Coraline is a story about a young girl who moves into a new three-family home with her parents. In her new abode, she finds adventure and learns a valuable lesson about life and unconditional love. Her archetype in the beginning of the story is that of an orphan; however, as the story unfolds we find that she becomes all of the archetypes; wanderer, altruist, innocent, magician, and warrior. As she converts to each archetype, she acquires all of their gifts, such as, resilience, independence, compassion, faith, power, and courage. As Coraline is read, the traits of my warrior archetype is very active as is seen by her related characteristics. The relationship that I have with Coraline helps me and others to understand the story.
There are negative and positive traits that combine to create the warrior archetype. The positive traits that I possess are that I am realistic, a survivor, strong, individualistic, assertive, disciplined, generous, willing to sacrifice, caring, morally good, and trustworthy. We detect Coraline’s generosity, will to sacrifice, and caring nature beginning on page eighty-four. Page eighty-four shows us that she is a caring individual when she asks the children’s souls, “How long have you been here?” Her assertiveness and strength begins to come to light on page eighty-five when one the of the souls instruct Coraline to “Flee!”, but she rejects the thought and refuses to leave without her parents. Strength and the warrior gift of courage is also seen when she says, “I’m not running away. She has my parents. I came to get them back.” (page eighty-five) Coraline’s first sign of her lack of desire to love and obey her other mother is asserted on pages seventy-seven to seventy-eight when she says to her other mother, “I don’t want to play with you. I have no plans to love you. No matter what. You can’t make me love you. You aren’t my mother.” These words represent the beginning of her journey to defeat her other mother and essentially win back her parents, which is where the negative warrior traits appear.
The negative traits that I possess are that I am suspicious, negative, a loner, a rebel, stubborn, and controlling. As seen in Coraline, these traits have good and bad qualities. Coraline’s stubbornness is seen on page eighty-five when she does not listen to the closeted soul to “flee” and stands up to her other mother for the first time on pages seventy-seven to seventy-eight. Her suspicions that her parents were trapped in the snow-globe on the mantelpiece on page one hundred eighteen helped her to complete the last task of their game; otherwise, Coraline would have been the other mother’s property and forced to pretend to be happy for the remainder of her challenge-less life. Coraline’s rebellious nature was helpful and meaningful in the story because without it, she never would have known about the three abandoned souls that were trapped in the closet; and therefore, they never would have been freed. The fact that Coraline is a loner significantly effected the moral of the story. If Coraline were not a loner or had siblings, the level of impact she felt when she truly became an orphan would not have been as highlighted. The loss of her parents and the realization that her other mother “loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon loves it gold” (page one hundred six), made Coraline realize how much she treasured her parents and her real life.
My archetype helps me to understand Coraline by being able to comprehend first-hand that all of the warrior traits tend have great potential to lead to survival and accomplishment of a battle. I found that I was able to relate greatly to Coraline’s need and desire to fight for a second chance at what she once took for granted. When others know and understand my archetype they can better understand the story because they would be able to identify and predict how Coraline will fight her battles. When the warrior archetype is understood, one can become more involved in the story by hoping that Coraline will use particular warrior characteristics to prevail. One would also be more capable of entering Coraline’s mind-frame and understand the reasons why she behaved and reacted in certain ways. The relationship that I share with Coraline reminded me to appreciate every detail in life and love because one day I may lose it forever.
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