Coraline 9 -

Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (2002) occupies a unique and unsettling space in children’s literature. On its surface, it adheres to the classic structure of the portal fantasy, echoing works from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe . A young, disaffected protagonist discovers a hidden door, crosses a threshold into a parallel world, encounters doppelgängers of her real-life acquaintances, and must overcome a powerful antagonist to return home. However, Gaiman systematically subverts this tradition. The Other World is not a land of whimsical adventure but a meticulously crafted trap; the villain is not a distant tyrant but a predatory perversion of motherhood; and the central conflict is not a battle of magic, but a psychological war for the integrity of the self. This paper argues that Coraline functions as a sophisticated gothic narrative of domestic horror, using the button-eyed Other Mother to explore anxieties surrounding control, identity, and the often-blurred line between adult neglect and childhood independence.

Gaiman cleverly uses the button eyes as the central horror iconography. To have one’s eyes sewn with buttons is to be rendered sightless in the most literal sense, but more profoundly, it is to have one’s unique, individual gaze replaced by a uniform, manufactured, and non-human standard. Buttons are functional, interchangeable, and soulless. They signify the replacement of organic, messy identity with a clean, controllable artifice. The Other Mother does not want Coraline’s love; she wants Coraline’s self . The game of “finding the hidden objects” that the Other Mother forces the lost children to play is a grotesque parody of childhood entertainment—it is a relentless, soulless labor that has erased their names, their memories, and their will. They have become, like the world itself, props in the Other Mother’s diorama. coraline 9

Coraline’s victory does not come through force or magical prowess. She possesses no wand, no prophecy, no hidden lineage of power. What she possesses is a pragmatic, stubborn courage and a clear-eyed understanding of the rules. The Other Mother presents her challenge as a “game”—find the lost souls of the ghost children, locate the marble containing their hearts, and navigate the dark corridors of the Other World. By accepting the game, Coraline reframes the conflict. She refuses to be a victim or a daughter; she becomes a player and an agent. Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (2002) occupies a unique and