"Coraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house."
(Neil Gaiman, p.1)
This is the first line of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, and personally, I love it. Third-person limited is by far one of my favorite perspectives to both read and write in, and the way that Gaiman interoperates this is captivating! Although Coraline is not the narrator for the story, the story told with a unique imaginative quality to it, describing things with a vivid wonderment that seems written specifically in the mindset of a young girl. The story of Coraline was published in 2002 as a dark fantasy children's novella. The book quickly gained popularity by not only children, but also teens and adults, for being a controversial, yet compelling read. Even today, there are still some parents that have become quite angry at this book for being labeled a children's novel, thinking it is too dark or scary to be intended for a young audience. I'm sure those same parents were quite angry when the book was adapted into a stop motion claymation feature, directed by Henry Selick, that was even darker and more disturbing than the original. And yet, still marketed to the same young audience as the book, despite being labeled as a horror film. However, our focus today will not be on the controversial nature of Caroline, as intriguing as it is, but rather on the comparison between novel and film, original and adaptation. We will dive into the intricate differences between the two, and study the unique interpretations of Gaiman and Selick as they tell this story.
Before I dive into this comparison however, I first wanted to take a moment to tell you about my personal relationship with Gaiman’s story, Coraline. I remember the first time I ever saw the book. I must've been 7 or 8 at the time, and I was in Hawaii visiting my father. At the time, he was dating a woman who had a large collection of books that sat in an old wooden bookcase in the dining room. Most were much too mature for me at the time and always failed to hold my attention whenever I cracked open the cover. But tucked between these was this short little novella with an impressively disturbing cover. I remember being somewhat taken aback, but immediately intrigued. For the next few nights, my sister and I lay cuddled in bed, pouring over the thrilling pages, desperate to see how the story ended. After finishing the book, I distinctly remember the chilling, yet oddly uplifting nature of it.
After I returned home from my visit, it seemed Caroline stayed behind in Hawaii, as I eventually forgot about the bizarre, little novella. However, when I was 11 a new stop-motion movie was released, and I was delighted to remember and relive Gaiman’s thrilling story in this haunting new film. At the time, I was the same age as the protagonist and felt this special bond between myself and her. However, by the time I finished the claymation production, I found myself absolutely terrified. It was not until many years later when I came back to it a little older, that I discovered my deep love for it. As an adult, I always seem to carry it around in my back pocket and watch it quite often. Recently, I have taken a liking to chasing away the long hours at work by listening to the audiobook. Gaiman himself performs it, and I must say, it is truly one of the most engaging and well-read audiobooks I have had the pleasure of listening to. I would highly recommend it for anyone wanting a short, but entertaining way to pass the time.
Despite being able to remember my first encounter with the book up, my memories from back then have become a little blurry. So until recently, when I picked it up again, most of my memories of Caroline came from the claymation masterpiece. When I finally did read it again, I found myself surprised that I had not noticed all the unique aspects in both the novel and the movie. For so long, I had not remembered anything was different between the two. To me, Coraline's story hadn't changed at all in the transition from page to screen. As an adult however, that transition is a bit clearer now. I have a better understanding of certain concepts and tropes, and I now see how brilliantly the retelling was done. And while there are stark differences, Selick retold Gaiman’s story in a way that still preserved and promoted the overall purpose of Caroline.
To demonstrate this, Coraline is an 11-year-old girl who recently moved to a new flat with her parents. In the movie, they are an American family that moved from Michigan to Oregon. In the book however, the family is originally British and it is not specified where they moved to, just that it is about an hour away from London. As such, the differences in her actual character is mostly just the mannerisms in which she speaks. Gaiman’s Coraline comes off far more polite than her on-screen counterpart. However, many have sighted that the movie adaptation is very true to the general attitude of young girls from Michigan. As the first line of the story will tell you, the book takes no time to get the plot going. Coraline finds the Other Mother’s door quite quickly, and from there the plot progresses at a recognizably fast pace. In both the book and movie, Coraline's first encounter with the Other Mother is triggered by a mouse waking her late at night. She eventually follows it through the door and takes her first steps into the Other Mother's world.
Here she encounters the corridor for the first time. It is the passageway one must travel to get to the Other Mother's world; long, murky, and mysterious. In Selick’s story, the corridor is small and dark, only being able to fit a small child who must crawl on their knees to go through. At first, it sparkles with brilliant colors, inviting Coraline in with wonderment. But as the Other Mother’s world unwinds, so does the path between her world and Coraline’s. As enchanting as the passageway is in the film, I find myself drawn to the mystery of the corridor in Gaiman’s book. At first, it is simply a dark corridor like any you’d find in your own home. But as the book goes on, Coraline discovers that the corridor has a layer of downy fur, and as she runs through it, she finds it breathing.
