Psychoanalysis, “Gothic” Children’s Literature, and the Canonization of Coraline

Neil Gaiman’s novel Coraline (2002) has, for many critics, come to epitomize twenty-first-century gothic children’s fiction. Coraline borrows from Freud’s “The ‘Uncanny’” to create an animistic realm, populated by symbols readily interpreted as infantile cathexes and repressed material. Critical ass...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inChildren's Literature Association Quarterly Vol. 40; no. 1; pp. 58 - 79
Main Author Buckley, Chloé Germaine
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.04.2015
Subjects
British & Irish literature
Children & youth
Childrens literature
English literature
Fiction
Folklore
Gaiman, Neil
Literary criticism
Novels
Psychoanalysis
Reading
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Summary:Neil Gaiman’s novel Coraline (2002) has, for many critics, come to epitomize twenty-first-century gothic children’s fiction. Coraline borrows from Freud’s “The ‘Uncanny’” to create an animistic realm, populated by symbols readily interpreted as infantile cathexes and repressed material. Critical assessment of the novel likewise evaluates it in these terms. Indeed, it is something of a critical commonplace to declare that psychoanalysis, the gothic, and the uncanny are the most apt tools for understanding the “child.” This paper asks what is culturally invested in this psychoanalytic reading of childhood. Using the case of Coraline , and remaining neutral about the truth value of psychoanalysis, this paper reopens gothicized uncanny childhood space to alternative readings.
ISSN:0885-0429
1553-1201
1553-1201
DOI:10.1353/chq.2015.0008