Coraline

About the story :

Coraline  is a dark fantasy children’s novella by British author Neil Gaiman, published in 2002 by Bloomsbury and Harper Collins. It was awarded the 2003 Hugo Award for Best Novella.

author : Neil Gaiman.

place : USA .

time: between 1900-1950

Story trailer :

Coraline Jones – The young explorer. She is curious, intelligent, resourceful, and courageous. Coraline is often irritated by rain, crazy grown-ups (as they all seem to be), and not being taken seriously because of her young age. She’s described as being “small for her age,” but Coraline is not afraid to face anyone; she is the most adventurous person in the book.

Mrs. Jones – Coraline’s mother. She is very busy most of the time, and sometimes a little inattentive, but she loves and cares about Coraline. She is nice, and helpful, though Coraline considers her to be rather boring. Coraline also gets annoyed with her real mother because she doesn’t seem to want to let Coraline “fit in”.

Mr. Jones – Coraline’s father. He works at his house on the computer. He cares about Coraline very much and is kind, brave, and helpful. He makes interesting food creations that Coraline strongly dislikes. He, too, is usually too busy to spend time with Coraline.

The Other Mother – The creature that created much of the Other World and the main villain of the novel. She looks similar to Coraline’s real mother but taller and thinner, with long black hair that seems to move by itself, black button eyes, paper-white skin, and extremely long, twitchy fingers with long dark red nails. During the course of the novel, she grows taller, thinner, and paler, looking less and less like Coraline’s mother. She cannot create, but only copy, twist and change things from the real world when constructing her version of it. She collects children, with whom she loves possessively to the point of eventual destruction, and imprisons them behind a magical mirror, slowly sucking the life from them. It’s implied that she killed her own mother because when Coraline asked her if she had a grave she replied “Oh yes, I put her there myself.” In the film her true form is a spidery, skeletal creature. She is referred to several times as “the beldam“, a Middle English word meaning “grandmother,” “ugly old woman,” or “hag”, and also used to refer to creatures of fairy.

The Other Father – A creation of the Other Mother, the Other Father is used to help trick Coraline into staying in the Other Mother’s world. Like her real father, he has a study and sits there during the day and will not talk to Coraline for long. He does not work, however; he merely occupies the study, as he is not permitted to talk to Coraline by himself. He is much more fun than Coraline’s real father and always tries to be cheerful and fun in front of Coraline. In reality, the Other Father is sad and nervous. The Other Mother ends up punishing him for revealing too much to Coraline—she transforms him into a grub-like creature, and orders the Other Father to trap Coraline so she cannot win her challenge, but Coraline escapes.

The Cat– A black cat from Coraline’s world. The cat acts as a mentor to Coraline and guides her through her journey. It claims to have no name, explaining that cats do not need names to tell each other apart. Unlike many of the characters in the novel, it does not have an “Other World” counterpart, saying that unlike other creatures in the world, cats can “keep themselves together”. It moves freely from one world to the other, although it seems to be only able to talk in the Other World. It is very sarcastic, though helpful to Coraline. It’s defiant of the Other Mother, but seems to tremble at the thought of being stuck in the Other Mother’s world. It befriends Coraline and helps her escape from the Other Mother, though Coraline also uses it as a weapon without its permission.

Summary :

Inside her own apartment, Coraline finds a locked door at the far corner of the drawing room. Her mother unlocks it and reveals that the door opens onto a brick wall—on the other side, she explains, is another empty apartment.

In the days that follow, Coraline becomes bored, left to her own devices in the apartment, waiting for school to start. When she complains to her parents, they brush her off, telling her to amuse herself so that they can concentrate on their work.

One day, when Coraline’s parents are out, Coraline takes the house keys and opens the locked door again. This time, she finds not a brick wall, but a dark hallway on the other side. She walks down the hallway and realizes she is in a flat that looks almost exactly like her own, except for small details such as the changed expression of a boy’s face in a painting on a wall. Coraline hears a voice that sounds like her mother’s call her name and follows the voice to a kitchen. She finds a woman who looks a bit like her mother, but with white skin, long, sharp fingernails, and black buttons for eyes. When Coraline asks the woman who she is, she says she is Coraline’s “other mother.” Coraline’s “other father,” who also has black button eyes, joins the two, and they have a delicious lunch. Coraline’s “other” parents tell her they have been waiting for her for a long time.

After lunch, Coraline goes to inspect her “other” bedroom, where she finds a number of unusual toys and fifty rats under her bed. The rats belong to the “other” strange man upstairs, who soon comes to collect them; he invites Coraline upstairs, but she feels uneasy and refuses.Instead, she wanders outside and finds that the house and garden look almost the same as they do outside her home, although Miss Spink and Miss Forcible’s apartment is surrounded by flashing lights. Next, Coraline sees a black cat just like the one outside her real home, although now the cat speaks to her in a human voice. The cat says he is not the “other” cat because unlike people, cats “keep ourselves together.”

After the cat disappears, Coraline wanders into Miss Spink and Miss Forcible’s flat, which has become a theater where the two women transform into young, glamorous versions of themselves and perform for an audience of terriers.

When Coraline returns to her “other” flat, her other parents tell her she can stay forever—if she agrees to wear button eyes. Coraline, horrified, runs back down the hallway to her own flat, and once she arrives, the brick wall reappears behind her.

However, that night, Coraline’s parents do not return home, and they do not come back the next day either. Finally, the black cat appears inside the flat and leads Coraline to a mirror at the end of the hallway. Coraline sees her parents reflected in the mirror, and her mother breathes on the glass and writes “HELP US” in the fog before their image fades away.Coraline calls the police, who do not take her seriously; then, sure that her other mother has her real parents, Coraline goes back through the locked door, down the dark hallway to the other flat.

Coraline’s other parents act overjoyed to have her back, but when Coraline…

Plot :

Coraline and her family have moved into an old house. Coraline gets bored pretty quickly, so she spends her time exploring the house, and finds a weird door with a brick wall behind it. We’ve got the following ingredients: a creepy house to explore, conveniently absent adults, and a cool kid with a lot of bravery and curiosity. Now that’s the recipe for a perfect adventure. Awesome.

One day, when Coraline’s parents are away, she opens up that weird door again, and finds a passageway to another world where she has “other” (read: totally scary) parents. She decides to come back home, but we know this other world is going to cause her some trouble.

Moral of the story:

Throughout every step of this crazy journey, Coraline felt scared and uncertain of herself. But, whenever she puts a goal in front of her eyes, she must achieve it no matter what. Being scared may prevent us from doing important things. But, this must not prevent us from doing what we believe is right. This is the message that Gaiman wanted to tell us and his daughters. “Being brave didn’t mean you weren’t scared. Being brave meant you were scared, really scared, badly scared, and you did the right thing anyway”.

Use full chunks :

knothole ثغرة

embarrassingly احراج كبير

reassured مطمئن

dislodge طرد

darkness ظلمة

spider husks شباك العنكبوت

waggled تطقطق طاولة باطراف اصابعها