Symbols Scavenger Hunt

I had to make a Symbols Scavenger Hunt for the button eyes, the coraline doll and the button key. I'm not sure this is what they wanted but this is all I could come up with. Here it is

Create a Symbols Scavenger Hunt for the viewer. Give them an explanation

of 3 Symbols to look for and a list of key moments in the film they could look

for them. Remember to include an answer sheet!

• Button Eyes- Ref 1, Ref 2
• Buttons in the novel act much like masks in that they conceal. Buttons though

conceal a being’s intentions rather than identity. Coraline cannot read the Other
Parent’s intentions, as they reveal no perceptible emotion through their dead, plastic

button eyes. She can’t even discern if they’re watching her, as the buttons don’t rotate

the way normal human eyes do. The buttons therefore become a symbol of the

inscrutability and inhumanity of the Other Parents.

• The black button eyes of the other mother are probably the most iconic or

well-known image to come out of Coraline.

• They were looking at her with their black button eyes. Or at least she thought they

were looking at her. She couldn't be sure. (4.128)

• These eyes are definitely creepy. The black button eyes let us know that we're in

the other world and highlight how disturbing it is. Buttons are a seemingly harmless object,

but in the other world, they become sinister and threatening. In fact, turning nice things

into threatening things seems to be one of the main functions of the other world and the

beldam herself.

• These buttons essentially act like masks. Coraline can't tell if her other parents

are watching her and she can't get any clues through their eyes as to what they're thinking.

Because we see so much through people's eyes, these buttons hide the humanness of the

people wearing them (if they're even human at all), preventing us from really knowing a

person. For this reason, Coraline's other mother could never really be known, or loved, by

the children she kidnaps.

• Coraline Doll
• ?
• The Key - Ref 1, Ref 2
• The key serves as a plot device and is central to the novel as such. The key allows the

bearer access to the human world and the dimension where the Other Mother/The Beldam lives.

Both Coraline and the Other Mother/The Beldam want possession of the key as it represents

freedom and power for them both. The Other Mother/The Beldam desires the key as it affords her

freedom to move back and forth with impunity between dimensions, allowing her both to hunt

and escape reprisal as she pleases, which in turn gives her immense power over her victims.

Coraline wants the key because to her it is both her means of escape, and as with any key, it can

also lock doors barring entry giving her power over The Beldam, who can only find prey in the

human world.

• The key into the other world becomes a hot commodity, or item, in the story. There's only

one key to the door between the other world and our world. And the other mother and Coraline

both want to control that key.

• The appearance of the key can help us understand what it represents. Compared to the

other keys, it's "the oldest, biggest, blackest, rustiest key" (1.51). It's different from all the other

keys, just like the other world is different from the real world. In this way, the key seems to

represent the other world: old and ugly.

• Usually when we think of keys, we think of unlocking something or opening something up.

Coraline certainly does this when she finds the other world. But if keys can unlock, they can also

lock you in. Eek! That's more what Coraline is about – the fear of being trapped somewhere you

don't want to be. So how do we eliminate the fear of being trapped? Well, trap the key itself! And

that's exactly what Coraline does.

Clues

1 unusual at first  but gets more and more common as the film roles on. Find it in the other world
as coraline find out about the Other Mother.

2 given as a gift it disguised itself as being harmless, but it did more harm than good.
Find it in the second day of being at the house.

3 used to stop a child from pestering but still made trouble. Gets hidden to keep something
locked, should never have been found. Find it in the second day at the house. Belldam also
eats it.

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ANSWERS

1 The Button eyes

2 The doll

3 The key