Coraline

Coraline goes into My Bobinsky’s loft. She finds him. He tries to sell her on the idea of the Other Mother always willing to build her a new world that fun, interesting and full of delicious food. I thought of Weird Al’s “Just Eat it” parody of Michael Jackson’s “Just Beat It.”

People usually have a reason for visiting people. People often visit someone’s house because they are collecting for charity. People don’t always like answering the door because they don’t want to donate.

“I don’t want whatever I want. Not really.” We know that we can’t always have what we want. Utopia and having everything we want doesn’t feel right. We want the good with the bad. The fun with the boring. The love with the hate.

“You are just a copy of the man upstairs.” Empty and hollow. Nothing deeper than the surface about it.

Coraline didn’t like how the cat killed the first rat. She didn’t like how the cat playfully killed the rat. The cat gives some hope but ultimately kills the rat. She had a different perspective the second time.

Coraline walked into the house with all her senses. She could hear, see and feel the environment around her. She needed her wits.

I thought of the predator and prey dynamics as I read this chapter. I understood the Bedlam’s role as the predatory and Coraline as the prey. I was curious how Coraline would keep her wits and stay focused on understanding how the Bedlam, as a predator, would think. She trusted her intuition that the Other Mother would not play fair and would eat her despite her finding all the eyes and correctly guessing where her parents were hidden (inside the snow globe). Coraline knew that she couldn’t give any clues about her intentions of playing the player (Other Mother) while convincing her to open the only other door out. She understood that one game within the game was to play to the Bedlam’s desire to be correct and prove to Coraline that she was wrong about the location of her parents (not behind the door). People love proving others wrong. The Other Mother, wrapped up in her desire to see the despair on Coraline’s face, didn’t realize that Coraline would use the cat as a weapon. Predator Vs. Predator. Coraline was the prey, but she wasn’t naive to the nature of the predator.

After reading the chapter, I wonder what games Coraline played that allowed her to play the player, not just the game.