Coroline Essay & Reflection

Class Prompts:

7. Corlaline explains to her other mother that she does not what everything. She does not want the other mother to give her whatever she wants because it takes away the fun in life. If you can get whatever you want, whenever you want, what’s the point of working for it? There’s no reward for getting what you want when you want it. As a reader, we can see the maturity that Coraline possess for a young girl. She understands that her parents are raising her to work towards her goals and if she were to stay with her other mother, she would simply never develop herself. I can personally relate to Coraline’s maturity as a college student. I desire the degree I am working for, so I make sure I work for my reward. If I were to just receive everything I wanted without working for it, the outcome would not be as rewarding. My life would not have purpose and I would not want to further pursuit goals of mine. My working for what we want in life, we can accomplish our goals and feel rewarded for out hard work and perseverance.

6. At first Coraline’s other mother resembles Coraline’s real mother because it allows Coraline to feel comfortable with the situation. Maybe Coraline believed this was her real mother in a different world so she felt like she could stay where she was. With the gradual changes, Coraline’s other mother slowly progresses to someone who does not look like Coraline’s other mother. This allows Coraline to distinguish between the two mothers. This changes give the other mother her own characteristics, but with the same better qualities when compared to her real mother. In the new house, Coraline experiences better meals than the ones she gets at home. With better living conditions, Coraline is able to enjoy her stay in this new world better than the other world. By improving the quality of the new world, Coraline’s other mother improves her chances of keeping Corlaline with her forever.

Coraline Review:

1.)I believe that this story really is for children. It gives the point of view from a small girl’s perspective and allows readers of a younger age to relate to Coraline's activities. When Coraline expresses her resilience to fight back against her other mother, it shows younger children that they can be brave too. This fictional story is not believable to anyone other than a smaller child, and like smaller children, the supernatural can be a bit of a scary thought. When the author created Coraline, the main goal was to show kids that they can beat the villains in their nightmares by expressing who they are as kids. Coraline was able to do this with her adventure techniques that she was so good at. With a very simple use of diction throughout the book, we can see that the story was intended to be read by children of a younger age. Maybe they could relate to Coraline and beat their own villains.

2.) I believe that Gaiman leaves out a lot of the detail so that the reader can picture what is going on in their mind. It leaves the reader with a lot of imaginative thoughts and can allow the reader to make up their own situation within the book. Maybe the reader can relate to the sparing details and come up with an image of their own. If too much detail is used, the amount of imagination utilized by the reader is limited. When details are sparing, the reader can make up their own features to the story. As stated in the previous question, a majority of the audience reading this book are probably younger kids who are full of imaginative thoughts. The small amount of detail allows those kids to open up their mind and make the book their own. They act as a co-author who can write parts of the book in their mind. Maybe the kids don't want to see the other mother as scary as an older reader, so they would picture her less terrifying.

3.) Believing this story was written for a younger audience, I believe the moral of this story is that you can beat anything as long as you put your mind to it. Coraline is faced with her other mother who is more powerful than Coraline in a world the other mother built herself. Coraline is playing by her other mother's rules when facing the challenge of getting her real parents back. She is also faced with a figure much scarier than anything she's ever seen before. As a kid, we become vulnerable when we think of terrifying ghosts, so when Coraline is able to beat the odds, it shows younger reader that they can conquer their fears.

4.) After reading the novel, I found it to be lacking details that I usually enjoy. I enjoy reading and imagining what the author had in mind so when I was spared the details, I was sort of disappointed. I did, however, enjoy the story being the book. It possessed a good ghost tale which I enjoyed. I'm a fan of the scary scenarios placed on characters mostly because it keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout the book. You never really know what’s going to happen in a fictional, terrifying book so I enjoyed that throughout the novel. The story behind Coraline and her life obviously didn't relate to me. When I cannot relate to characters, I usually can't say I enjoyed reading the book. I enjoy picking out things that relate to me because I can say, "Oh yeah I've done that before," but with this book, that was a rare occurrence. Overall, the book was an adequate read. At times I was intrigued and at others, bored to tears. Would I read it again? Probably not, but do I regret reading it? No.

5.) I believe it was helpful to keep the reading blogs because it allowed me to recap all the sections I had read. I could recap all the reading prior to the one I was currently on to organize my thoughts and understand what was happening in the story. When I was lost, I would go back to my blog entries to recap my thoughts and the reading from each chapter. Without the blog entries, I would have to remember my thoughts which could certainly have posed a problem. The other mother activity did not really help me that much in terms of understanding the book. I enjoyed the activity because I could picture my own mother as a monster, but it did not help me in the overall scheme of things.