Buttons Symbol Analysis

Perhaps the most iconic symbol from Neil Gaiman’s Coraline are the large, shiny black buttons which the other mother—and all the creatures she’s created to populate her parallel world—wear instead of eyes. This eerie feature symbolizes the other mother’s desire for control, and specifically her desire to limit Coraline’s freedom. Coraline is quite perturbed by the buttons once she notices them, but things in the other mother’s world are so lovely that Coraline is willing to push down her fear of the buttons. When the other mother and other father, however, present Coraline with a pair of buttons of her own and tell her that if she wants to stay in their perfect fantasy world, she’ll have to let them remove her eyes and sew buttons on instead, Coraline realizes that she has come to an evil place indeed. The buttons symbolize the fact that the other mother sees Coraline as a doll or a plaything—she wants to keep Coraline in her world and do with her what she wishes. Though the other mother’s motivation for luring Coraline (and a trio of lost children who have been in her clutches for centuries) to her world is never revealed, the cat suggests that the other mother draws her ancient power from having “something to love”—or perhaps just “something to eat.” The cat’s characterization of the other mother as an entity who must live vicariously through the individuals she brings into her world further suggests that she sees Coraline as a plaything under her control.

The symbol of the buttons, however, also goes the other way. As Coraline grows stronger, braver, and decides to conquer her fears and challenge the other mother to a game whose prize is Coraline’s own freedom, the button eyes the creatures in the other mother’s world suggests that they have become Coraline’s playthings now—she is in control of herself, of them, and of her own destiny.