Comparing Coraline And Peter Pan

Kayle Muller
ENG 482
Sommers
10/8/13

Coraline and Peter Pan What is the role of a child and their innocence? This is a topic that can be discussed thoroughly and quite in depth with many people. The element of a child’s innocence plays an extremely important role in their life for not only the reason of staying a “child” but also refraining them from growing up too fast when it is not necessary. The innocence of a child is precious, malleable, and cannot always be retrieved once it is lost. Sometimes a child is forced to become an adult, from various external influences through experiences in their life, which can quickly result in the child losing their innocence. As we see in Coraline, a young girl is forced to temporarily lose her
An example of someone holding on to his or her childhood innocence would be the character, Peter Pan. In the story, Peter and Wendy or Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, Peter is desperately trying to hold onto his childhood innocence because he does not want to grow up and face the struggles and responsibilities of growing up into an adult. While Peter is trying to remain a child in all aspects of his life, Coraline is facing struggles that are completely opposite. As we see in Coraline, from very early in the book she was forced to somewhat entertain herself while her parents used their time to work and do things that they did not want Coraline to bother them with. With having to entertain herself all of the time she began to explore and ended up finding a new “world” that will turn out to be extremely bad for Coraline as time goes on. The moment when her parents completely disappear into the “other” world Coraline is faced with the reality of taking care of herself. Once she reaches this point, she has temporarily lost her childhood
While both characters innocence is either temporarily taken away or desperately being held on to, they both have a different world that they have “escaped” to. Peter Pan has a world that promotes his childhood innocence and keeps whomever lives there the age in which they enter it. This type of world is exactly the correct recipe for remaining a child in all aspects of ones life. “There was no brick wall on the other side of the door: only darkness” (Gaiman 58). While Peter Pan had a world that kept him in his childhood state and was welcoming, Coraline had to go into a world that forced her to lose her childhood innocence and had a creepy vibe. The fact that she had to take care of herself before and after she had entered back into the other world showed how quickly her child innocence could be taken away. She may have thought that this new world was going to be a place where she could come and not have any worries which ended up being the complete