Coraline - Neil Gaiman
Only me gushing about one of my favorite movies ⚠️ spoilers ahead
Coraline is one of my favorite films. I can tell you I’ve seen it about ten times. I recently gave in to the whim of reading the book {it only seemed right since I've seen most of the film and TV adaptations of Neil Gaiman's work}. When I first received the book in the mail, I was surprised to see that it was relatively short, consisting of 160 pages. The last Gaiman novel I read, or started rather since I haven't finished it yet. was about 380 pages. I should mention the book I’m referencing was written in tandem with Terry Pratchett and is titled Good Omens.
Nonetheless, I was eager to read Coraline and get an in-depth view of the world Gaiman created especially since I learned that Wybie is not in the book. If you're familiar with the film, then you know exactly who I'm talking about. Otherwise, just know that in the film Wybie is a friend Coraline begrudgingly makes when she moves into the Pink Palace. Although he's not in the novel, his family's surname is mentioned in the book.
When the creators of the film were asked what caused such a drastic change they explained that it was to make Coraline “appear more social” although there were other benefits. Wybie’s presence, not only explains how Coraline gets the doll in the real world but also contradicts Coraline in a few ways. He’s best explained as a foil character. Coraline and Wybie are prone to explore their curiosities and they’re ignored by their family. While they’re both adventurers, Coraline tends to focus on the Other World whereas Wybie is interested in the real world. This changes towards the end of the film when Wybie becomes more confident in himself and Coraline connects a bit more with the real world (Fay para. 2).
When I first started Coraline, I made sure to read the foreword which I hardly do. However, I love Gaiman’s work so it was a must for me and I was intrigued every step of the way. In the foreword, he explains that he started Coraline for his oldest daughter, Holly, who was five at the time.
“The book was called Coraline. I had typed the name Caroline, and it came out wrong. I looked at the word Coraline, and knew it was someone’s name. I wanted to know what happened to her.” (Gaiman xiv)
Gaiman briefly stopped writing when he and his family moved from England to the U.S. in 1992 and returned to it in 1998. He wanted to finish the novel for his youngest daughter, Maddie before she became too old. In the beginning, Gaiman says “I started this for Holly, I finished it for Maddie”. The book was later published in 2002 and then adapted into a stop-motion film by Laika in 2010. Since then, it has been adapted into a play and even a comic! It’s worth mentioning that Gaiman didn’t direct the film, the film was directed by Henry Selick {seen below} who also directed The Nightmare Before Christmas.
After finishing this novel, the first thing I did was take a deep dive into the world of Coraline. I looked for any theory that piqued my interest and the first one that caught my eye was the importance of bugs in the film. I would like to take this moment to give credit to Kartsen Runquist on Youtube who did the research for this theory, and you can watch his video here.
In the film Coraline, our first introduction to bugs comes from Coraline’s exploration of the rickety old house. She pulls back the shower curtain and she’s greeted by a plethora of bugs crawling on the tile wall. When we venture into her room, we notice the string of dragonflies across her bedpost. There’s also a praying mantis photo frame on her nightstand. The praying mantis also makes another appearance in the garden in the Other World. Coraline’s Other Father uses the Praying Mantis to prune the garden when Coraline sees it for the first time. Towards the end of the film, the Other Mother uses the Praying Mantis to make the Other Father attack Coraline. Not to mention, the dragonfly hair clip she wears in her cobalt-colored hair.
Other moments that are crawling with bugs include when Coraline and Wybie are hunting for slugs; and of course, the chocolate-covered beetles from Zanzibar that the Other Mother eats towards the end of the film. If you’re familiar with this film then you also know that the Other Mother holds Coraline hostage in the Bug Room {I don’t think that is the official name for it but that’s what we’ll refer to it as for now}. Coraline is being held down by a chair resembling a roach. If you look closely, you’ll also notice a beetle-shaped clock and other bug-like furniture in the room. The last insect worth mentioning is the Other Mother herself, who poses as a spider. If you’ve seen this film, then you can make this correlation with the Other Mother’s fight scene with Coraline. This is the moment when the room disappears and turns into a spiderweb and Coraline bravely scales up the walls of the web with the Other Mother on her heels.
I mentioned all of these appearances of bugs because it’s important when you remember that Coraline’s real mother works in gardening; and in gardening, insects and bugs are viewed as pests. As Runquist explains they “disturb the environment” (Runquist 7:15). As for the different insects themselves: dragonflies, praying mantes, and spiders, they each have a unique meaning behind them. I will be referencing points that Runquist made in his video, feel free to visit his video and give it a thumbs up. In folklore, dragonflies are known as the “Devil’s darning needles” which are used to sew the mouths of bad children shut (Runquist 1:50). Other attributes include blinding and deafening people, this makes sense when we think of the Other Mother’s desire to sew buttons onto Coraline’s eyes. This also applies to Wybie when we remember that she sewed his mouth shut along with the mouth of Coraline’s doll that she crafted at the beginning of the film.
