87 pages • 2 hours read
Coraline
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaChapters 8-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary
The other mother, looking healthier than ever, retrieves a sleeping Coraline from the mirror room. Coraline wakes at the kitchen table. The other mother speaks of mercy and of being a happy family together. Coraline mentions the other children in the closet, but the other mother is dismissive. She makes Coraline a cheese omelette and tells her that ghosts are not real. Coraline’s mouth waters.
Coraline suggests they play a game so the other mother can win her fairly. Coraline offers to give herself to the other mother if the other mother wins. If Coraline wins, the other mother must free Coraline, her parents, and the dead children. They decide on an exploring game where Coraline must find the souls of the dead children as well as her parents to win. The other mother agrees and serves Coraline the food, adding that this food won’t hurt her. Coraline gives in and eats before starting the game. Coraline asks how she can trust the other mother, so the other mother swears on her right hand.
Coraline looks around for the souls but doesn’t know what she’s looking for. The other mother disappears while Coraline looks, which makes Coraline uneasy. Coraline visits the mirror in the hallway and pulls out the stone. In the mirror, the stone glows and a glowing ghostly trail leads from the stone to Coraline’s bedroom. Coraline follows the trail and looks through the toybox. She decides to look through the stone. Through the stone, “the world was gray and colorless” (95) except a glowing red orb. Coraline grabs the orb and realizes it’s a marble hiding a child’s soul. One of the ghost voices warns her that the beldam is angry because she’s found one of the souls. Not wanting to continue wearing the other mother’s clothing, Coraline changes back into her nightgown and continues her exploration.
In the hallway, an invisible sandstorm whips at Coraline’s face, stinging her skin. Coraline shouts at the other mother to play fair and the wind dies down. She goes to other Miss Spink and Miss Forcible’s flat. The interior theater is in ruins. Across the ceiling, the dogs have wings and hang like bats. Against the back wall on the stage is a large, strange egg sac shape. Coraline is scared of it but approaches. She can make out what were the young Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, but they appear fused together within the sac. Using the stone, Coraline can tell one of the souls is within the sac. She reaches in and pries it from one of the hands of the creatures. They screech that she’s a thief and to stop, but they are unable to leave the sac. Coraline escapes as the dog-bats flutter around her.
Chapter 9 Summary
Outside, the world is shapeless, and the house looks distorted. The other mother, looking angry, waits for Coraline. Coraline tells her that she’s found two of the souls. The other mother thanks her and reminds Coraline that she loves her, but the other mother’s voice doesn’t come from her mouth, rather it surrounds Coraline. Coraline agrees that the other mother does love her, but in the same way “a miser loves money, or a dragon loves its gold” (104).
She offers to help Coraline by giving her a key to the empty flat. Coraline accepts the help. The other mother coughs up the key and pulls it from her mouth, then presents it to Coraline. The ghost children’s voices are skeptical of the other mother’s intentions. Coraline agrees that it’s likely a trap.
The other flat is empty, but Coraline can see where furniture once stood and where paintings once hung. She’s afraid, but she presses on through the flat, using the stone to see if there are any souls nearby. After searching the flat thoroughly, Coraline finds a trap door leading to a cellar. Coraline climbs down the steps and turns on the dim cellar light. The air smells sour. There is a pile of junk and old curtains in the corner. As Coraline approaches, the smell gets worse. She is about to leave when she spots a foot sticking out of the pile. Coraline pulls the curtain away to reveal what was once the other father. He is bloated and losing his shape quickly, like rising bread dough.
The other father awakens and Coraline asks if her parents or the final lost soul are down in the cellar. He tells her that nothing is down here. Coraline speculates that he was put down there for revealing too much about the other mother, and he agrees, saying she isn’t pleased. Coraline assesses that he’s “just a thing she made and then threw away” (109). One of the other father’s button eyes pops out and falls to the floor, leaving him struggling to see.
The other father warns Coraline that the other mother wants him to hurt her so she cannot finish the game. He tells her to run. He slowly grows more monstrous, losing his shape. Coraline tries to tell him to be brave, but he warns her that he cannot fight the other mother before beginning to attack Coraline. Thinking quickly, she grabs his other button eye and pulls it out, leaving the other father blinded. He listens for her carefully while Coraline sneaks out. She leaves the flat, locks the door, and places the key under the doormat. The other mother is nowhere to be found. Coraline tells herself to be brave, and then she heads to the stairs to visit the upstairs flat.
Chapter 10 Summary
Coraline enters the old man’s flat. In the real world, she’s never been inside before because it smelled funny. This flat smells even worse. As she enters, the rats sing another creepy song. They watch her move through the flat. A voice calls to Coraline from another room.