“Whatever that corridor was was older by far than the Other Mother. It was deep, and slow, and it knew that she was there…”
(Neil Gaiman, p.123)
The hallway between their worlds is just one more example of how the Other Mother’s world is represented differently between Gaiman and Selick. From the very start of the book, the corridor is not inviting to Coraline, it is simply a hallway behind a tall brown door. And yet somehow alive, conscious, aware. As for The Other Mother, or the Beldam, she is nearly the same across both platforms. She is described as the same cold-hearted, two-faced, harsh woman that we see in the film, though her appearance is somewhat different. Where in the movie the Other Mother is shown as being an exact copy of Coraline's real mother, with exception of her new button eyes, the Other Mother of the book is described as simply resembling her mother, with vague similarities in appearance and mannerism. Her many creations, from the glamorous “people” to the breathtaking wonders, are all fairly similar, though the book does hint much more heavily that the residents of her world are not what they appear, and perhaps villainous in nature. A great example of how the book does this is during her first visit when she meets the Other Mr. Bobo (or Mr. Bobinsky). After watching his mice perform their song, Coraline is invited up to the attic to watch the mice feed. Coraline refuses the offer, as she finds Mr. Bobo makes her feel uneasy.
“There was something hungry in the old man’s button eyes that made Coraline feel uncomfortable.”
(Neil Gaiman, p.38)
Miss Spink and Miss Forcible are also depicted very similarly, with one exception. In the book, the performance that they put on for Coraline is never-ending. In the Other Mother's world, they simply perform for their theater of dogs forever and ever. With the differences in each character being so subtle, Selick really did an amazing job transcribing the characters from the book into his film. Gaiman even said at one point;
"...I had one huge note on the first draft script which was that I thought it was too faithful...Henry's first draft script didn't feel like a movie, it felt like the book transposed."
When Selick sent him the second draft a year later, Gaiman remarked that it read more like a movie and that the changes were welcome. The two biggest deviations that anyone who has enjoyed both book and movie would immediately recognize are the additions of Wybie and the doll in the movie. Wybie is portrayed as Coraline’s companion and is one of the only other characters to move between scenes with her. Because so much of the book takes place in Coraline’s mind, it may have been necessary to add in another character for her to talk to. Although he isn’t in the book at all, Wybie makes a prominent place for himself in Selick’s retelling. He becomes an instrumental character, who saves Coraline both in and out of the Other Mother’s world. He also brings a unique perspective into the deeper mystery of the Other Mother, as his grandaunt was supposedly taken by the Other Mother back when his grandmother lived in the house that Coraline’s family moved into. Throughout the film, he’s shown to be a skeptical character who comes off somewhat lonely. As the story progresses and the climax begins to unfold, Wybie steps up to help Coraline defeat the Other Mother and get rid of the key to her world. His character, although not in the book, is flawlessly incorporated into the story, without disrupting any critical aspects of the plot that readers have treasured.
The doll itself is somewhat of a small sub-plot in the adaptation. Where the rats are the Other Mother’s spies to the book, the doll serves that role in the film. By far my favorite scene of the movie is the vividly brilliant opening sequence, where we watch as the metal fingers of the Other Mother labor over the doll, completely transforming it into a spitting image of Coraline. Later on in the film, we see that the doll has been transformed again, this time to look like her real parents. This definitely proves to Coraline that her parents are not missing, but have been stolen by the Other Mother, and it acts as the final catalyst for her to venture back into the other world to try and save them. While the doll also wasn't originally in the book, it too seemed to flow quite harmlessly into the adaptation without much notice to the grander plot.
