This chapter explores those components employed in Coraline that are germane to the “home” part of the quest-story pattern. In this chapter, the questions the author of the study would like to address are: (1) why does Gaiman employ the child archetype to create a child motif for the story? (2) What kind of role does Coraline play as a child archetype? (3) What kind of significant meanings and influences do fear and anxiety bring to both the protagonist and the reader? (4) What are the problems presented in Coraline’s world before she accepts the call to adventure and then embarks on her journeys? (5) What is the liminal space, and what is its relation with the setting and plot of the story? To answer these questions, this chapter calls on primarily the theoretical works of Carl Jung, Maria Nikolajeva, Joseph Campbell, Bruno Bettelheim, using Lucy Lane Clifford’s “The New Mother” as a cross-reference.
The Child Motif
In her book Worlds Within: Children's Fantasy from the Middle Ages to Today, Sheila A. Egoff writes, “Any exploration or investigation of fantasy must therefore begin with its roots, which are deeper than those of any other literary genre, for they lie in the oldest literature of all—myth, legend, and folklore” (3). Rooted from myth, legend, and folklore, children’s literature incorporates many elements from the oldest literature into fascinating stories, providing a guide to life from which children can learn about characters to whom they can relate, and teaching children about the stages
of life such as coming of age as children experience growing transition from childhood to adulthood.
The child motif and journey (quest) archetypes exist in mythology, fairy tales, and fables for thousands of years; still, they inspire and teach child readers about dealing with difficulties and dangers in their own lives. There are many literary archetypes used in literature that reflect the deep unconscious and behaviors of human kinds. The child motif is a common motif that can be recognized easily in most of children’s stories, in which the plots revolve around a child protagonist. As Jung maintains that “[the child motif] represents the preconscious, childhood aspect of the collective psyche,” this motif is one of the archetypes which often appear in children’s literature as a vestigial “memory of one’s own childhood” (161). A motif, according to Nikolajeva, “is a textual element—an event, character, or object—recurring in many works of literature” (Aesthetic 81).The child motif and journey (quest) archetype are the core elements of Coraline in which they offer a pattern for Coraline’s maturing transition through journeys of difficulties and trials. The greatness of this children’s fantasy story comes from its ability to illustrate an archetypal child to whom the reader can relate, bringing out the collective unconscious of the child archetype in the remembering of childhood.
Gaiman is a well-known fantasy writer who utilizes elements from fairy tale tradition and mythology in much of his writing, concerning primarily with encouraging the young protagonist to embark on a quest to a fantasy world, searching valuable treasure and self-fulfillment and probing on moral lessons at the same time.
In many children’s stories, child protagonists lack complexity, which means they neither undergo any changes nor develop much their characters over the course of a story. Often, they stay the same from the beginning to the end, showing no trails of improvement or change as typical flat characters would show. Nikolajeva points out
that those romantic heroes in the early children’s literature possess “a standard set of traits like heroic, moral, and loyal and so on. The premise for the romantic child hero is the idealization of childhood during the Romantic era, based on the belief in the child as innocent and therefore capable of conquering evil” (Power 18). While this assumption of the image of an ideal child can still be found in some contemporary children’s stories, more and more children’s fantasy stories would portray their child protagonists’ weaknesses as well as strengths rather than their invincibility. Coraline, for example, is by no mean a flat character for she goes through psychological and moral changes during the course of her quest which makes her different from other protagonists in children’s stories. Readers can see a vivid image of a girl who changes herself and learns valuable lessons through her adventurous journey, manifesting the humanitarian ideals attributed to both the development and complexity of her character. The story of Coraline demonstrates the concept of what Jung calls the
“invincible child motif” constituted in the plot and embedded in sub-conscious of human minds.
Coraline, as the title suggests, illustrates a child’s archetypal figure in a
children’s fantasy story. In Power, Voice and Subjectivity in Literature for Young Readers, Nikolajeva claims that the conflict between adults and children has always
been prominent motif in children’s fiction (78). Right at the beginning of Coraline, the story features a conflict between Coraline and her parents. Gaiman uses Coraline and her parents’ moving to a strange old house as causes to unfold the story. Gaiman then hints Coraline into her exploration of the other side of the wall of the old house to start on her adventures.
Coraline’s conflicts revolve around herself and both her real parents as well as the other parents. Her battle between good and evil, in a sense, is less disturbing in the setting of the alternative world than in the realistic environment, for it allows readers
to experience it vicariously through a narrative distance. Her acting like the girl next door impresses child readers when comparing themselves with her. Moreover, readers witness Coraline’s struggle between good and evil and this battle is not only psychological but also moral, as readers can see that Coraline has to make choices between good and evil as the story progresses. More importantly, many valuable lessons such as kindness, bravery, understanding and honesty are slipped into the story to lead her growth, and she can only triumph and experience character growth by her own choices and actions during the course of her quest.
It can be suggested that Gaiman knows well that the best way to educate children is by writing them an exciting story, and it would be a flop if it didn’t have any difficulty and opposition toward the goal. When the other parents lure Coraline into staying with them forever with fancy toys and delicious food, she manages to make correct decision which saves herself, her parents, and three ghost children out of the other mother’s control. Yet, she doesn’t come mature all at once. She develops her character and learns about herself, other people and life gradually through her adventures, and these make her story plausible.
