Material girls : examining the effects of subject/object relationships on the protagonists of Neil Gaiman's Coraline and Hiromi Goto's Half World

• Main Author: Kesanakurthy, Yashaswi
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2014
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/50828

This study uses thing theory as a focal lens to examine the way subject/object relationships are portrayed within two fantasy novels— Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and Hiromi Goto’s Half World— that have elements of horror in them. It takes into consideration the tropes and stereotypes present within dark stories for children and uses thing theory to look at how subjects and objects are introduced to one another within a horror setting and, consequently, how they transform each other through either use or misuse. This allows for a fuller understanding of how subjects and objects transgress and mutate within the horror genre. It provides an alternative direction from which to approach the analysis of character development by understanding the ways in which child protagonists are transformed by objects and how they, in turn, can manipulate things and situations to shift the balance of power in their favour. The findings provide an alternative approach to the further study of gender representations and cultural identities in horror fiction for children and young adults. === Arts, Faculty of === Library, Archival and Information Studies (SLAIS), School of === Graduate