Coraline-Secrets Revealed-Chapters 7 & 8

[Emily Spencer]

TRIGGER WARNING: THE STORY TAKES A VERY DARK TURN THIS WEEK, INVOLVING DEAD CHILDREN. IF YOU CANNOT READ IT, PLEASE WRITE ME AND I'LL GIVE YOU A BRIEF SUMMARY WHILE SKIPPING SOME OF THE HARDER BITS

Coraline's punishment by the Other Mother backfires, as secrets revealed solidify Coraline's distrust of the woman. Once the truth about the Other Mother's personality and intentions are brought to light in a very stark way, Coraline has to call on all her reserves of bravery to save herself, her loved ones, and the past victims of the Other Mother's twisted game.

Please remember to use spoilers for those bits of the story that you discuss, but said discussion might be giving the plot away to people who haven't read Coraline yet.

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Chapter 7 Discussion

Read the chapter and, below, discuss it. You may write of anything from Chapter 7 (or previous chapters, as they tie into Chapter 7)...

If nothing else occurs to you to discuss, answer this question!

One can only imagine the terror Coraline felt when she discovered the identity of the room's occupants. Yet, oddly perhaps, she does not seem frightened of them at all. Why do you think that she reacted this way? How would you have reacted given the circumstances?


Chapter 8 Discussion

Read the chapter and, below, discuss it. You may write of anything from Chapter 8 (or previous chapters, as they tie into Chapter 8)...

If nothing else occurs to you to discuss, answer this question!

Once Coraline is made aware of the Other Mother's true nature, we begin to see physical changes in her surroundings. Once vibrant colors seem to fade and things begin to decay. Why do you think this is happening? Is it merely that the Other Mother does not care enough to bother with the illusions anymore, or is there another reason?

[River Fenwick]

Chapter 7:
Chapter seven was quite sad for me. It's devastating how cruel the other mother is, having done this to multiple children for who knows how long. It sounds like she has the same ploy every time, trying to replace the children's mother but eventually becoming upset with disobedience and a lack of things going how she imagined. From what the children said to Coraline, the ploy can go on for seemingly years at a time before she takes every part of them, leaving them to deteriorate. It shows how little they mean to the other mother as she seeks for them to fill a specific role and discards them when they no longer suit it.

Chapter 8:
Chapter eight is more lighthearted, with two of the children's souls now in her possession. It was clever of Coraline to challenge the other mother to a game where Coraline would have the advantage of being quite a curious adventurer herself. It was a dirty move by the other mother to cause the stinging sandlike wind after Coraline found the first marble of a soul. The way the flat of Miss Spink and Miss Forcible was now very dull, rotting, and lifeless is bizarre, given how it was earlier depicted as never-ending shows. The creatures that were once the women and their dogs sound horrifying, especially to a child of Coraline's age, so I have no idea how she grabbed that second soul without backing out. She is far braver than I would be in that situation.

[Dibyarup James Potter]

Chapter Seven:
In Coraline’s position, I would initially be scared when I would discover the identity of the room's occupants, but then again, based on how sad the stories of the ghosts were, I might feel very sorry for them, as Coraline did. After that, when I would be sure that these ghosts were just the children, who were also captured by the Other Mother, I would try to understand the whole situation from them, in case they had any insights, then I would ask them about what they believe were the mistakes they made when they were alive, so that I would not repeat the same.

Chapter Eight:
When Coraline is made aware of the Other Mother's true nature, she notices a lot of physical changes in her surroundings. The once vibrant colours seem to fade and things begin to decay away. I think that it is completely possible that the Other Mother did not care enough to bother with the illusions anymore since Coraline already knew her true nature, and that the world around her was a trap to lure her into it. However, it is also possible that the Other Mother’s magic requires the children to believe that the Other Mother is nice and loving, someone whom they can trust, or at the very least, it requires the children to be unaware of the Other Mother’s true motives and true form. So, the moment, Coraline learns the whole truth about the Other Mother, her trust is completely gone. She knows that the Other Mother is a demon trying to kill her and take her soul, as she did with the other children. This leads to the failure of the Other Mother’s magic, and thus everything she built starts to decay and collapse.