Coraline reminds herself that she isn’t frightened. She realizes that everything the other mother has made has just been a distorted replica of things that already exist. She then realizes that makes the snowglobe on the drawing room mantel seem peculiar. While she ponders this, coming up with a realization, the voice calls to her again.
Coraline finds the man bundled in a hat and coat in the darkness of a bedroom. He tries to convince her to stay in this world, talking about how the other mother will create wonderful things for her every day, making only the best food and giving Coraline everything she wants. Coraline argues that nobody really wants everything they’ve ever wanted because then nothing is special. The old man says he doesn’t understand. Coraline looks at him through the stone and sees that there’s a soul hidden in his coat. She confirms that he wouldn’t understand because he’s just a copy of the real crazy old man.
The other old man tells her that he isn’t even that anymore, and rats flood out of his clothing. The man falls apart, and the rats flee. Coraline looks through her stone and realizes the biggest rat is carrying the marble. Coraline chases it out of the flat and ends up tumbling down the stairs. She loses track of the rat.
Knees and hands skinned from her fall, Coraline feels hopeless. Without the final soul, she cannot beat the other mother. As she sits there, feeling as though she’s failed, the rat drops in front of her, mutilated. The cat stands there proudly. Coraline takes the marble, and the last ghost child’s voice warns her that the other mother will never let her go.
Coraline thinks about the mantelpiece, knowing that her parents must be in the snowglobe. Coraline warns the cat that the other mother won’t let them go. The house flattens behind them, becoming more like a photograph or a drawing than a three-dimensional object. The cat panics, explaining that the way out of the world has flattened. Coraline reassures the cat and scoops him up, carrying it into the house to face the other mother.
Chapters 8-10 Analysis
Chapter 8 starts with the other mother freeing Coraline from the mirror, just as Coraline predicted. Coraline, who is beginning to understand how the other mother operates, takes the advice of the cat and challenges the other mother to a game, putting herself on the line if she loses. Though she has been warned the other mother will not play fairly, Coraline is brave in the face of the danger and empowered by her love of her parents. This parallels her story about her father facing the danger of the wasps, acting quickly to save Coraline and bravely returning for his glasses. These moments emphasize the theme of what it means to be brave, which continues to be present throughout these chapters.
In Chapter 9, Coraline tries to tell what’s left of the other father to be brave. However, as one of the other mother’s creations, he does not have the free will to stand up to the other mother. Coraline then takes her own advice and bravely plucks out the other father’s remaining eye to escape him. At the end of the chapter, Coraline tells “herself that she was brave, and she almost believed herself” (112). Having faced the other Misses Spink and Forcible and the other father, Coraline is beginning to feel that she is brave and using it as an affirmation to continue to press onward.
Coraline’s game with the other mother is foreshadowed in Chapter 6, when Coraline watches the cat play with one of the rats. The cat asks Coraline “How often does your dinner get to escape” (74). Once Coraline learns how the other mother feeds on her child victims, Coraline’s situation parallels that of the cat and the rat, with Coraline being the rat the other mother is playing with. Coraline has a chance to escape the other mother despite her attempts to play unfairly. Through the invisible sandstorm and her control of the other father, the other mother does what she can to prevent Coraline from succeeding.
However, Coraline has some help as well. The significance of the stone is fully realized in these chapters as Coraline uses it to track down the marbles that contain the souls of the ghost children. This stone makes the other world “gray and colorless, like a pencil drawing” (95), highlighting only the souls of the dead children with “the color of an ember” (95). With the help of the stone, Coraline is able to locate all three of the lost souls throughout chapters 8 and 10. In addition to the stone, the ghost children continue to speak to Coraline as she navigates the crumbling other world. Each time Coraline retrieves a soul, the child thanks her and warns her of the other mother’s status. Upon retrieving the first soul, the ghost child’s voice warns Coraline that “the beldam is already angry with you for uncovering me” (95). At the end of Chapter 10, when Coraline believes she has lost to the other mother, the cat proves his allyship to her by catching and killing the rat that held the final soul. This moment is a significant turning point for Coraline because she goes from believing she’s failed to having an ally with whom she can face the other mother.
Finally, Chapter 10 highlights a seemingly innocuous detail mentioned in Chapter 6. While searching for her parents in the other world, Coraline spots a snowglobe on the mantel in the drawing room. She disregards this unusual item until she has a realization while walking through the other old man’s flat. Coraline realizes the other mother “could only twist and copy and distort things that already existed” (116). This brings her back to the snowglobe, which is absent from the real drawing room. Coraline then realizes how significant this trinket is as she goes into the house to face the other mother at the end of the chapter. The significance of the snowglobe is not spelled out in these chapters, but it is heavily hinted to be the final piece to the other mother’s game with Coraline.
Unlock all 87 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Neil Gaiman
