Coraline's Dual Worlds In This Other World

This is a story about a girl named Coraline who lives in the countryside with her mother and father. She is an adventurous girl who likes to explore. She lives in a large house that is divided into two other units. One is occupied by two retired theatre stars and the other is occupied by an old man who trains mice.

As she explores her house, she finds a door with a brick wall behind it. However, when she tries to open the door a second time, she finds that it leads to a mysterious world that is similar to her own.

In this Other world, she meets her Other Mother and Other Father, two figures that are similar to her real parents, but they have button eyes. They treat her well and they want her to stay, but she insists that she go back to her
own world in fear of having buttons sewn in her eyes.

After her parents disappear in the real world, Coraline goes back to the Other World to find her parents. There, she discovers that her Other Mother has tricked other children into leaving the real world.

Coraline challenges her Other Mother to find the three souls of the children and her parents. As per agreement, if Coraline finds the souls first, she and the rest of them get to return to the real world. If her Other Mother finds them first, Coraline will stay in the Other World.

Coraline finds all three souls in marbles throughout the house and find her parents in a snow globe. With the help of a cat, she escapes through the door and back into the real world.

Despite escaping, Coraline must deal with her Other Mother’s hand, which is crawling around and trying to steal a key that is around Coraline’s neck.
In the end, after trapping her Other Mother’s hand in a well, Coraline begins to fix her relationship with her parents.

As always a lot can be said about this story, but what draws my interest and attention is the idea of dual worlds, as if everything in this world is mirrored in another world. More importantly, this book explores how roles and relationships change in those dual worlds.

In the real world, Coraline assumes the role of the “child” and her parents are the “parents”. But in the Other World, the roles reverse. Coraline must save her parents and others - a role that she is not used to undertaking.

And although there are no magical doors that contain other worlds in my house, at least any that I know of, we encounter several worlds within our own world that act like dual worlds.

Different social spheres act as these dual worlds where individuals must or choose to assume certain roles and responsibilities. For example, in one world, you might be a “student” and as a “student” you undertake certain responsibilities. In another world, you might be a “son” or “daughter”. And in yet another world, you might be an
“employee”.

You’re the same person looking back in a reflection, yet at the same time, you’re different.

Through Minute Book Reports, hopefully you can get the plot and a few relevant discussion points in just a couple of minutes.