Gaiman creates Coraline as a child character whom child readers can identify with, and encourages them to engage in her adventures. As a children’s fantasy story, Coraline helps child readers deal with their own problems in the real life. While
Coraline solves her problems in the story, readers can learn about how to solve their problems in life, and make difference. This is what Gaiman hopes for, and he doesn’t think “Disney cartoon fiction” type of story can help children handle the situation mentioned above. In his interview for Q (a Canadian radio show) in 2009,2 he said:
2 Transcribed by Karen Pei-Han Lee from Gaiman’s interview on CBC’s Q, an arts, entertainment and culture show on Canada’s public broadcaster. See more details on “No real controversy over scary kids tale Coraline, author Gaiman says.” CBCnews.
I think of is Disney channel cartoon fiction. […] You watch it hoping for some kind of story, and the story you get is something like somebody thinks they haven’t been invited to a birthday party but actually they have. It’s not the story that tells kids that dangerous things can be overcome. Tell them that you can go out and dream. Tell them that you can go out and change the world. (Q n.pag.)
Gaiman portrays Coraline’s psychological and moral developments in the middle of crisis rather than her chronological changes of age or physical appearance, making the plot not just revolves around a battle between Coraline and the evil forces, but also around moral lessons she learns as she struggles through it. Like many other contemporary children’s fantasy novels, Coraline makes its protagonist ordinary in the real world, and then empowers her when she is brought into the magic world. The odds are not in Coraline’s favor at the beginning of her adventures, and she is never a child heroine who possesses supernatural powers or any special ability. In his interview, Gaiman also mentioned what kind of heroine he wanted Coraline to be in the story:
When I went into Coraline that was what I held onto, and I thought, “I’m gonna make my villain as bad a villain as I can. I’m gonna make her dangerous this thing. I’m not gonna give Coraline magic powers, and I’m not gonna make her some kind of special chosen one and she’s not gonna be a secret princess or anything like that. She’s going to be a smart little girl who is going to be scared, and who is going to keep doing the right thing anyway, and that’s what brave is, and she is going to triumph by being
smarter then and braver.” (Q, n.pag.)
As Gaiman mentioned, Coraline’s strength, bravery and wit come from within, and she learns to overcome obstacles through her own experiences and the knowledge she amasses during her adventures. She is not a naive princess type of girl, who is passive and docile.
Due to prejudice and gender stereotype, the female characters in past children’s literature tended to be docile and passive and there were not many strong-minded and resourceful female characters in it (e.g., Becky in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer;
Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail in The Tale of Peter Rabbit). Those children’s stories were mostly about boys who were chosen to accomplish some sorts of goals or tasks designated by some mystical force or destiny. As Diane M. Turner-Bowker observes:
For many years authors of children's literature have portrayed females with narrow characteristics. They are often secondary characters; are regularly found in domestic settings; and are often in need of rescue by male characters. Male characters are also presented in stereotyped roles, but these roles are positive and sought-after. For example, boys and men more often serve in central roles (as protagonists); are portrayed as leaders, decision-makers, and heroes; and are often involved in occupations and roles outside of the home. (463)
Nowadays, many female characters in children’s literature are portrayed to be intelligent, brave and strong as the chosen ones to perform different tasks alone or work with male characters to solve problems (e.g., Lyra in His Dark Materials
Trilogy, Hermione in the Harry Potter Series, and Violet in A Series of Unfortunate Events). As Nikolajeva observes that “[i]n most fantasy novels for young readers,
there is a prophecy about a child who will overthrow the established order of an evil ruler” (Power 42), Karen Coats makes a similar observation:
messianic children’s fantasies operate according to this principle: children are identified as saviours through prophecies or as possessing some special quality that sets them apart from the norm and makes them the only ones who can solve the mystery. (The Routledge Companion 81)
The child archetype as a motif engraved so deeply into children’s fantasy stories that the child protagonists are destined to perform a difficult task in order to save everybody out of perils and advance their psychological and moral growth at the same time. Why such children’s fantasy stories have such an intriguing appeal to child readers may result from the emotional connection between readers who relate themselves and the heroes in the stories.
Those messianic child heroes all share a certain set of characteristics: they are curious, bold, sympathetic and heroic (Nikolajeva, Mythic, 2000). Coraline features a child heroine to perform the difficult task alone. As Jung notes, “[t]he urge and compulsion to self-realization is a law of nature and thus of invincible power, even though its effect, at the start, is insignificant and improbable. Its power is revealed in the miraculous deeds of the child hero” (171). As Gaiman says that he doesn’t intend to make Coraline “some kind of special chosen one or a secret princess,” but she possesses the typical features that a messianic child heroine usually possesses, and there is no one else but her who can save everybody out of the other mother’s clutches
and set the ghost children free. If it wasn’t her, those ghost children would have no chance to escape from the witch’s control forever. Coraline doesn’t possess any special talent and she learns to cope with her problems with others’ help, and the experiences and knowledge she gathers during her journeys. Her adventurous spirit leads her into the murky passage behind the small door, and enters into an uncharted area, while most children would have avoided touching the small door that opens onto the wall and made a run for it. She has the quality of bravery and curiosity that an explorer usually has before stepping onto an unknown land that signifies a new stage of life.
