Lina M. Parra Ante

Abstract

The novel Coraline written by Neil Gaiman depicts a heroine girl for whom her world is boring and whose family does not pay enough attention to her. Being faithful to her role as an explorer, she finds the ideal version of her family in a parallel and fantastic world to ultimately face the adventure of saving her real parents. This paper attempts to make an interpretation of the novel to approach the conceptions that currently we have about childhood and family. Based on theories about myths and heroes by Campbell, Caroline is portrayed as the heroine who takes on a heroic quest. Throughout Ariès, Pollock and King’s notions as well as Montgomery’s categories, the construction of childhood and family in history is shown. Finally, by using Paramio, Bakhtin and Mukarovsky’s concepts a reading about how childhood roles are related to the ideological discourse in the novel is made. It is concluded that in Coraline, the turning point in the perception and conception of childhood is represented. Modern roles are redefined in opposition to the traditional ones by depicting kids as heroes and heroines in current families.

Keywords

Coraline, Childhood, Heroine, Family, Ideologies

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