Blog Entry 3.5

In the novel Coraline by Neil Gaiman, Coraline is a wanderer archetype. Although she has a mother and a father, her parents often tell her to go play by herself. Since she had just moved into a new house she would often go exploring by herself. A wanderer archetype is a individualistic, pioneer, autonomous, divergent thinker, a loner, and a rebel. They are afraid in closeness and they also have trouble fitting in with others(the Heroic Myth Test). Out of all these traits I find that Coraline and I have the same archetype as each other.

In chapter one, “on the first day Coraline’s family moved in, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible made a point of telling Coraline how dangerous the well was, and they warned her to be sure she kept away from it.” However, despite the warning Coraline still explores for the well. This tells us readers that she is a rebel. Perhaps she is a rebel because she has no siblings to play around with. A wanderer’s negative traits are lonesome and they have trouble fitting in. Every time she tries to receive attention from her parents, they tell her to go occupy herself. Since she receives no attention from her parents, this could mean that her parents never taught her from right and wrong. Parents who do not give their child any attention and let them wander by themselves will often find that their children will grow up as rebellious. This trait of Coraline is the same as mine. My parents owned two restaurants while I was growing up. Therefore whenever I tried to get them to play with me, they would just tell me to go play by myself. This often led me to get into trouble because they would rarely keep an eye out for me. Coraline is also very curious, since she does not have any siblings to spend time with her she tries to learn things by herself. A child will always be a child, when a parent tells them not to do something, the child will do it. That’s because the child is still learning. If I were to tell someone don’t do this, of course that person will go ahead and do it because why else would you tell me not to do it. In chapter three, while Coraline is going school shopping with her mother Coraline exclaims, "But Mum, everybody at school’s got gray blouses and everything. Nobody’s got green gloves. I could be the only one." This quote helps us understand that she is different from everybody else. Although everyone is wearing gray blouses she rather have green gloves because she is rebellious and thinks differently from other children.

Another trait of Coraline is that she is an individualistic and a divergent thinker. In chapter thirteen when her other mother’s hand tried to get a hold of the black key. Coraline was the only one who thought of the brilliant plan of trapping her other mother’s hand down the well. She is individualistic because according to Robert Karen’s article on “Becoming Attached”, Coraline is represented as the ambivalent child. Due to her parents constantly working on the computer I can infer that Coraline’s parents were there occasionally from when she was an infant. This means that Coraline will grow up to only call out for help when she really needs to, other than that she was brought up to take care of herself. A great example of this behavior is when she asks for help from her other mother when she is trying to find the third missing child. After the trap that the other mother had set up for her in the basement she decides that she is unable to trust the other mother’s word. After this incident, she rarely asks anyone for help. Another example of Coraline’s ambivalent behavior is when her parents went missing. She was able to run to the store and pick out her own groceries so that she could feed herself. I can relate to Coraline’s individualistic behavior because as a child I could not work in a restaurant, so my grandmother was left at home to take care of me. She is old, so she practically laid in bed all day and watched television. I could understand that since she is old, I’d have to help my parents out by taking care of the house. The only time I called for help was when I needed help turning on the stove. Other than that, I had to figure out how to do laundry and many other things. I had trouble fitting in because I also did not have any friends who lived on my street. The neighbors I had were also one old lady and one old grumpy man. Which means as I grew older I became an individualistic with no friends that learned to trust myself than others.
    Coraline is a single child that has no friends her age. She learns to occupy herself with activities a normal child would do. If a child were to move into a new neighborhood, they would often explore to find if there is anything interesting they can go play with. It is normal for a child to wonder why there is a brick wall in a door and it is not occupied. A child always has new questions about the world behind them because they are still young. I find that most children are wanderers because  a lot of times they wander off in malls to find new friends or new toys. This archetype is very individualistic, they try to find a unique way of expressing themselves. Throughout this novel Coraline sets off to find something she is missing. Perhaps she really did want new parents that would play with her and cook her, her favorite food. But in this world, you can not always have everything your way. In the end she realizes she rather have two parents that let her do anything she wants to do rather than a bossy witch. She rather have her normal life than to be given everything she ever wanted because she is a wanderer, the other mother can not change who she really is. This is Coraline’s unique autonomous identity.