The child motif has a special place in the imagination of human unconscious.
The employment of the motif in Coraline can be seen as the embodiment of the motif.
The human desire to explain the child motif constructed in the archetypes of stories has been passed down from generation to generation, representing something that lies down deeply into human’s collective unconscious and has existed both in the distant past and the present. The child motif is timeless and prevalent in children’s literature as it can be seen vividly in Coraline that provides readers with an image of a girl whose journey is associated with fear and anxiety, two folkloric motifs constructed in the story.
Fear and Anxiety
H. P. Lovecraft states that “the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and that the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” (12). Fear and anxiety are two folkloric motifs often employed in children’s portal-quest fantasy
stories as a way to attract young readers. Children love to seek fear through fantasy stories, in which writers distort reality in ways both frightening and startling to produce emotional and psychological effects in readers. Coraline sets in Britain, where ghost stories and haunted locations have circulated for thousands of years, and where many old and deserted houses have become popular tourist sites, through their association with paranormal activities.
In contrast, home is generally considered a safe place, and is therefore identified with the “canny” or the homely impression of familiarity as Freud points out. Home is the setting for Coraline and the location is old and subject to haunting. A haunted setting plays a crucial role in creating the eerie atmosphere of Gothic fantasy. The narrative of Coraline, revolving around the supernatural and the monstrous, is structured around numinous elements: the presence of monsters and ghosts, uncanny settings, and a mythical atmosphere. In Coraline, Gaiman employs the motifs of fear and anxiety within the security of home. Aside from Coraline, fear and anxiety also play two large roles in other children’s portal-quest fantasies—where the Queen of Hearts wants to behead Alice’s head (Carroll, 1995 [1865]),3 Voldemort threatens Harry Potter’s life (Rowling, 1997),4 and the Wicked Witch of the West seeks revenge against Dorothy and her friends (Baum, 1999 [1900]).5 Many writers, nowadays, still prefer to create a fear-free and trouble-free childhood for children in children’s literature, though the creation is far from truth.
Bruno Bettelheim, however, has different thoughts, and places emphases on childhood experiences in psychological growth. He sees overcoming fear and anxiety as an important process in children’s growing development for, with moral, fairy tales
3 See Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
4 See Harry Potter series.
5 See The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
(fantasy stories) have the capacity to not only captivate child readers but also enrich their lives, rendering themselves useful in children’s psychological education. In The Uses of Enchantment, Bettelheim points out that young children often cannot express
their feelings of fear or anxiety in words, and even older children sometimes would keep their true feelings inside. He suggests that fairy tales are children’s stories that can
hold the child’s attention; entertain him and arouse his curiosity and enrich his life; stimulate his imagination; help him to develop his intellect, and to clarify his emotions; give full recognition to his difficulties, while at the same time suggesting solutions to the problems which perturb him. (5)
Bettelheim states that fairy tales as fantasy stories help young children deal with their emotions and express their fear and anxiety because through considering what the stories seem to hint, child readers may find solutions to their own problems in real life.
Furthermore, the integration of psychoanalysis further helps study the relationships between children themselves and people in their surrounding environment. Nina Mikkelsen makes a similar observation: “Fantasy helps children explore new worlds far from home through adventures that involve risk-taking and danger, and it allows them to explore disturbing questions from a safe distance” (178). This distance enables children to probe into problems and issues without getting themselves into them. Both Bettelheim and Mikkelsen recognize children’s fantasy stories as useful tools for children’s education and examine their reading benefits.
It is easy to ascribe Coraline and other children’s fantasy stories’ popularity to the combination of fantasy and adventure, or children’s fascination with magic. To
child readers, part of the attraction of this subgenre is that it introduces places and ideas different from their own. Like many contemporary children’s fantasy stories, Coraline portrays its protagonist’s dilemmas by taking the issues of fear and anxiety
seriously, which in a way to help offer solutions to children. What Coraline achieves in the realm of children’s literature are: developing a sense of wonder in child readers, helping them find meanings in the story, and finally dealing with their own problems in daily life. When it comes to teaching children about the meaning of life, fantasy stories are better than realistic stories in describing psychological or emotional problems because they allow child readers to imagine what’s being described in the text from a safe distance, and this enriches their textual engagement, as well as real-life experiences and knowledge. As Deborah O’Keefe suggests, “[s]tories, particularly fantasy stories, teach people how to ‘subjunctivize’—how to go beyond their personal selves and the actualities of their everyday reality, and explore all kinds of human possibilities” (20).
Fear and anxiety are two common motifs often constructed into children’s stories, which are not only appealing to child readers but also educative. It was a tradition that
Fear and anxiety are two common motifs often constructed into children’s stories, which are not only appealing to child readers but also educative. It was a tradition that