Abstract :
This paper sees Neil Gaiman’s Coraline as following a darker tradition in children’s
literature, most commonly found in the fairy tale. It explores some of the existential
issues that concern us all: to do with identity, sex, death, ontology, evil, desire and violence.
The article takes a largely psychoanalytical approach, showing how Freud’s concept of the
Uncanny is particularly helpful in explaining both the text’s appeal, and its creepy uneasiness.
Namely, our fears about existence and identity as separate beings: our worry that we will either
not be noticed (being invisible and isolated), or we will be completely consumed by the
attention of another. Lacan’s concepts of the Symbolic and the Real provide the theoretical
underpinning for this reading, together with Kristeva’s notion of the abject.
