87 pages • 2 hours read
Neil GaimanCoraline
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaChapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Coraline is a perceptive young girl. She and her family have just moved into a large house. The house has been divided into several flats. Below Coraline’s flat, two older women, former actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, share a flat with their aging terrier dogs. Above Coraline’s flat lives an old mustached man. He claims to be training a mouse circus and complains that the mice won’t play the songs he’s written. All three of Coraline’s neighbors call her Caroline.
It’s summer, so Coraline spends her time exploring the area around the house. There is a large, neglected garden, an abandoned tennis court, and an old well the ladies downstairs have warned Coraline not to go near. The low bricks surrounding the well are covered by overgrown grass, and the well is boarded up so no one can fall in. Coraline spends one afternoon dropping pebbles through the knothole in one of the planks and listening for the splash far below. A black cat lives around the house as well, but it runs when Coraline tries to approach it.
Coraline’s parents work from home, and they each have their own office. One day, it rains and Coraline must stay inside. Her mother suggests she watch videos, read, or play with her toys, but Coraline just wants to explore. She watches TV, finding a nature show about how animals disguise themselves to avoid predators, but it ends, and her boredom returns. Coraline goes to her father’s office, asking if she can go outside and explore. He suggests she explore the house, counting the doors and windows or listing things that are blue. Coraline asks if she can go into the drawing room, where they keep their antique furniture. She usually isn’t allowed in there, but her father agrees as long as she keeps things neat.
Coraline counts doors, windows, and blue things for a while. In the drawing room, she discovers a large wooden door that won’t open. Coraline’s mother unlocks the door with a large, old key to show her the brick wall behind it, explaining that it was walled off when the house was divided into flats. As her mother leaves, Coraline notes that she didn’t lock the door. Her mother responds that there’s no need since it goes nowhere.
At dinner, Coraline complains about her dad’s cooking and makes herself a microwave pizza instead. That night in bed, Coraline hears a creaking sound and goes to investigate. She catches sight of a small shadow moving in the darkness. She hopes it isn’t a spider. She follows the shadow into the drawing room. She sees it settle into the corner of the room, but when she turns on the lights, it’s gone. The large wooden door is slightly ajar. Coraline peeks in at the brick wall, then pushes it closed again.
Once she is back in bed, Coraline dreams of small black shapes singing. Their song explains they are small but many.
Chapter 2 Summary
The next day, the rain has stopped, but it’s very foggy. Coraline goes out to explore again, promising not to go too far. She runs into Miss Spink walking her dogs. Miss Spink greets Coraline, then goes on to compare her portrayal of Portia with Miss Forcible’s portrayal of Ophelia, two characters from Shakespearean plays. She adds that men used to send flowers to her dressing room then continues her walk.
Shortly after, Coraline encounters Miss Forcible at her doorstep. Miss Forcible asks if Coraline has seen Miss Spink. Coraline replies that she saw her walking the dogs. Miss Forcible worries Miss Spink will get lost in the fog and warns Coraline not to get lost as well.
Coraline keeps in sight of the house as she walks and ends up back where she started. The old man upstairs greets her. He tells her that the mice don’t like the mist. Then, he leans in close to Coraline and whispers that the mice have a message for her. The mice want to warn Coraline not to go through the door. The old man asks Coraline if that means anything to her, but she says no. The old man says the mice get things wrong sometimes and adds that they called Coraline “Coraline” instead of Caroline, which he believes her name to be.
Coraline goes inside and wonders what she should do in her boredom. She and her mother talk about how school starts next week, with her mother adding that she’ll need to be reminded to take Coraline clothes shopping. Bored, Coraline goes to the drawing room and tests the door but finds it’s locked. She then goes to her father’s office, but he is quick to try to get her to leave him alone and doesn't even look up from his computer. He suggests Coraline go bother Miss Spink and Miss Forcible.
Coraline goes to the ladies’ flat. They invite her in for tea. While she sits with them, the women continue to banter back and forth about things Coraline has no context for. Miss Spink offers to read the tea leaves in Coraline’s cup, and Coraline accepts. After examining the cup, Miss Spink declares that Coraline is in terrible danger. Miss Forcible wants to offer a second opinion, so she looks at the leaves as well. She concludes that Coraline is indeed in terrible danger. Coraline asks what the danger is, but the ladies cannot say since the tea leaves are vague. Alarmed, Coraline asks what to do. They give her some vague theater-related advice and tell her to be careful.
Miss Spink digs through a jar of trinkets and pulls out a stone with a hole through the middle. She presents it to Coraline and says it’s “good for bad things, sometimes” (19). Coraline leaves with the stone, thinking that danger sounds exciting, and returns home.
Chapter 3 Summary
The next day, Coraline and her mother go clothes shopping while her father visits another town on business. Coraline finds some bright green gloves and asks her mother if she can get them so she can stand out at school. Her mother says no and buys Coraline gray and navy uniform clothing.
On the way home, Coraline asks her mother if there is any way to get into the empty flat on the other side of the door from their flat. Her mother replies that she’d have to be able to walk through bricks. When they get home, Coraline’s mother goes back out to get supper, leaving Coraline home alone.
