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The Lost Children
The rats are a creepy, vaguely malevolent presence throughout Coraline who can seemingly traverse the barrier between the “real” world and the other mother’s world with ease. Shortly after moving into her new house, Coraline can hear them singing at night—their song is an ominous one, and its lyrics suggest that the rats are an eternal, immortal presence waiting for the “fall” of the real world, humanity, or both. While the rats’ history, intent, and purpose are never explained, they are clearly minions of the other mother—scouts, props, and soldiers all at once, the rats may be many individual animals or one single entity able to shift its shape. The rats are one of Coraline’s greatest, most sinister mysteries, and they add tremendously to the book’s horror elements.
The Rats Quotes in Coraline
The Coraline quotes below are all either spoken by The Rats or refer to The Rats. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1
Quotes
[Coraline] dreamed of black shapes that slid from place to place, avoiding the light, until they were all gathered together under the moon. Little black shapes with little red eyes and sharp yellow teeth.
They started to sing,
We are small but we are many
We are many we are small
We were here before you rose
We will be here when you fall.
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Chapter 10
Quotes
Coraline sighed. “You really don’t understand, do you?” she said. “I don’t want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted? Just like that, and it didn’t mean anything. What then?”
“I don’t understand,” said the whispery voice.
“Of course you don’t understand,” she said, raising the stone with the hole in it to her eye. “You’re just a bad copy she made of the crazy old man upstairs.”
“Not even that anymore,” said the dead, whispery voice.
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Chapter 13
Quotes
[Coraline] fancied she could hear sweet music on the night air: the kind of music that can only be played on the tiniest silver trombones and trumpets and bassoons, on piccolos and tubas so delicate and small that their keys could only be pressed by the tiny pink fingers of white mice.
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Get the entire Coraline LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Rats Quotes in Coraline
The Coraline quotes below are all either spoken by The Rats or refer to The Rats. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 1
Quotes
[Coraline] dreamed of black shapes that slid from place to place, avoiding the light, until they were all gathered together under the moon. Little black shapes with little red eyes and sharp yellow teeth.
They started to sing,
We are small but we are many
We are many we are small
We were here before you rose
We will be here when you fall.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10
Quotes
Coraline sighed. “You really don’t understand, do you?” she said. “I don’t want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted? Just like that, and it didn’t mean anything. What then?”
“I don’t understand,” said the whispery voice.
“Of course you don’t understand,” she said, raising the stone with the hole in it to her eye. “You’re just a bad copy she made of the crazy old man upstairs.”
“Not even that anymore,” said the dead, whispery voice.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13
Quotes
[Coraline] fancied she could hear sweet music on the night air: the kind of music that can only be played on the tiniest silver trombones and trumpets and bassoons, on piccolos and tubas so delicate and small that their keys could only be pressed by the tiny pink fingers of white mice.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
