Bram Stoker Essay Example

Bram Stoker Essay One miserably wet summer, Coraline Jones moves into a flat in an old house, with her parents who are too busy with work to pay much attention to her. She discovers a mysterious locked door in the drawing room of the flat; when she gets her mother to open the door, it swings open to reveal nothing but a brick wall. But one day, when bored and left alone in the flat by her mother, Coraline tries the door again, it opens to reveal a corridor leading to a flat quite like her own, but not quite.She ventures further into the flat, where she comes across her mother cooking in the kitchen, except her skin is paper white, she is taller and thinner, her fingers too long and her fingernails curved, sharp and dark red. The woman turns round; her eyes are big black buttons. She is the other mother and she is cooking food that smells awfully tasty. Coraline soon discovers that her father and her other neighbours in this strange world also have buttons for eyes, oh and the cat that hangs round the building can now talk.Coraline decides that this other world is rather more interesting than her own, but when told that she could stay, as long as she exchanged her own eyes for buttons, she decides that she could never do that and returns back home through the tunnel. However when she gets home she discovers that her real parents have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Coraline soon realises that she will have to go back through the tunnel to rescue them.Back in the other mother’s world, the other mother soon learns that Coraline is not prepared to love her and she is thrown into the hallway mirror, where she meets three ghost children, who are also held captive. One tells Coraline, as she falls asleep, to look through the stone given to her earlier by Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, two of Coraline’s neighbours. The next day Coraline uses the stone in a game of challenge with the other mother; everyone will be released if Coraline can find their lost souls.Co raline finds the souls but she still has to find her parents and persuade the other mother to reopen the door to the tunnel between the two houses. Coraline does this by tricking the other mother to open the door, Coraline then grabs the snow globe which she has realised contains her parents and with the souls of the three children in her pocket and followed by the cat, she escapes through the tunnel. However, something else comes through the tunnel as well, the other mother’s hand, which wants the key to the doorway back. Coraline manages to get rid of the hand by ricking it into falling into the old well in the back garden. ANALYSIS: What’s up with the title? Coraline is named after the lead character in the story, Coraline Jones. Its a pretty basic title. But its important to notice that the title is just Coralines name. Many times, a book that features the main characters name in the title also mentions a few other things: think Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter an d the fill-in-the-blank, Harold and the Purple Crayon. The title Coraline emphasizes Coraline the character above the wacky adventures shes going to have.Inspiration comes in many ways. Fictional characters can affect a real person’s life. Coraline was brave, independent, and showed great creativeness in the book titled Coraline by Neil Gaiman. Throughout the entire story, Coraline displayed a great amount of courage. After moving into a new home, this curious little girl ventured through a door that was never meant to be opened. She met her other mother that had the desire to sow buttons into Coralines eyes. Coraline stood up for herself and said no, and that takes courage. Although Coraline was only about nine years old, she saved her parents.She re-entered the tunnel, after her other mother captured her real parents, without fear. Coraline defended herself from the other mother and slammed the door right in her face to escape. Like many kids these days, Coraline had to do several things alone or by herself. Coraline made her own dinner and her own decisions. When her parents were busy with work, Coraline often played by herself. She thought for herself and didnt allow the other mother control her thoughts and actions. Coraline was wise beyond her years. Although the other mother tried to cover up the bad with good, Coraline saw right through it.She outsmarted the other mother and tricked the other mother’s hand, that was after her soul seeing stone, to jump in the well. Coraline is an inspiring character who made me think about my life. I also do not wish to live in a perfect world. She reminded me to be bold when things get tough and that one should keep fighting. Coraline was an independent thinker. She saw the situation for what it truly was. Things arent always as they appear. Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?The narrative technique in Coraline is third person limited, which mean s that a narrator tells us the story, focusing mostly on one character. In this particular case, an adult narrator tells us Coralines story. This is a pretty common narrative technique for books that star children. Having an adult narrator tell us a childs story can give us a little more depth; sometimes adults can see the big picture a little more than kids. Also, its usually just easier for an adult to write from an adults point of view! Gaimans use of third person narration also gives us an important outsider perspective on Coraline.Coraline is often the only character on the page; she doesnt get to have a ton of conversations with other people (except the cat, of course). Having the story narrated in the third person gives us that outsider perspective wed otherwise be missing, without losing insight into Coralines inner thoughts. The other mother created a world that she thought Coraline would want. So what does the other world tell us about Coraline and what she wishes for? Cor alines parents are really busy and tend to ignore her; shes often left alone to entertain herself and even take care of herself. That doesnt sound like the best family set-up.But then Coraline discovers an alternate set of parents who pay her tons of attention and cook her delicious food. Sounds like a good trade, right? Well, Coraline quickly figures out that its a rotten deal. Her own parents might have their flaws, but theyre still her parents. And Coraline loves them enough to fight hard to get them back from the cruel other mother. Coraline teaches us that, when it comes down to it, family is irreplaceable. What do you think was the bravest thing Coraline did in the novel? Upon her return to her apartment, Coraline finds her real parents are missing.They do not return the next day, and the black cat wakes her and takes her to a mirror in her hallway, through which she can see her trapped parents. They signal to her by writing Help Us on the glass, from which Coraline deduces th e Other Mother has kidnapped them. Though frightened of returning, Coraline goes back to the Other World to confront the Other Mother and rescue her parents. What is the writing style of the novel? This story includes a lot of Coralines thoughts, and the narrator chimes in with some reflections, too. As a result, the style can get a little poetic sometimes. Someone had once told her that if you look up at the sky from the bottom of a mine shaft, even in the brightest daylight, you see a night sky and stars. Coraline wondered if the hand could see stars from where it was. (13. 