Home and the Familiar Theme Analysis

When Coraline Jones and her parents move to a new house in a new town, Coraline finds herself bored, unimpressed, and perhaps even a bit scared by her new surroundings. When Coraline is, however, plunged into a twisted alternate version of her new house—a kind of “web” created by the other mother in hopes of ensnaring her—she refuses to be fooled by a cheap imitation of the place she is learning to call home. As Neil Gaiman interrogates what “home” means, he ultimately ends up suggesting that home is not necessarily a place that feels familiar or safe right away. Instead, home is the place one makes that way by building relationships, forming memories, and actively working to understand and inhabit fully.

Over the course of the novel, Gaiman plays with the idea of what “home” really is. As the story unfolds, Coraline goes from looking down on her new surroundings as strange and inhospitable to really loving and appreciating the place she gets the opportunity to call home. As Coraline explores the physical (and metaphysical) realm of her home, forms relationships with her neighbors, and has her own adventures inside her new house, what was once unknown becomes familiar—and the place that once intimidated and irritated her becomes an important touchstone. When Coraline first arrives at the new house her parents have bought—a flat that is part of a much-larger building bricked up into four separate apartments—she doesn’t particularly like the place. She’s curious about its grounds and she’s nice enough to her new neighbors, but there’s a definite part of Coraline that doesn’t feel at home. From the mysterious door in the drawing room to the fact that Coraline’s new neighbors call her “Caroline,” overlooking or misunderstanding her real name, the young Coraline feels distinctly disoriented and out of place in her new surroundings. She explores all she can and subjects herself to uncomfortable visits with Miss Spink and Miss Forcible (and the crazy old man upstairs, whose name Coraline never bothers to learn), but can’t make herself feel quite right about her new surroundings. Coraline doesn’t yet understand that home isn’t a place one moves into, ready-made—a true sense of home must be cultivated and honed.

 In an attempt to understand her own house better, Coraline goes through a mysterious door in the drawing room late one night—and finds another world on the other side. An other mother and an other father are waiting for her happily, and tell her they hope she’ll stay in the home they’ve built for her. Though the other home is lavishly decorated, warm, and full of good food and unique toys, there’s something about it that seems off to Coraline. From the upsetting colors of her other bedroom to the peculiar, overzealous ways in which her other parents dote upon her, Coraline knows that for all their claims that this is her true home, the place in which she’s found herself isn’t any kind of home at all. As Coraline investigates the other mother’s world, she realizes that everything in it is a kind of perversion of her own world. The other Miss Spink and the other Miss Forcible enjoy happy careers as actresses, and the other crazy old man upstairs has command of an army of rats (unlike the “real” crazy old man, who longs to train a whimsical mouse circus) and yet there is something twisted and automated about them. The house that is ostensibly Coraline’s “home” grows flatter and vaguer each time Coraline does something to anguish or irritate the other mother—suggesting that her welcome is conditional, and that this “home” could evaporate right under Coraline’s feet at any moment. Coraline knows the place in which she’s found herself, whatever or wherever it may be, is not a real home because it’s lacking in the efforts required to turn a house into a home. There are no uncomfortable interactions with neighbors, there’s no settling in—and most sinisterly, there’s no option to leave.

After vanquishing the other mother, freeing her parents, and finding the souls of the lost children she’s imprisoned there—other children who, like Coraline, found themselves searching for an ideal set of parents and an ideal home after moving into a new place—Coraline returns to her real home. She is grateful to be back, and her behavior reflects that fact. She visits with her neighbors and, whereas before she only sat and endured their talk, she now asks them questions about their lives and learns more about them.  She gives her parents the space they need to do their work, feel secure, and turn the house into a home on their own time. She understands now that home is a place that she must create for herself and those around her out of goodwill, love, and patience.

By the end of the novel, Coraline has been through a whirlwind journey and has reached a newfound appreciation for the idea of what makes a home. Creating a place where one feels at home is uncomfortable at first: one must make new friendships, shed old habits, and investigate and understand the physical structure and emotional soul of a place. In order to feel comfortable and at peace in her new surroundings, Coraline has had to break through her own discomfort—but after all she’s been through, Coraline now knows that somewhere that is truly home can’t be imitated or cheaply manufactured. A real home, Coraline suggests, is a place that must be slowly, carefully, and lovingly made.