Neil Gaiman Research Paper

Neil Gaiman
Coraline

Neil Gaiman
CORALINE

I started this for Holly I finsished it for Maddy Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. G. K. Chesterton

1

Coraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house.
It was a very old houseit had an attic under the roof and a cellar under the ground and an overgrown garden with huge old trees in it.
Coraline's family didn't own all of the houseit was too big for that. Instead they owned part of it.
There were other people who lived in the old house.
Miss Spink and Miss Forcible lived in the flat below Coraline's,
It was little more than a shadow, and it scuttled down the darkened hall fast, like a little patch of night.
She hoped it wasn't a spider. Spiders made Coraline intensely uncomfortable.
The black shape went into the drawing room and Coraline followed it in, a little nervously.
The room was dark. The only light came from the hall, and Coraline, who was standing in the doorway, cast a huge and distorted shadow on to the drawing room carpetshe looked like a thin giant woman.
Coraline was just wondering whether or not she ought to turn on the light when she saw the black shape edge slowly out from beneath the sofa. It paused, and then dashed silently across the carpet towards the farthest corner of the room.
There was no furniture in that corner of the room.
Coraline turned on the light.
There was nothing in the corner. Nothing but the old door that opened on to the brick
Just a crack. Coraline went over to it and looked in. There was nothing therejust a wall, built of red bricks.
Coraline closed the old wooden door, turned out the light, and went back to bed.
She dreamed of black shapes that slid from place to place, avoiding the light, until they were all gathered together under the moon. Little black shapes with little red eyes and sharp yellow teeth.
They started to sing:

We are small but we are many We are many, we are small We were here before you rose We will be here when you fall. Their voices were high and whispery and slightly whiny. They made Coraline feel uncomfortable.
Then Coraline dreamed a few commercials, and after that she dreamed of nothing at all.

2

The next day it had stopped raining, but a thick white fog had lowered over the house.
I'm going for a walk, said Coraline.
Don't go too far, said her mother. And dress up warmly.
Coraline put on her blue coat with a hood, her red scarf and her yellow Wellington boots.
She went out.
Miss Spink was walking her dogs. Hello, Caroline, said Miss Spink. Rotten weather.
Yes, said