Bored, Coraline retrieves the key from on top of the kitchen door frame. She goes to the drawing room and unlocks the door. She listens for the sounds of her parents coming home, knowing she isn’t supposed to be there.
When she opens the door, the bricks are gone, and there is a dark hallway instead. Coraline initially believes she’s entered the empty flat on the other side of the door but soon notices how familiar it is. The carpet is the same as her home. The painting on the wall is almost identical, but something about the eyes of the little boy in the painting throws Coraline off. A voice that sounds like her mother’s calls her name. Coraline follows the voice to the kitchen where she finds a woman who resembles her mother, except this woman is taller and thinner, with pale skin and long, curved fingernails. When the woman turns around, Coraline notices she has buttons for eyes.
The woman announces that it’s lunchtime. Coraline asks who she is. She introduces herself as Coraline’s other mother and asks Coraline to fetch her other father for lunch. Coraline smells the delicious food and realizes how hungry she is. She goes to her other father’s office. He also has button eyes. Lunch is an assortment of delicious foods, which Coraline eats happily.
Coraline’s other parents express that they’ve waited for her to complete their family. The other mother explains that everyone has an other mother. She suggests Coraline play in her room with the rats. Coraline is excited because she’s never seen a rat. She goes to her room to discover it’s much more whimsical with much better toys than her own. The rats come out from under her bed and sing to her a very similar song to the one she dreamt the dark shapes were singing. The old man upstairs appears. His eyes are also buttons. He greets Coraline, getting her name right. He collects the rats and invites Coraline to watch them feed upstairs, but she declines. The rats, now inhabiting the man’s suit, whisper among themselves.
Coraline returns to her other parents and tells them she’s going outside to explore. They smile and wish her a nice time, watching as she sets off outside the house.
Chapter 4 Summary
Outside, the other house looks nearly identical to Coraline’s house. In front of Miss Spink and Miss Forcible’s door, theatrical lights advertise a show. Coraline sees the black cat from home. The cat greets Coraline. Coraline greets it in return and speculates that it’s the other cat. It tells her that there’s only one of it—that it’s the same cat she knows from home. Coraline says cats can’t talk at home. The cat smugly dismisses her observation. Coraline wants to befriend the cat, but it continues to act aloof. She asks what this place is and how the cat got there, but it gives her dismissive answers. Finally, it adds that Coraline was smart to bring protection to this place. Coraline asks about the comment, but the cat gets distracted and runs into the woods. Coraline wonders whether all cats can talk but choose not to in the regular world.
Coraline goes to Miss Spink and Miss Forcible’s flat. The interior is a theater with velvet curtains and dim lighting. One of the terriers greets her, asking if she has a ticket. She says she doesn’t. Annoyed, he leads her to a seat up front. The seats in the theater are filled with other terriers. Music starts to play, and Misses Spink and Forcible take the stage. Miss Spink rides a unicycle while Miss Forcible scatters flower petals. They take a bow, and the dogs thump their tails and bark cheers. Then, the two women unbutton their clothes and slide out of their plump older selves, revealing their younger, more beautiful selves with black button eyes.
Miss Forcible pulls out a dagger and Miss Spink invites Coraline to the stage as a volunteer. Miss Spink puts a balloon on Coraline’s head and blindfolds Miss Forcible. Miss Forcible spins in a circle several times, then aims the knife at Coraline. She throws the knife, hitting the balloon and popping it. The dogs cheer again. When Coraline returns to her seat, she is given chocolates for participating. She shares the chocolates with the dog next to her, who has assured her that he can eat chocolates in this world. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible continue the show. One of the dogs informs Coraline that the show goes on “For ever and always” (42). Coraline leaves.
Coraline’s other parents wait for her outside. They ask if she’s had a nice time and lead her back into their flat. Other mother strokes Coraline’s hair, but Coraline asks her to stop. Other father asks if she likes it here. Coraline says it’s more interesting than home. Other mother suggests this place could be Coraline’s home and invites Coraline to stay with them forever. Coraline touches the stone she got from the original Misses Spink and Forcible that she’s had in her pocket. The other parents lead Coraline to the kitchen where they have a large needle, a spool of thread, and two large black buttons waiting on the table. They tell her that they’ll need to do this so Coraline can stay with them forever.
Coraline feels uneasy and rejects their offer despite the other father assuring her it won’t hurt. Other mother places her hand on Coraline’s shoulder, but when Coraline touches the stone in her pocket, the other mother recoils as though she’s been hurt. Coraline says she’s going back now. The other parents say they’ll see her soon, when she comes back, saying again that they’ll be a happy family forever and ever. Coraline returns through the dark hallway she entered through and finds herself back in the drawing room of her normal house. When she looks back, the doorway is bricked up again.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
Chapters 1 through 4 set up the dual settings of Coraline’s new house and the other house inhabited by the other mother, the other father, and the other neighbors. The duality created by this parallel world becomes a driving force of Coraline’s inner conflict.