71)† Their thoughts are sometimes more poetic than the words they actually get to say aloud. By recording Coralines thoughts, then, Gaiman affects the style of his whole book. What’s the tone of the story? Even though theres a third person narrator, we get most of the story from Coralines point of view, hearing her thoughts and her feelings.This means that Coraline herself pretty much determines th e tone of the novel. All the tones we get come largely from Coralines own emotions: when shes scared, or relieved, or bored, or excited, we hear it. Why buttons? The black button eyes of the other mother are probably the most iconic or well-known image to come out of Coraline. â€Å"They were looking at her with their black button eyes. Or at least she thought they were looking at her. She couldnt be sure. (4. 128)† These eyes are definitely creepy. The black button eyes let us know that were in the other world and highlight how disturbing it is.Buttons are a seemingly harmless object, but in the other world, they become sinister and threatening. In fact, turning nice things into threatening things seems to be one of the main functions of the other world and the beldam herself. These buttons essentially act like masks. Coraline cant tell if her other parents are watching her and she cant get any clues through their eyes as to what theyre thinking. Because we see so much throu gh peoples eyes, these buttons hide the humanness of the people wearing them (if theyre even human at all), preventing us from really knowing a person.For this reason, Coralines other mother could never really be known, or loved, by the children she kidnaps. What’s the meaning of the key? The key into the other world becomes a hot commodity, or item, in the story. Theres only one key to the door between the other world and our world. And the other mother and Coraline both want to control that key. The appearance of the key can help us understand what it represents. Compared to the other keys, its the oldest, biggest, blackest, rustiest key (1. 51). Its different from all the other keys, just like the other world is different from the real world.In this way, the key seems to represent the other world: old and ugly. Usually when we think of keys, we think of unlocking something or opening something up. Coraline certainly does this when she finds the other world. But if keys can unlock, they can also lock you in. Eek! Thats more what Coraline is about – the fear of being trapped somewhere you dont want to be. So how do we eliminate the fear of being trapped? Well, trap the key itself! And thats exactly what Coraline does. What is the author telling us about our identity?When youre totally on your own – like Coraline is – you need to have a super strong sense of self to get you through things. In Coraline, our heroine doesnt have friends or family to rely on, so she learns this lesson pretty quickly. She doesnt need other people to know her in order to know herself: even if everyone forgets her name, it doesnt mean she isnt Coraline. And of course, other peoples identities become an issue for Coraline, too. Who is the other mother? What is the other mothers identity in relation to Coralines real mothers identity? And the three ghost children?Can they have identities if they dont even have names? Coraline is struggling with all of these questions, all the while trying to save the day. Impressive. What up with the ending? Coraline overcomes great odds, defeats the evil other mother, saves her parents, and rescues the trapped souls of three children. Pretty impressive, dont you think? So why doesnt this book end with everyone throwing Coraline a parade to celebrate her awesomeness? Well, Coraline may have triumphed against evil, but she did it alone. And now she has to enjoy her victory alone, too.No one else even knows what happened to Coraline: her parents dont remember their time trapped by the other mother and the neighbors didnt notice anyone was missing. But even if no one else is paying attention, Coraline is still content. She has learned a lot during the story, and shes much more confident by the end of it, so why does it matter if anyone else knows? Shes happy to just drift off into a happy dream, remembering the friends she met in the other world. Coraline is mainly about Coraline herself; so it only makes sense that the end focuses on, well, Coraline.Is it any good? Author Neil Gaiman is well known in the world of adult literature, but this is his first book for children. Its a strange, surrealistic tale, fun for kids who like their stories creepy. The black-and-white illustrations by Dave McKean are correspondingly sinister. Not everything will make sense to young readers, nor will they find the emotional heart that marks childrens classics but they will find Coraline to be a brave character who uses her smarts to not only save herself, but also others the Other Mother trapped. Plus, the plot rolls long fairly unpredictably and with a few good scares. Not awe-inspiring, but entertaining enough. Coraline by Neil Gaiman is a weird and delightfully scary fairy tale / ghost story. I call it delightfully scary because while it grips the readers attention with creepy happenings that may cause a case of the shivers, it is not the kind of scary book that lead to nightmares of the it could happen to me kind. I recommend Coraline for 8- to 12-year-olds. Although the main character is a girl, this tale will appeal to both boys and girls who enjoy weird and scary (but not too scary) tales.Because of all of the dramatic happenings, Coraline is also a good read-aloud for 8- to 12-year-olds. Why shoud I care to read? Have you ever been afraid of anything? Not like monsters-in-the-closet afraid, but really, truly how-am-I-going-to-get-through this afraid? Were thinking about that time you were in a play and had to get up on stage in front of your whole school and recite your lines. Or the first time you went to camp and had to say goodbye to your parents. Or even the time you were home alone during a thunderstorm and you had to stay calm for your little brother.One of these things has happened to all of us – and how did we get through it? We did it anyway. If we hadnt gotten on stage, gone to camp, or comforted our brother, we would have never gotten over our fears. We wouldnt have been brave. Coraline is a story of bravery, and according to Coraline herself, being brave is when youre scared but you still do it anyway (5. 80). Coralines bravery might be the epic, fairy tale kind: she does fight monsters, after all. But Coraline teaches us that bravery comes in all forms.Bravery can be going back to get your glasses near a wasps nest. It can even be just going to school. If youre scared and you do it anyway, youre brave. Coraline reminds us that we dont need to ride a BMX over a box jump or poke a raccoon with a stick to be brave. Bravery can be a much more everyday occurrence. No matter what it is, if we do it, well gain confidence and feel better about ourselves after – just like Coraline did. Thats not to say its easy (and neither was battling the other mother), but thats what makes it worth it.