and imprisons them behind a magical mirror, slowly sucking the life from them; she intends to do the same with Coraline. She is referred to several times as "the beldam", an archaic word meaning "hag/witch". (Actually it's an old Middle English word meaning "Grandmother" or "Old Woman".)
  • The Other Father – A creation of the Other Mother, who was used to try to help trick Coraline into staying in the Other Mother's world. Like her real father he has a study and sits there during the day and will not talk to Coraline for long. He does not work however, he merely occupies the study as he is not permitted to talk to Coraline by himself.He is much more fun than Coraline's real father and always tries to be cheerful and fun in front of Coraline. In reality the Other Father is sad and nervous. The Other Mother ends up punishing him for revealing too much to Coraline by locking him in the empty flat and transforming him into a grub-like creature. He is not evil like the other mother and he manages to resist the other mother's control long enough to warn Coraline that the other mother is trying to make him kill her. He loses control and turns into a savage monster who attacks Coraline. After getting away Coraline leaves him trapped in the empty garden.
  • Miss Spink and Forcible – A pair of retired actresses, April and Miriam, who live in the flat next door to Coraline. They own several scottie dogs, and talk in theater jargon, often referencing their time as actresses. They recognize the danger Coraline's in after reading her fortune through tea leaves and give her a stone with a hole in it to help protect her. In the other world they are young, pretty, and perform unendingly in front of the scottie dogs, who, in the other world, behave like humans.
  • Mr. Bobo – A retired circus performer living in the flat above Coraline's; he is commonly referred to as the Crazy Old Man Upstairs. Over the course of the book he claims to be training mice to perform in a mouse circus, and often brings Coraline messages from the mice, though at first Coraline doubts he even has mice to train, and she does not listen to what the man says was supposed to come from the mice. His counterpart in the other-world trains rats, and is in fact made of rats.
  • The Three Ghost Children – A trio of children who were previously victims of the other mother, two girls and one boy. The boy is described as having a dirty face and red trousers. One of the girls has two butterfly wings, blond hair, and a silver circlet, the other has a brown bonnet and brown dress. They were trapped by the Other Mother at different times before Coraline, and resided in the closet until Coraline found herself in the same closet. She promises to rescue them after hearing about their vulnerability due to their lack of souls. After having their souls restored, they go to the afterlife, but the last Coraline sees of them is in a dream where she picnics with them. Here, she sees their true appearances and they thank her for freeing them from the Other Mother. It is also shown that the winged girl eats honeysuckles.

Adaptations

Film

Main article: Coraline (film)

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Graphic novel

A graphic novel adaptation, published in 2008, was illustrated by P. Craig Russell and lettered by Todd Klein.[1]

Musical

A theatrical adaptation, with music and lyrics by Stephin Merritt and book by David Greenspan, premiered on May 6, 2009, produced by MCC Theater and True Love Productions off-Broadway at The Lucille Lortel Theatre.[2] The production uses non-traditional casting; an adult, Jayne Houdyshell plays the title role of the child.[2]

Video Game

Main article: Coraline (video game)

A game adaptation, based on the film, was published and developed by D3 Publisher of America. The game was released on January 27, 2009 for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS and Wii platforms and contains features such as playing as Coraline, interacting with other characters, and playing minigames. The game received extremely negative reviews.

  • Three tracks on Where's Neil When You Need Him? (a tribute CD to author Neil Gaiman), are dedicated to Coraline.
  • John Wiseman's album Simply Entitled has a song dedicated to Coraline, summarizing the book's plot.
  • Teri Hatcher (voice of the mother and other mother in the film adaptation), who stars on Desperate Housewives, makes a reference to Coraline in an episode of Desperate Housewives: she calls Katherine Mayfair "the other mommy."

References

  1. ^ P. Craig Russell - Adapting Coraline and More, Newsarama, August 19, 2008
  2. ^ a b Blankenship, Mark (2009-06-07), "The Score and the Story, Inseparable", New York Times, pp. AR4
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