Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Coraline, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age and Finding Oneself
Parents and Children
Home and the Familiar
Fear and Bravery
Summary
Analysis
Coraline uses the old black key to lock the drawing room door tight, then puts the key ring on the kitchen counter. She is surprised to find that her mother still isn’t home. Coraline makes herself some toast using frozen bread and waits for her parents to return from their errands—but even as dark falls, they haven’t come home yet. Coraline microwaves another pizza for dinner and goes to bed. In the morning, Coraline’s parents are still missing.
As Coraline returns home to the real world, she does so with a sense of relief—but quickly realizes that something has gone wrong. She tries to deny the truth and go about her business, but the next day, Coraline must face the fact that something has happened to her parents.
Themes
That afternoon, Coraline goes down to see Miss Spink and Miss Forcible. They serve her some tea and ask how her mother and father are doing. Coraline explains that her parents are missing—she says they’ve “vanished under mysterious circumstances,” but Misses Spink and Forcible don’t seem to register what Coraline is saying and instead tell her that they’re going to visit Miss Spink’s niece the following day.
Coraline is learning that to feel at home, one must feel part of a community. She seeks help from her neighbors—but unfortunately, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible are too caught up in their own concerns to be there for Coraline in the way she needs them to be. Coraline will have to fend for herself.
Themes
Coraline returns home and uses money from her piggy bank to go out and buy herself some groceries. When she returns home, she busies herself by writing a story on her father’s computer—something she’s normally not allowed to do—and taking a long bubble bath. Coraline puts herself to bed when she gets sleepy but wakes in the middle of the night. Frightened, she goes into her parents’ bedroom, climbs under their covers, and cries herself back to sleep alone.
Coraline attempts to be strong and self-sufficient—but eventually becomes emotional as she realizes that her parents are gone and she has no idea how to get them back. Coraline misses her parents—imperfectly as they treated her—and wants them, rather than her “other” parents, back in her life.
Themes
Coraline wakes with a start to find the cat batting at her face with its paws. Coraline asks the cat if it knows where her parents are—it blinks in response. Coraline asks the cat to take her to them, and the cat leads Coraline down the hall to a large mirror that has been hanging on the wall since the Joneses moved in. Coraline turns on the light and looks in the mirror. She sees not only her reflection in it, but those of her mother and her father as well—they look “sad and alone,” and wave at her dejectedly. Coraline watches as her mother breathes on the mirror to fog it up, then writes “HELP US” in the steam with her finger. Soon, Coraline’s parents fade away.
The cat shows Coraline an ominous vision of her parents in grave danger. It’s clear that they have been trapped in the other mother’s realm. Coraline realizes that she is being threatened—or perhaps simply lured back through the dark hallway—but she knows that she must do whatever she can to get her parents back.
Themes
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Coraline calls the local police and explains that her parents have been kidnapped “into a world on the other side of the mirror.” The dispatcher, believing Coraline is joking or having a nightmare, urges her to go back to sleep. Instead, Coraline dons slippers and a robe, fills her pockets with apples, and lights up a candle when her flashlight refuses to work. Dressed and prepared, Coraline pulls the old black key off the key ring and heads for the drawing room—but when she looks at the door, she becomes scared. She runs back to her bedroom to retrieve the stone from Miss Spink and Miss Forcible. With the talisman in her pocket, she returns to the drawing room once more.
When the adults in Coraline’s life don’t listen to her or take her seriously, she doesn’t get frustrated, wallow, or give up. Coraline is learning to take matters into her own hands. Even though she’s afraid, Coraline does all she can to make herself feel brave before returning to the other mother’s world to try to get her parents back. Even though Coraline’s journey has, in a sense, barely begun, she’s already learning more about herself, about her family, and about the true meaning of bravery.
Themes
As Coraline prepares to open the door, she tells the cat a story about how, when she was younger, her father used to take her exploring at an old dump between their house and the shops. One day, while exploring, Coraline heard her father urge her to run away up a nearby hill. Coraline obeyed—and when she got to the top, she turned back to see that her father had disturbed a wasp’s nest. Coraline only got stung once, but her father was covered in welts. When they returned home, her father realized he’d dropped his glasses—and went back to the dump to retrieve them. Coraline says that she realized her father’s bravery didn’t come from absorbing the stings for Coraline: it came from going back even after he’d been stung. “When you’re scared but you still do it anyway,” she tells the cat, “that’s brave.”