Coraline’s regular world is a lonely one. She is an only child in a house with no fellow children for neighbors. She tries to befriend the cat that hangs around, but it “would slip away if ever she went over to try to play with it” (3). The neighbors above and below her family’s flat are older and eccentric. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, as aging actresses, have little to offer young Coraline. The same is said for the old man upstairs, who is working to train his mouse circus, but “the mice are not yet ready and rehearsed” (2).
Even Coraline’s own parents seem unwilling to entertain her and are quick to get rid of her. When she asks her mother what she should do in her boredom, her mother replies to “Go pester Miss Spink or Miss Forcible, or the crazy old man upstairs” (4). When Coraline seeks attention from her father, his response is “‘Go away,’ he said cheerfully as she walked in” (16). Even when spending time together, Coraline’s mother ignores her wishes. In Chapter 3, when they are shopping for Coraline’s school clothing, Coraline finds some gloves she wants. Coraline’s mother “refused to get them for her, preferring instead to buy white socks, navy-blue school underpants, four gray blouses, and a dark gray skirt” (21). Even when Coraline pleads her case, “Her mother ignored her” (21). This interaction reveals the neglect that Coraline receives from her parents, who cannot even be bothered to buy her something special when they already struggle to give their time to her.
In addition to Coraline’s social neglect, Coraline also despises the food her parents cook. When her dad makes potato and leek stew, Coraline expresses “You know I don’t like recipes” (8) and goes on to microwave herself a pizza.
So, when Coraline enters a world of attentive parents, interesting neighbors, and delicious food, it’s easy to see how enticing the world would be to Coraline. In this new world, Coraline meets her other mother, other father, and parallel versions of her neighbors. Coraline’s first interaction with her other mother revolves around food. The other mother has been in the kitchen creating a delicious meal for the family. Coraline is sent to get her other father, who is happy to see her and gladly joins the family for lunch. Compared to the scattered nature of Coraline’s real family, this family is much more united and happier to be around each other. The chicken that the other mother has cooked is “the best chicken that Coraline had ever eaten” (27) and Coraline “shoveled the food into her mouth” (26). She compares it to the chicken her real parents make, “always out of packets, or frozen, and was very dry, and [the chicken] never tasted of anything” (27). The other parents dote on Coraline in ways that her real parents do not, with them talking about being “together as one big happy family” (44) and inviting Coraline to stay with them.
The neighbors also seem to be better versions of their real-world counterparts. The real Miss Spink and Miss Forcible are described as “old and round” (1). They live a life of reminiscing about their youthful days in the theater. However, in the other world, other Miss Spink and other Miss Forcible can emerge “out of the old empty fluffy round bodies” (38-39) and become their younger selves. They perform daring and impressive feats, living their lives on the stage in a show that goes on “For ever and always” (42). The old man upstairs also has an improved other version of himself. In Chapter 3, the other old man and his rats entertain Coraline with dancing and singing, forming “a pyramid with the largest rat at the top” (29). The other old man even gets Coraline’s name correct. Compared to the old man in the real world, whose “mice are not yet ready” (2) to perform, the other old man has an impressive circus of rats.
Though this new world seems like a dream come true for Coraline, there is a lot of foreshadowing and menace building in these chapters. The song the rats sing to Coraline parallels the one sung in her dreams by the shadows that led her to the door that first night after discovering it. Coraline dreams these weird shapes sing a song that goes “We were here before you rose / We will be here when you fall” (10). These voices “made Coraline feel uncomfortable” (10). When the rats perform their song, they sing “We were here before you fell / You will be here when we rise” (29), which is described as not “a pretty song” (29). The parallels of these songs and the way they make Coraline feel help to build a sense of menace in the novel surrounding the other world. The menace is also built through foreshadowing throughout the first few chapters. In Chapter 1, when Coraline follows the mysterious shapes to the drawing room and opens the door, her shadow is described as looking “like a thin giant woman” (9), which is echoed by the imagery of the “taller and thinner” other mother in Chapter 3 (26). Coraline’s neighbors also contribute to the foreshadowing and menace.
In Chapter 2, Coraline encounters the old man upstairs, who delivers a message to her from the mice. He tells her, “The message is this. Don’t go through the door” (14). This moment is emphasized by the old man’s insistence that the mice sometimes get things wrong, and he uses the fact that the mice called Coraline “Coraline. Not Caroline. Not Caroline at all” (14) as proof of the mistakes they make in a moment of irony. When Coraline visits Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, she receives another warning. Upon reading Coraline’s tea leaves, Miss Spink concludes that Coraline is “in terrible danger” (18), which Miss Forcible, upon giving a second opinion, agrees with. The ladies present Coraline with a stone with a hole through it. Coraline’s possession of this stone in the other world presents more foreshadowing. During Coraline’s conversation with the cat in Chapter 4, it tells her it’s “sensible of [her] to bring protection” (36), though the cat doesn’t make it clear what it’s referring to. Later in the same chapter, when the other mother touches Coraline’s shoulder, Coraline grasps the stone in her pocket, causing the other mother hand to “[scuttle] off Coraline’s shoulder like a frightened spider” (44), revealing the stone’s powers of protection, as hinted at by the old ladies and by the cat.
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