Coraline By Henry Selick

Henry Selick has used Symbolism to explore the key themes of “Coraline” by describing her loneliness, her identity and the way that she wants to be, and also by describing her relationship with her family. Coraline is a movie about a young girl who has just moved house and her parents are very busy, she finds a door that leads to a new better world. Or so it seems, after a series of events Coraline comes to the realisation that everything in the world is not as it seems, and ends up going on an adventure to save herself, her parents and three other children who were also trapped there.

One of the themes featured in the movie “Coraline” is loneliness. This has been shown when in the movie, after Coralline’s parents have been taken away from her, she crawls into her parents’ bed and uses the pillows and other things to make inanimate replicas of her mother and father so that she can sleep and feel safe and secure. This suggests that at this stage Coraline is feeling so alone in a new place that she doesn’t understand and all that she wants is to have something familiar and comforting nearby. Henry Selick may have chosen to use these as symbols because they show how desperate she is to have her family back and that she will go to the extent of making copies of them. The theme of loneliness is tied very closely with the Identity that is found in the film in
Identity has been represented in the film when Coraline tells her mum that she wants the unusual and brightly coloured clothes instead of the dull grey clothed that everyone else will be wearing. This suggests that Coraline wants to stand out from the crowd and show people who she really is with her fashion choices. Henry Selick has chosen to use the clothing as a symbol for identity because the audience can relate to the symbol of what we wear can greatly define who we are. Coraline’s identity has been greatly influenced by her relationship with her family in the