InsaneJournal

Current mood:	full
Entry tags:	coraline

Coraline + Freud = OTP!
I take back everything I said about Wybie - He's turned into one of my favorite characters! I saw Coraline twice more this weekend (take that, bank account!), and I highly HIGHLY recommend it. I actually went by myself on Friday because it's so amazing.

I dug up my copy of Freud's Uncanny from college and was reading it and his other essays in preparation, so Friday night at 1 in the morning when I couldn't sleep, I came up with fun pseudo-Freudian interpretations of Coraline's experience.


First big Freudian symbol: the velvet tunnel Coraline explores at night. At 11, Coraline is just beginning to develop her sexuality, and the tunnel is a clear stand-in for the vaginal canal (note that at the other side of the tunnel is a warm, welcoming home; obviously this is the womb). Her blossoming sexuality is placed into danger by the (Other) Mother, who has already "castrated" (by rendering him mute), the Other Wybie (Coraline's neighbor Wybie being her love interest - more on him later). This Electra complex is self-evident: she has destroy the (Other) Mother in order to return her home to stability and continue her maturation (sexual and otherwise). Fear of her own "castration" (ie, death), leads Coraline to systematically dismantle the Other House (which she does in 3 pieces - this number 3 has been found in myths and stories for ages; the maiden/mother/crone triune should be mentioned not only because it is an example of the 3 pattern but also because Coraline begins the progress from the maiden to mother during the span of her adventure) and then battle and overcome the (Other) Mother.

The id obviously plays an incredibly important role in Coraline - Not only is the Other House (the dream house) a complete embodiment of the selfishness that the id is concerned with (ie, the Other House exists to entertain and indulge Coraline's every wish, from eating junk food to participating in acrobatics, etc), but it is also an embodiment of the life as well as death drive. As the life drive, the Other House represents an absence of neglect and boredom (from which Coraline suffers in her real house); as the death drive, the Other House represents Coraline's desire to return everything to a status quo as well as actually to kill the (other) reality.

The changes in her relationship with Wybie are also important: he is at first a nuisance who she identifies with her parents (he never listens to her, "just like them"), but as her ego establishes dominance over her id, she moves into the genital phase of development and accepts him as a replacement for her parents, thereby detaching herself from them (which is the start of healthy adult relationships). The Other Wybie was created specifically to care for her (much like the Other Father; both of them fulfill this duty too well and therefore threaten the Other Mother's control over Coraline), he attends to her and is molded in a way that Coraline is intended to find pleasing (again, he is "castrated" by the Other Mother, yet interestingly, this "castration" does not keep him from being attracted to Coraline, nor her to him: he tosses her a long-stemmed rose, which simultaneously has a phallic representation as well as embodying love and beauty). He cannot enter the velvet tunnel and escape from the Other House/Mother (and therefore he cannot become Coraline's future mate as he is not differentiated enough from the (other) Mother, but (real) Wybie is able to join Coraline in defeating the (other) Mother's hand (which is made of needles, perhaps to embody the piercing of the hymen). An earlier scene he shares with Coraline has him searching for slugs, which can be elongated (obvious phallic image) and are also known for their slime (obviously relating to the lubrication of the vaginal canal), furthermore, Coraline's willingness to participate in playing with the slugs indicates her acceptance of their sexuality. The conclusion of the movie finds Wybie opening the gate to Coraline's garden (obviously a symbol for sex, on multiple levels: the gates being the vaginal opening, the flowers again being related to love, and Coraline's green thumb showing her fertility).


lolololololol! Gotta write about Other Father, the mice, the cat, and the buttons next.