As for the significance of the praying mantis in the film, its behavior contradicts the ‘wise’ image it has in the real world. In the film, it is used as a weapon of destruction. Something the Other Mother uses against the Other Father so that he has no choice but to attack Coraline (Runquist 2:13).
Runquist makes a good point that the beetles and roaches in this film are significant because they often resemble furniture which is lifeless and has a sense of immortality; something that the Other Mother desires.
Listening to Runquist describe the significance of Other Mother’s presence as a spider is truly intriguing. Spiders are known to spin webs in order to trap their prey. The Other Mother essentially does the same thing from beginning to end. As I mentioned earlier, she creates a doll for Coraline to win her over and gain her interest in the Other World. Runquist states that she uses her “evil stuffing” to fill the doll, which looks similar to spider silk. Additionally, Runquist elaborates that “Freud believed that dreaming of spiders represents the mother that devours her children (which she does through possessiveness or guilt)... when you dream of spiders you are dreaming of webs” that link creation, feminine power, transmutation, and intricacy to name a few things; and Coraline only interacts with the Other Mother when she’s dreaming (Runquist 3:35). It’s worth mentioning that spiders are wary off cats because they eat them {before watching this video, I had no idea about the predator-prey dynamic between these two!}. This explains why the Other Mother is so wary around the black cat in the film since they’re foes!
As I mentioned earlier, Wybie Lovat is not in the novel but he does make a brief appearance. Miss Spink references his family name when talking to Coraline. She warns her to stay away from the well because “Mister Lovat warned that it was 20 miles down,” (Gaiman 154).
For this section, I would like to thank CZ of CZsWorld for putting so much work into his “The History of the Beldam” video. It is linked here if you would like to watch the original video.
CZ opens up his video by tracing back the origin of the beldam. In the film and the novel, one of the ghost children that Coraline encounters asks “art thou alive?” This verbiage was last used during the 1700s. Additionally, one of the ghost children refers calls the Other Mother “Beldam”. This word can be traced back to the 1600s and it is used to describe a witch or a malicious and ugly old woman (CZ 1:37). So when the Other Mother approaches Coraline, we can assume that she has been around for several centuries. This would also explain why she is so insistent on getting Coraline to sew the button on her eyes. All three of the ghost children are wearing clothes from a different time period and nothing as recent as the early to mid-1900s. Not to mention, that these three children all lived at the Pink Palace which is where Coraline currently resides; so we know that the Beldam is tethered to this place.
The stone that is gifted to Coraline from Miss Spink and Miss Forcible is an adder stone, otherwise known as a hag or witch stone (CZ 1:50). It’s not a coincidence that the stone is called an adder stone since adder is also a type of snake. CZ mentions that, according to the world of Harry Potter, spiders are afraid of snakes {remember when Harry and Ron talk to that giant spider?}. Similar to spiders, the Other Mothers creates a web to lure in her victims. She creates this Other World which is really a series of copies and distortions of people and things from Coraline’s real world. Building on this, the other people in the Other World are not real no matter how alive they seem. The Other Father is merely a creation of the Beldam that is under her control. The Other Mr. Bobinsky is composed of rats while the Other Miss Spink and Miss Forcible are made of a jelly-like substance.
When Coraline challenges the Beldam to a game and they establish the conditions for the winner and the loser, the Beldam swears on her mother’s grave to comply. Yet Coraline doesn’t trust her {as she should} and even questions if the Beldam’s mother does have a grave. In the book, the Beldam answers:
“Oh yes […] I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back.” (Gaiman 91).
This came as a shock to me since in the movie she simply replies “I’ll swear on my right hand”. CZ points out that this could mean little to the Beldam if she in fact is not a full-bodied entity but rather only a hand. It would make sense because we see her hand at work in the title sequence when she creates Coraline’s doll. The Beldam could’ve fabricated a body to give Coraline a false sense of security (CZ 12:25).
As you can see an immense amount of thought and detail went into not only the film but the book as well. Doing research on Coraline gave me an even greater love for this piece of work. As always, I leave you with a few of my favorite quotes:
“Because.” she said, “when you’re scared but you still do it anyway, that’s brave.”
“You really don’t understand, do you?” she said. “I don’t want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I got everything I ever wanted? Just like that, and it didn’t mean anything. What then?”
Dinner that night was pizza, and even though it was homemade by her father (so the crust was alternately thick and doughy and raw, or too thin and burnt), and even though he had put slices of green pepper on it, along with little meatballs and, of all things, pineapple chunks, Coraline ate the entire slice she had been given. Well, she ate everything except for the pineapple chunks.
Works Cited
CZsWorld. “Coraline: The History of the Beldam | Horror History.” YouTube, 15 Feb. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKdnUH7hQFY.
Fay, Rua. “Why Does Wybie Lovat Exist?”, Cinemasters, 8 Aug. 2021, https://www.cinemasters.net/post/why-does-wybie-lovat-exist.
Gaiman, Neil. Coraline. Harper, An Imprint Of Harpercollins Publishers, 2002.
Runquist, Karsten. “The Coraline Bug Theory.” YouTube, 6 Feb. 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=27m980F_obg&t=216s.