[Dibyarup James Potter]

Chapter 7:
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From what the children said to Coraline, the ploy can go on for seemingly years at a time before she takes every part of them, leaving them to deteriorate. It shows how little they mean to the other mother as she seeks for them to fill a specific role and discards them when they no longer suit it.
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River, I agree with you on this. When I read it, I felt so sad for the children. It goes on to show how the Other Mother never loved any of them, not even in a twisted way. She is a demon, so she is probably not even capable of feeling love, so she was pretending to love them, only so that she could take their souls.

[Anne-Marie Gagne]

Chapter Seven

Oh dear this chapter made me cry. These poor children were taken from their families just to become food for the beldam. To be shoved into a closet and left to die and then not even be able to move on because the beldam took their souls. Not remembering their names or their mothers’ names or even if the tulips had names but they remember their mothers and tulips and playing. The beldam can take their lives but it couldn’t take the happy memories. But most likely because it can’t feed on the memories, just the life force of the children.

I think Coraline wasn’t scared when she learned of the room’s occupants because they were children like her. She’s a brave girl and most likely decided right away that she was going to help them. That she was going to get her parents back and help them move on. And I think they also realized that since one of them told her to look through the hag stone.

Chapter Eight

The Other Mother looking healthier is frightening. It most likely means she’s feeding off of Coraline’s life. To treat her like her mother did when she was young and going on about loving the sinner and not the sin is insidious. The beldam doesn’t love her, it can’t love her like it keeps trying to trick her into believing.

The beldam calling the ghosts liars is funny in an enraging kind of way. If anyone has been lying to Coraline, it was the beldam. Making Coraline food knowing she’d be hungry and being sweet to her after being so cruel the night before is manipulative. It's hoping to get Coraline to eat and forgive it to just turn around and most likely do it again the second Coraline “misbehaves”.

But Coraline also manipulates the beldam but in less of an abusive way. She plays on the beldom’s love for games. Pokes at its obvious interest and she makes the bargain one it can’t refuse because it thinks it’ll win no matter how hard Coraline tries. Coraline was very smart though, to make the beldam swear on something tangible that Coraline can see for herself.

Coraline is very right about it being easier to be scared of things you cannot see. It makes them an unknown and unknowns are terrifying.

Oh that whole sequence with the Other Misses Spink and Forcible was creepy and weird. Scary in the way that you can just tell what was in the sac but not knowing what exactly they were like in it.

I believe that the other world is decaying and rotting is because the beldam doesn’t care to keep the illusions up anymore. I also think its to try and unsettle Coraline so much that she gives up her search while also trying to slow her down.

[Dibyarup James Potter]

Chapter Seven

Oh dear this chapter made me cry. These poor children were taken from their families just to become food for the beldam. To be shoved into a closet and left to die and then not even be able to move on because the beldam took their souls. Not remembering their names or their mothers’ names or even if the tulips had names but they remember their mothers and tulips and playing. The beldam can take their lives but it couldn’t take the happy memories. But most likely because it can’t feed on the memories, just the life force of the children.
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Chapter Eight
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Oh that whole sequence with the Other Misses Spink and Forcible was creepy and weird. Scary in the way that you can just tell what was in the sac but not knowing what exactly they were like in it.
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Anne, that part made me quite emotional as well. Children forgetting their names, or their mother's names or basic facts like tulips not having names, due to being left in a room to die, I can't even imagine how miserable that type of death could be. My god, how cruel the Other Mother was.

And for that sequence with the Other Miss Spink and Other Miss Forcible, I agree, it was really creepy. Especially when I could see the visuals in the movie, it was so very spooky. I was half expecting to see something worse come out of the sac, but thankfully it was not that bad.