Another prominent character to look at is The Cat. As one of the most arguably helpful characters in Coraline’s search to find her real parents, he is shown as the same haughty black feline in both tellings of the story. Wybie is shown to be somewhat of a caretaker for The Cat, saying that The Cat is not his, but that he leaves him food every night. The two are seen together multiple times throughout the story, and we can only assume that the two have been a pair for quite some time, long before Coraline moved into the flat. The Cat is shown to be the same helpful, somewhat arrogant, friend in the movie that he is in the book. While the two meet in different circumstances in both stories, they immediately get off to a somewhat rocky start and slowly build up a strong relationship. The Cat quickly proves to be a helpful and enduring friend, guiding Coraline with his obscure knowledge about the Other Mother and her dangerous world. He even helps her by retrieving the last of the ghost souls (or eyes) when she loses it to the rat in the final stage of her game against The Beldam. Although the Cat always seems to show himself as a sly, powerful creature, without any need for help, this is not always the case in the novel. During a quite powerful scene in the book, that was unfortunately omitted from the film, the cat realizes that his "ways in and out" of the Other Mother's world are gone, and he is shown trembling and terrified. At this moment, Coraline picks him up, comforting him by holding him close, and promises that she'll get them both home. Considering that at the time Coraline herself is very frightened of having to go back in and face the Other Mother, the brief moment in which she extends her compassion towards the scared cat really made me feel connected to her as a character. It shows she gathers her strength and resolve when others need her, even as she faces an overwhelming enemy.
That bravery is shown so often in other places throughout the book; when she must go back into the other world to find her parents, finding the souls of the lost children, and finally facing the Other Mother once and for all. While the movie also portrays her bravery, at times I felt it was not done justice. A great example of one of those differences is the final fight between Coraline and The Beldam's hand for the key.
In the book, the Other Mother swears by her good right hand that she will keep her word and let Coraline go if she wins their game. However, the Other Mother lies and refuses to let Coraline leave in the end. It only alludes to the Other Mother's hand being served when Coraline closes the door to the corridor in the book, while in the movie you get to see it happen. Once the hand does cross over into the real world its actions become very different. In the book, several days pass while the hand is in Coraline's world, and while there it tries to break through Coraline's window several times, frightening the jumping mice from upstairs and injuring one of the Scottish terriers that belong to Miss Spink and Miss Forcible. When Coraline realizes that it's up to her to get rid of the threat, she devises a plan. Not far from the house, there is a deep well that Coraline is warned to stay away from many times. During her final fight with the Other Mother's severed right hand, she positions a sheet over this well with the key in the middle and pretends to have a picnic with her dolls. No fuss. No fight. The hand simply jumps in the middle to try and retrieve the key, only to plunge down into the well with it.
While this is displayed as an intense fight scene in the movie, I thought that Coraline's simple trick was a much better way to end things between her and the Other Mother. She did not use brute force to beat her, but intelligence, which showed how much she grew even in the course of the short novella. By the end of the book, Coraline remarks on how she would usually be anxious about her first day of school, but that there isn't anything about school that could scare her anymore. This overarching story of character growth does not seem as powerful in the movie, as Selick portrays Coraline to be homesick and frustrated by the lack of attention from her parents. By the end of the movie, she has built stronger relationships with the people around her, especially her parents, but a large part of that does seem to be a change in her parents attitude as well. In the book, those elements are also there, but her noticeable shift in self-confidence and overall appreciation are much more prominent. She is a stronger, braver individual. I feel that despite the bad reputation this book sometimes gets for being "too scary" it is somewhat of a perfect children's book. Its purpose is not to be frightening, or controversial. It is simply the story of a young girl learning how to face her own demons. It is a relatable struggle that many of us, young and old, have to face. Our hardships may not manifest in the same way Coraline’s does, as a bizarre and twisted other world, but we can relate to her struggle and take lesson in her victory.
“Because,' she said, 'when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave.”
(Neil Gaiman, p.60)
In the end, these two versions of Coraline become something very interesting when compared. While both author and director utilize their unique and personal perspectives, their interpretations of certain details do not prevent the creation of one coherent, fascinating story. Where Gaiman’s book wastes no time plunging Coraline into the dangers of the Other Mother’s world, Selick’s film takes its time to give us new characters and insights into Coraline’s life outside the other world. At times it appears that both productions are like two halves of a complete whole and by exploring each one, we get a fuller picture of Coraline’s journey. With new details to the mystery on every page and scene, you can't complete the picture without both versions. I truly love Gaiman’s novella, it has brought me joy every time I have picked up the book or plugged into the audio version. And at the same time, I have watched the beautiful claymation film so many times I am sure I could recite the script if I tried. I will continue to enjoy both versions of the story, and appreciate each subtle difference between them.
Works Cited:
Minnick, Remy. “Neil Gaiman Talks ‘Coraline.’” CBR, CBR, 3 Feb. 2009, www.cbr.com/neil-gaiman-talks-coraline/.
Gaiman, Neil, and Chris Riddell. Coraline. Harper, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2015.
Coraline. Directed by Henry Selick, performances by Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, and Robert Bailey Jr., Laikia, Pandemonium Films, 2009
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