Transcript Coraline (2002)

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Quiz Four
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You will have 20 minutes to write a short essay response to
this prompt. You may use your copy of Coraline and any notes
that you took during the movie. I would suggest that you draw
up a quick outline first and then write your response.
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Discuss the primary differences between Neil Gaiman’s
novel Coraline and Henry Selick’s film version in terms
of characters and plot.
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How comfortable would you be
sharing Coraline with young
readers?
What could go wrong?
What would be fun about it?
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What was Neil Gaiman thinking?
What was his impetus for writing a
book like Coraline?
“More then ten years ago I started to write a children’s book. It was for my
daughter, Holly, who was five years old. I wanted it to have a girl as a heroine,
and I wanted it to be refreshingly creepy…. It was a story, I learned when people
began to read it, that children experienced as an adventure, but which gave adults
nightmares. It's the strangest book I've written, it took the longest time to write,
and it's the book I'm proudest of.”
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Makin' up a song about
Coraline
She's a peach, she's a doll, she's
a pal of mine
She's as cute as a button
In the eyes of everyone who
ever laid their eyes on Coraline
When she comes around
exploring
Mom and I will never, ever
make it boring
Our eyes will be on Coraline
The Gothic and Coraline
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Definition of The Gothic
The Gothic novel’s ” principal aim was to evoke chilling terror by
exploiting mystery, cruelty, and a variety of horrors. The term ‘gothic’ has
also been extended to denote a type of fiction which lacks the medieval
setting but develops a brooding atmosphere of gloom or terror,
represents events which are uncanny, or macabre, or melodramatically
violent, and often deals with aberrant psychological states” (Abrams, A
Glossary of Literary Terms 117-118).
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Gothic Elements: Setting
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Old houses with trap doors,
secret passage ways, strange
sounds, mysterious doors.
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The macabre setting is meant
to produce feelings of
psychological dread.
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Gothic Elements: Atmosphere
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Everything in a gothic text is
shrouded in mystery.
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Authors create a sense of the
uncanny (things being off a
little; a bit askew), of suspense,
of intrigue, of creepiness.
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Gothic Elements: Female
Characters in Distress
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The tradition of “the damsel in
distress” permeates Gothic
fiction; yet, Gaiman plays with
this idea: his heroine is in
distress, but she rescues
herself.
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Gothic Elements: The
Doppelgänger
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German word meaning
“double goer,” referring to the
supernatural presence of
oneself. Often, the
Doppelgänger brings with it
associations of evil.
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Gothic literature will often
dwell upon “a hidden or
double reality beneath the
surface of what at first appears
to be a single narrative”
(Sedgwick 12).
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Gothic Elements: The Supernatural
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Gothic literature focuses on
the fact that as much as we
may try to suppress the
uncanny, the grotesque, or the
strange, these things are truly
a part of human existence, and
we need to acknowledge this
fact.
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Famous Precursors
Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto: A
Gothick Story (1764)
Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho
(1794)
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern
Prometheus (1818)
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Gothic Children’s Literature
Scary, creepy, and ubiquitious
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Gothic Elements
Not really the exception…more like
the rule.
Looking for Clues in the Models of Childhood
Model
Summary
The Romantic Child
The child “as superior to adults in some ways
and as aligned with nature, beauty or
spirituality.”
The Sinful Child
The child as inherently evil and in need of
control and/or correction.
The Working Child
The child as competent and resilient.
The Sacred Child
The child as “precious and fragile” and in
need of protection
The Child as Radically Other
The idea that childhood is a distinctive and
separate time from childhood.
The Developing Child
The idea that childhood is on a continuum with
adulthood.
The Child as Miniature Adult
The child is just an adult in miniature, capable
of possessing an adult view of the world.
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The Different Ending
Wybie Lovat
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Homework #1 Due on Wednesday!