The story Coraline tells in this passage thematically illustrates one of the novel’s central concerns. By having Coraline share this story, Neil Gaiman offers his theory on the truth behind bravery. Bravery, in both Gaiman and Coraline’s estimation, is not shoving aside or ignoring one’s fears—it’s accepting and honoring them, then doing the scary thing anyway. Coraline, inspired by her father, is attempting to model the kind of genuine bravery he showed her in a moment of need. She is learning about the reciprocal relationships that must exist between parents and children.
Themes
As Coraline and the cat open the door and walk back through the dark hall to the other version of Coraline’s house, the cat begins to speak. He warns Coraline that returning to the other house is, perhaps, stupid—but before Coraline can snap back at the cat, her candle goes out. Frightened, Coraline runs down the hall and right into the waiting arms of the other mother.
Coraline is frightened of returning to the other mother—but seems even more frightened of whatever strange presence lives in the tunnel between the two “homes” she’s come to know.
Themes
Coraline asks where her parents are—the other mother, gesturing towards the other father sitting in a nearby chair, insists Coraline has already found her parents. The other father offers to make Coraline a midnight snack. Determined to be brave, Coraline says that she doesn’t need a snack and pulls an apple from her pocket. The other mother gives Coraline a sinister smile. Coraline tells the other mother that she wants her parents back—the other mother says she doesn’t have Coraline’s parents, and adds that if they’ve left, it must be because they grew “bored” of her. The other mother promises Coraline that if she stays here, she’ll never be abandoned again.
Coraline knows, on some level, that the food she’s served in the other mother’s world is a tool of seduction. She doesn’t know what effect the food might have on her, but she is determined to resist falling prey to both the other mother and the other father’s attempts to get her to feel comfortable and safe in their twisted world.
Themes
Coraline tells the other mother she doesn’t believe her. In response, the other mother bewitches the hall mirror to play a scene which shows Coraline’s real mother and father, relieved to be free of her, heading out on a summer holiday and saying how grateful they are to “her other mother” for taking Coraline in. Coraline tells the other mother she doesn’t believe what she’s just shown her—but admits privately that there’s a tiny bit of doubt in her heart.
Coraline knows better than to believe the other mother’s lies—but there’s still a part of her that knows she’s been petulant and difficult lately and feels guilty for pushing her parents away.
Themes
The other mother summons a rat to her side and orders it to retrieve the black key from the door in Coraline’s world. The rat quickly does so. Coraline asks why the other mother doesn’t have her own key—the other father answers her, explaining that there is only one key for only one door. The other mother hushes him up, then locks the door from her side and tucks the key into her pocket. The other mother tells Coraline rather coldly that she and the other father are going to bed—and she urges Coraline to do the same.
Every time Coraline gets a little bit closer to learning the history and rules of the other mother’s world, her source of information either cuts itself off or is silenced. It’s clear that the other father knows the other mother’s true identity and true motivations—but the other mother is determined to keep those things guarded and hidden.
Themes
Coraline is afraid to go to sleep in her strange other bedroom, so she walks out the front door and sits on the stoop. The cat approaches Coraline and rubs against her. Coraline asks why the other mother wants her to stay—the cat replies that the other mother “wants something to love” or perhaps just “something to eat.” It’s hard to tell what “creatures” like the other mother, the cat says, really want.
Coraline asks the cat what he suggests she do. The cat tells Coraline to challenge the other mother to a game—“her kind of thing,” he says, “loves games.” Coraline asks the cat what “kind of thing” the other mother is, but the cat refuses to answer her. The cat suggests Coraline get some sleep—she has a long day ahead of her. Coraline goes back inside, sneaks to her room, and pushes her heavy toy box in front of the door. She gets into bed and falls asleep as she ponders the cat’s suggestion.
The cat only ever gives Coraline as much information as she needs to survive. He seems unable—or unwilling—to divulge the whole truth about the other mother, but he does share with Coraline a suggestion that might just save her life. It’s unclear whether the cat himself is just as in the dark as Coraline when it comes to certain aspects of the other mother’s origins and her desires, or if he’s forbidden by some ancient code or magic from revealing her secrets.
Themes
