The Ocean at The End of The Lane & Adulthood

In The Ocean at The End of The Lane (shortened to The Lane from here on out), Gaiman commits to certain ideologies about relationships, mainly concerning those in adulthood, expressed through the lens of a child. There is a general mistrust of adults encouraged throughout The Lane, as they usually don't listen and are internally children themselves. Throughout, the main character (narrator) blankly establishes some poignant values to support this main ideology:

• He does not kill animals, assuming because animals are seen as honest, pure souls to be respected, in works of fiction. They are a part of nature and nature is to be valued; this is also a running theme but more subtle. Only adults disrespect nature; as seen with the opal miner's profession and attitude or conversely with the Hempstock's respect for their animals. 
• He enjoys myths, primarily Greek, because they're neither adult nor children stories, "they just are".
• He reads a lot, most likely this is to express his need to escape his current household; further explored with his adventures with Lettie.
• He mentions specifically that he mistrusts adults because they don't believe him, and that's why he would never tell about the dreams he's had.

However, the main character establishes early on that we all look like and thus will become our parents. It is an aspect of life that he struggles to reconcile with, as we all do. To further the feeling of detachment and social disconnect; there seems to be no interpersonal relationships held, at all. Everything is stated as a fact, either untrue or true. The extended flashback that is used to frame the story is from the perspective of a child, therefore everything is (cleverly) described in a matter-of-fact manner, making the retellings very straightforward. For example, the narrator, at age 7, could only relate his feelings about money relative to how many sweets he could get; "I went to bed that night happy and excited. I was rich. Buried treasure had been discovered. The world was a good place."

When examined from a broader perspective, this is a commentary on how children have simplified views of the world. Often it can benefit them by dismissing trauma. However, children can be hindered by their oversimplification due to the process producing more obstacles than are actually there. When the narrator happens upon the dead opal miner, we as the reader don't know if the narrator has registered what he's seen. Only a couple of pages later, through an analogy, does the narrator address it by saying "They could not look truly dead, because they did not ever look alive." Through the miner, we learn how the narrator processes information, particularly about death. The miner's apology for accidentally killing the narrator's cat is seen as a repayment; an exchange, there are no apologies given or received and the cat is merely replaced with another cat. More so, the miner's suicide is the catalyst to Ursula Monkton's arrival, a being that introduces a grey morality that the narrator is not familiar with.

Ursula Monkton gives the narrator strange feelings, she is reminiscent of The Sheep Man in A Wild Sheep Chase, but with destructive motivation. (Actually, the chase sequence through the field reminds me vaguely of Joyce Carol Oates' Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been, specifically her personification of the Devil and the feelings evoked because of that character.) Anyway, we know this character, Ursula, isn't quite right.
Ursula is a fierce opponent, originally presented to us as an absolute villain. The narrator says of Ursula, further expressing Gaiman's thoughts about adulthood: "She was also an adult, and when adults fight children, adults always win." But later we learn that Ursula only cares about giving people what they want. This is clearly not a good spirited motivation as it truly means giving people what they want; probably bad things, deep dark things that people desire. All of this; in order for her to be happier. But learning this fact helps us finally understand her nature and being, even spreading money about the town caused chaos or sleeping with the narrator's father--giving the father what he wants--it is her nature.

When Ursula was destroyed, the narrator said of her "...she was the adult world with all its power and its secrets and all its foolish casual cruelty."

When the dad drowns the narrator in the bathtub but he still insists that "my father did not hit me" it further plays with the reality that Gaiman builds.
And in this moment, when Ursula locks the narrator in the room, I realize this reminds me of Coraline. I read Coraline, another of Gaiman's books, in middle school. But the fear and "other-motherness" of Ursula is familiar and adult