Coralin’s Metamorphosis into the Self-reliant Girl: Reading Neil Gaiman’s Coraline

Abstract

This paper studies Neil Gaiman's children fantasy Coraline based on identity formation of the title character, Coraline. Neil Gaiman, as an author of juvenile literature, presents the transformation–from reliant to self-reliant–of the pivotal character in this novella. Therefore, the researcher attempts to embody the interconnectedness of the transformation of the novella’s heroine and all the struggles she has to go through just to establish herself as a bold and independent girl who does not rely on any man, not even her father.In this regard, this dissertation asserts that Coraline is on the verge of becoming a new woman who fights with everything, as a man fights in most of the stories, to save her family. In order to examine the minute process of the major Character’s transformation and her search for the true self, the paper borrows the relevant insights from Erik H. Erikson’s theory of ‘psychosocial development’.As far as the dissertation’s argument is concerned, the researcher analyzes the text using some of the theoretical insights propounded by Erikson: Intimacy vs. Isolation, Trust vs. Mistrust, and Identity vs. confusion. As claimed by Eriks on, that each new stage builds upon the living experiences of the subsequent stages that are clearly observed in the life of Coraline as she involves in a perilous circumstances. Based on these three stages of psychological development the research paper explores the world of Coraline where the protagonist undergoes the surreal circumstances that insist her to explore the inner self so as to imbibe a tremendous transformation in her life. Keywords: transformation, existential crisis, identity, true self, existence