“The only light came from the hall, and Coraline, who was standing in the doorway, cast a huge and distorted shadow onto the drawing room carpet—she looked like a thin giant woman.”

The imagery in this quote of a thin, giant woman serves to foreshadow the presence of the other mother. Coraline has gotten out of bed to investigate a noise, and as she stands in the drawing room, which holds the door to the other mother’s world, she notes the distortion of her shadow in the hall light. This seemingly innocent moment is much darker once the appearance of the other mother is revealed.

“She 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.”

The imagery of the dark shapes is explained later on when Coraline meets the rats tamed by the other Mr. Bobo. With the revelation that the rats are the other mother’s spies, this dream shows the other mother already has her sights set on Coraline.

“‘The message is this. Don’t go through the door.’ He paused. ‘Does that mean anything to you?’

‘No,’ said Coraline.

The old man shrugged. ‘They are funny, the mice. They get things wrong. They got your name wrong, you know. They kept calling you Coraline. Not Caroline. Not Caroline at all.’”

As the old man upstairs, Mr. Bobo, passes along a message from the mice regarding the door to the other world, he explains that the mice can be wrong sometimes. However, he is the one who is wrong about Coraline’s name, foreshadowing that the mice are correct about the dangerous nature of the door.