- This article is about the novel. For the film adaptation, see Coraline (film).
Coraline is a horror/fantasy 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'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND and has been adapted into a 2009 stop-motion film directed by Henry Selick.
Plot Summary
Coraline Jones and her parents move into an old house that has been divided into flats. The other tenants include Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, two elderly women retired from the stage, and Mr. Bobinsky, Mr. Bobo, who is training a mouse circus. The flat beside Coraline's remains empty.
During a rainy day she discovers a locked door in a downstairs room, which has been bricked up. As she goes to visit her neighbors, Mr. Bobo relates to her a message from the mice: Don't go through the door. At tea with Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, Miss Spink spies danger in Coraline's future after reading her tea leaves, and gives her a teal-coloured triangular stone with a single hole in the middle, made out of very old sweets. They explain that it will make the unseen seen.
Despite these warnings, Coraline decides to unlock the door when she is home by herself and finds the brick wall behind the door gone. In its place is a long passageway, which leads to a flat identical to her own, inhabited by her Other Mother and Other Father, who are replicas of her real parents. They have button eyes and exaggerated features. In this "Other World", Coraline finds everything to be better than her reality: her Other Parents are attentive, her toy box is filled with animate toys that can move and fly, and the Other Miss Spink and Miss Forcible forever perform a cabaret show in their flat. She even finds the feral black cat that wanders around the house in the real world can talk, however, she learns he is not of the Other World; he only travels from one world to another and warns Coraline of the imminent danger, but Coraline pays him no heed.
The Other Mother offers Coraline a chance to stay in the Other World forever, if Coraline will allow buttons to be sewn into her eyes. Coraline is horrified and returns back through the door to go home. Upon her return to her apartment, Coraline finds her real parents are missing. They do not return the next day, and the black cat wakes her and takes her to a mirror in her hallway, through which she can see her trapped parents. They signal to her by writing "Help Us" on the glass, from which Coraline deduces the Other Mother has kidnapped them. Though frightened of returning, Coraline goes back to the Other World to confront the Other Mother and rescue her parents. In the garden, Coraline is prompted by the Cat to challenge the Other Mother, as "her kind of thing loves games and challenges". The Other Mother tries to convince Coraline to stay, but Coraline refuses, and is locked behind a mirror as punishment.
In the darkness, she meets three ghost children, each from a different era, who had let the Beldam (the Other Mother) sew buttons in their eyes. They tell her how she eventually grew bored with them, ate their bodies, and cast their spirits aside. The Ghost Children implore Coraline to avoid their fate, and to help find their souls so that they can leave the Other World and pass on.
After the Other Mother releases Coraline from the mirror, Coraline proposes a game in which she must find the ghost children's souls and her parents, which lay hidden throughout the Other World. If Coraline wins, she, her parents and the ghost children may go free. If not, Coraline will let the Other Mother sew the buttons into her eyes.
Coraline goes through the Other World, and overcomes all the Other Mother's obstacles, using her wits and Miss Spink' stone to locate the Ghost Children's souls. At the close of the game, the ghost children warn her even if Coraline wins, the Other Mother will not let them go. Having deduced her parents are imprisoned in the snow globe on the mantle, Coraline tricks the Other Mother by saying her parents are behind the door in the drawing room. As the Other Mother opens the door, Coraline throws the Cat at the Other Mother, grabs the snow globe, and escapes to the real world with the key. In doing so, she forces the door shut on the Other Mother's hand, severing it. Back in her home, Coraline finds her parents safe and with no memory of the events.
That night, Coraline has a dream in which she meets the three children before they move on to the afterlife. They warn her, her task is still not done: the Other Mother's severed hand is in Coraline's world, attempting to steal the key which opens the door that connects the two worlds. Coraline goes to an old well in the woods by her house, luring the Other Mother's hand there with the key, and casts both down the bottomless well. Coraline returns home, victorious, and prepares to go about the ordinary life she has come to accept and love.
Characters
- Coraline Jones — The young explorer. She is curious, intelligent, resourceful, and courageous. Coraline is often irritated by rain, crazy grown-ups (as they all seem to be), and not being taken seriously because of her young age and quiet demeanor. She's described as being "small for her age," Coraline is not afraid to face anyone; she is the most adventurous person in the book.
- Mrs. Jones — Coraline's mother. She works at her house on the computer. She is very busy most of the time, and sometimes a little inattentive, but she loves and cares about Coraline. She is nice, and helpful, though Coraline considers her to be rather boring. Coraline also gets annoyed with her real mother because she doesn't seem to want to let Coraline "fit in".
- Mr. Jones — Coraline's father. He works at his house on the computer. He cares about Coraline very much and is kind, brave and helpful. He makes interesting food creations that Coraline strongly dislikes.
- The Cat — A black cat from Coraline's world. The cat acts as a mentor to Coraline and guides her through her journey. He 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, he does not have an "Other World" counterpart, saying that unlike other creatures in the world, cats can "keep themselves together". He moves freely from one world to the next, although he can only talk in the other mother's world. He is very sarcastic, though helpful towards Coraline. He's defiant of the other mother, but seems to tremble at the thought of being stuck in the Other Mother's world. He befriends Coraline and helps her escape from the other mother.
- Other Mother — The creature that created much of the Other World and the main villain of the novel. She looks similar 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. 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 is referred to several times as "the beldam", a Middle English word meaning "grandmother," "ugly old woman," or "hag".
- 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 transforming him into a grub-like creature, and orders the Other Father to trap Coraline so she cannot win her challenge, but Coraline escapes.
- Miss April Spink and Miss Miriam Forcible — A pair of retired actresses, who live in the flat under Coraline's. They own many ageing Scotties, such as Hamish, Angus and Jock, and talk in theater jargon, often referencing their time as actresses. They recognize the danger Coraline is 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 many different dogs, who, in the Other World, behave like humans.
- Mr. Bobo (In the film known as "Mr. Bobinsky") – 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 them, though at first Coraline doubts he even has mice to train, and doesn't listen to what he says to be messages from the mice. His counterpart in the Other World trains rats, and is in fact made of rats.
- 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 reside in the dark space behind the mirror. After having their souls restored, they go to the afterlife, but not before meeting Coraline for a last time, 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.
Adaptations
Film
- Main Article: Coraline (film)
With the help of the animation studio Laika, director Henry Selick released a stop motion film adaptation in 2009, to generally positive reviews. At the 82nd Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Animated Feature. In the film, Coraline is depicted as having short blue hair and freckles. Henry Selick added a new character, Wyborn "Wybie" Lovat, whom is an annoyance at first to Coraline in the real world but she grows to like him. In the Other World, he cannot speak, but is an ally to Coraline. At the end of the film, Coraline reaches out to help Wybie tell his grandmother what is behind the little door.
Graphic Novel
A graphic novel adaptation, published in 2008, was illustrated by P. Craig Russell and lettered by Todd Klein.
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. The production used non-traditional casting; an adult, Jayne Houdyshell, played the title role of nine-year-old Coraline.
Video Game
- Main Article: Coraline (video game)
A video 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 mostly negative reviews.