[Maeve Madden]

Chapter 7:
If I was in a pitch black room and suddenly felt what I thought was a person, I would be terrified. But, Coraline wasn’t. Perhaps because she knew instinctually that the entities in the room weren’t there to hurt her? Or, perhaps there was nothing scarier than the Other Mother, so whatever she encountered in this room couldn’t scare her. Either way, Coraline exhibits an extremely kind nature in this chapter; from her squeezing one of the ghost children’s hands in comfort to helping the ghost children free their souls. In turn, the children help her… by giving her the hint to look through the stone.

Chapter 8:
I think it is both the Other Mother’s doing and Coraline’s perception. Coraline is seeing things in a new light now that she knows the Other Mother’s true nature. She perhaps is noticing things that she didn’t before, and she realizes that this world isn’t as perfect as she once thought. The Other Mother is also less worried about making this world perfect, since Coraline has figured out her ploy. I don’t think she doesn’t care, but rather she’s putting her energy into other things, such as trying to distract Coraline from her mission. The Other Mother gets angrier and angrier as the chapter goes on, which I think also plays a role into the world’s deterioration.

[Adeline Morior]

Chapter 7

I think what I found interesting about this chapter was the comparison to the movie which I watched again recently. That being the difference in the space and the children's hearts being taken compared to their eyes being taken. I somehow like that in the book the space is extremely small to the point where she can barely lay down and get comfortable. Something I am sure was deliberate as the dark room is meant as a ‘punishment’ towards her ‘lack of manners’. It also feels as if the children, although they say cannot leave the darkness, are in a manner ‘forgotten’ by the other mother. Lined up like brooms and mops forgotten in a closet somewhere by her, only remembered when needed. Coraline being her main focus. This has probably been happening over many time periods in the way the other children speak, hinting perhaps on how time works differently there. A spider does need to eat every day.

Chapter 8

The first thing I would like to mention is how patient the other mother is. Just watching and waiting. This is very eerie and hints at a spider-like feel. My favourite part is “Coraline shivered. She preferred the other mother to
have a location: if she were nowhere, then she could be
Anywhere.” This is the complete and utmost feeling, fear and thought of someone that saw a spider and then lost that spider! It did creep me out how the other mother mentioned her own mother trying to crawl out her grave. Like she was lurking somewhere underground near. This made me wonder about a world outside the world she created. Lastly I would like to mention the amazing bravery of Coraline when faced with this terrifying creature on the wall which is a mashed up version of Misses
Spink and Forcible. I would literally sit down and cry from fear. She showed true bravery.

[Dibyarup James Potter]

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Chapter 8:
I think it is both the Other Mother’s doing and Coraline’s perception. Coraline is seeing things in a new light now that she knows the Other Mother’s true nature. She perhaps is noticing things that she didn’t before, and she realizes that this world isn’t as perfect as she once thought. The Other Mother is also less worried about making this world perfect, since Coraline has figured out her ploy. I don’t think she doesn’t care, but rather she’s putting her energy into other things, such as trying to distract Coraline from her mission. The Other Mother gets angrier and angrier as the chapter goes on, which I think also plays a role into the world’s deterioration.

Maeve, this is so true. It demonstrates how we often ignore certain red flags when we are blinded by the seemingly "nice" characteristics of a person, place or other entity. It also sheds new light on the fact that Coraline did not find it odd that everyone had these button eyes in this world and somehow the Other Parents looked exactly the same as her real Parents, which is next to impossible.

[Dibyarup James Potter]

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Chapter 8

The first thing I would like to mention is how patient the other mother is. Just watching and waiting. This is very eerie and hints at a spider-like feel. My favourite part is “Coraline shivered. She preferred the other mother to have a location: if she were nowhere, then she could be Anywhere.” This is the complete and utmost feeling, fear and thought of someone that saw a spider and then lost that spider!
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Oh wow, this was nicely put and explains the situation perfectly. Yes, this feeling of not knowing where the danger is, makes the danger even more scary. It's almost like being face to face with a tiger when you can see it right in front of you and devise a strategy to somehow escape, versus walking through a forest, knowing that the tiger is lurking somewhere and is most likely stalking you, but you just do not know where it is, so you cannot devise an escape strategy. This feeling of uncertainty makes the danger so much more scary.