Why Do We Love it?Īnalysis of Coraline has become an SEO darling, and I think that’s mostly because, after watching Coraline, it feels like you’ve just experienced something new and exciting. This is also the low-point at the tail-end of Act II and the rest of the challenges all lead to the final confrontation with the Beldam, right before she returns to the world of the known, now more appreciative of her family and the normal world.
The point of revelation is when Coraline meets the Beldam’s previous victims in the closet. Other Mother offers this menagerie of activities and material goods designed specifically to tempt Coraline to stay in this alternate world, where she will eventually be devoured by Other Mother, who is actually a horrible monster, the Beldam. Then come the challenges and temptations, and my goodness, it’s mostly just temptations for a while. He’s kind of the threshold guardian, but he’s also a mentor/helper during the early moments of her journey into the unknown. The Cat, whose name is just The Cat, serves multiple functions in the story. This is the beginning of her transformation, and it’s also the story catalyst. The call to adventure comes from the little door she finds in the apartment. There’s nothing about her surroundings that interest her, and she quickly annoys her parents until the mom gives her a McGuffin-y task to keep her occupied. Some people might argue that she already starts in the unknown, but this isn’t true, and the proof is that Coraline is bored, painfully bored. This is the world of the known, the familiar. We start with Coraline, moving into the Pink Palace with her parents. Just for fun, let’s run through the ways in which Coraline fits into the Hero’s Journey story structure. Therefore, even if specific writers aren’t consciously aware of the Hero’s Journey, most narratives conform to this structure.Īnd if we sit down to do some Coraline plot analysis, we can see pretty quickly that the story fits the Hero’s Journey very well.
#In the book and film coraline movie#
There are certain stories that were written with the Hero’s Journey specifically in mind (the first Star Wars movie is the common example), but at this point, the Hero’s Journey structure is just part of our collective cultural consciousness. In the simplest possible form, the Hero’s Journey involves a hero being called to adventure, at which point they leave their comfort zone, overcome some challenges, often with the help of external characters and forces, and eventually overcome the biggest obstacle, then returning home, having changed. The specific term was coined and elaborated on by Joseph Campbell, especially in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The Hero’s Journey refers to a specific storytelling structure/arc that has been commonly used for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Yet Another Explanation of The Hero’s Journey The real mission here is to prove that even standard storytelling techniques, in the hands of talented artists, can still be used to create something unique and compelling. It’s not, it’s an extremely memorable movie with some fantastic visuals and scare-moments.
So the messaging is common, and the story structure, as we’re about to see, is standard fare.īut this article isn’t trying to convince anyone that Coraline is bad. If we try to summarize the messaging of Coraline, it basically comes down to: be careful what you wish for and be grateful for what you have. And it is genuinely weird, especially for a kids’ movie, but when we start looking at the structure underneath Coraline, we find a pretty standard story, one that communicates a simple lesson that is common in children’s entertainment. It’s remembered fondly for being so uniquely creepy and disturbing. Coraline has this weirdness halo in the minds of its biggest fans, and I’m one of them.
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