Parents In Spirited Away

Family and Parents’ Roles

The different emphasis of events and the source of problems in the stories possibly reflects parents’ roles. The producers of Coralinespent almost half of the film of the story in mood build-up, leaving the urgency of saving Coraline’s parents near the end after a fun but deceiving time provided by the Other Mother, while in Spirited Away, Chihiro is already faced by the unfortunate event of her parents turning into pigs approximately fifteen minutes to the film. Although this may account to the different story-telling styles of the directors, I feel like there is a deeper meaning into this.

The style of Coraline is heavily centered on Coraline herself. She is often seen exploring the house and playing outside,

175). In Spirited Away, Chihiro basically has no choice but try to save her parents because, as mentioned before, she is dependent on them and has that reciprocal relationship with her parents, thus acting as her main source motivation that drives her to take initiatives. Unlike in the situation with Coraline, Chihiro’s parents are the sole reason why she is dragged into the other world at the end of the tunnel. If only her parents did not go in there and eat the foods that eventually turn them into pigs, Chihiro won’t have to go through a hard time trying to save

Since Coraline is set in an individualistic, Western society, not much direct involvement of the community can be observed, nor is it emphasized. It is true that Coraline retrieves an important special object as well as important pieces of information from her neighbors and the talking cat, but Coraline is always alone when she comes face to face with the Other Mother and her forces, and gets out from trouble by her own cleverness and bravery. Getting the magical stone from Miss Spink and Forcible comes across as a byproduct of their strangeness and the reading of Coraline’s tea leaves; it is not represented in a way that allows an understanding that they care about Coraline unconditionally nor an allusion to reciprocal relationships in a community.Coraline’s character develops as she realizes that she has been taking her real parents for granted and that to be able to get the things she wants, she also has to sacrifice something important, namely having buttons sewn into her