Literary Contexts in Novels: Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass"
By Sandie Byrne
http://web.ebscohost.com/lrc/detail?sid=eb7ccb55-a4b6-4fc3-9eaa-ddc7e1cd0647%40sessionmgr4004&vid=1&hid=4212&bdata=JnNpdGU9bHJjLWxpdmU%3d#db=lfh&AN=23184782
"Barnard and Stokes were two […] 'renegade' theologians
who postulated the existence of numerous other worlds like
this one, neither heaven nor hell, but material and sinful.
They are there close by, but invisible and unreachable. The
Holy Church naturally disapproved of this abominable heresy,
and Barnard and Stokes were silenced."
~~Philip Pullman, "The Golden Compass"
Content Synopsis
"The
Golden Compass" is the first volume in a series of novels, "His Dark
Materials" (a trilogy to date, but with an additional short story
published and a fourth volume promised) which, though initially released
by a publishing company associated with younger readers, has proved to
be "crossover" fiction, that is, suitable for and equally popular with
readers of all ages.
The story is set in a
world and time parallel to our own, but with important differences. The
power of the Church is absolute, and articulated through a tangle of
rival colleges, councils, boards and courts. Ideas which in our world
would be explored by scientists are in this world investigated, or
suppressed, by theologians.
The story opens
in a parallel Oxford, in the Hall of Jordan College. Lyra Belacqua, a
twelve year-old girl who has been brought up by the male Fellows of the
college, wants to see the innermost sanctum of the Fellows, their
Retiring Room. Hiding in a cupboard to avoid discovery, she
inadvertently sees the Master of the college poison the wine to be
offered to her uncle, the arrogant and powerful Lord Asriel, an explorer
who is due to give a talk at the college that evening about his latest
expedition. Lyra warns her uncle, who orders her back into the cupboard
and tells her to observe the Fellows' reaction to his talk. When we meet
Lyra we also meet something inseparable from her. In this world,
everyone has a dæmon, a creature in the form of an animal which is
invisibly but closely connected to them. The dæmon could be interpreted
as the spirit or soul, or anima/animus; in all but a very few cases
males have a female dæmon and females male; but it acts as an
independent entity. The connection is emotional and affectionate; the
actions of the dæmon can express the emotional state of the human, and
when the person dies, the dæmon disappears. The dæmons of children
shape-shift according to mood or need. Lyra's dæmon, Pan, short for
Pantalaimon, can be a mouse and hide in her pocket, or an ermine, his
favorite sleeping-form, or a bird, to fly to seek something out, or an
inconspicuous moth, as when we first see him. Once the child reaches
puberty, the dæmon begins to choose one form more and more often, and by
adulthood, when the young adult's character is fully established, has
fixed on one kind of animal.
Lord Asriel
shows the Fellows three things during his lecture. The first is evidence
of the existence of Dust and its relationship to children. Dust
particles, invisible to the naked eye, come from the sky in streams. The
second is some slides, taken on his expedition to the Arctic region of
their world, which show what seems to be a city skyline in the middle of
the Aurora Borealis, otherwise known as the Northern Lights. Lyra hears
one of the scholar's mention the names Barnard and Stokes in connection
with this, but the reference means nothing to her. The third thing
Asriel mentions is evidence of what happened to the last expedition to
the Northern Lights, the scalped and trepanned head of its leader,
Stanislaus Grumman.
The Master of the
college had been willing to kill Lord Asriel because he had been warned
of appalling consequences should Asriel's research continue;
consequences which would involve Lyra. The warning comes from an
alethiometer, a truth-measure, one of only six ever made. It is a
complex device, and thus very difficult to interpret. The Master knows
that something momentous is going to happen, that there will be a
terrible betrayal, and that Lyra will be the betrayer. He wants to
protect her for as long as possible, but knows that he cannot for much
longer.
Lyra is by no means a typical
heroine: "She was a coarse and greedy little savage" and has passed her
childhood "like a half-wild cat" (37). She is graceless and unkempt,
lies, boasts, and steals, but is also brave, loyal, energetic, and
clear-sighted. She dislikes being cleaned up, having lessons, paying
attention, sitting still, and authority. She enjoys playing on the roofs
and in underground passages, crypts, and cellars of the college with
her best friend, Roger, the kitchen boy, leading her gang, fighting
rival gangs, and fraternizing with the Gyptians (water gypsies) on the
rivers and canals of Oxford. But the gangs are diminishing. All over the
country children are disappearing. Rumor suggests that they have been
taken by the "Gobblers." One day, Roger is missing.
Shortly
after Roger's disappearance, Lyra is introduced to the beautiful Mrs.
Coulter and told that she is to live with her in future. Before Lyra
leaves, the Master gives her the alethiometer, advising her to hide it
from Mrs. Coulter. In London, Mrs. Coulter buys Lyra fine clothes, takes
her to parties, and makes much of her. She also, however, shows an
implacable, even cruel side. When Lyra displeases her, Mrs. Coulter's
golden monkey dæmon hurts Pan. Lyra learns that Lord Asriel is a
prisoner in the far north, that Mrs. Coulter is working for the Genera
Oblation Board of the Church, which she discovers is the origin of the
nickname "Gobblers," and that her work involves the capture of children.
Lyra escapes Mrs. Coulter and hides in the back streets of London. Two
men almost capture her, but she is rescued by one of her Gyptian
friends, Tony Costa.
The Costas are on
their way to join John Faa, Lord of the Western Gyptians, and they take
Lyra with them in their boat, hiding her from the many people searching
for her. John Faa tells Lyra the true story of her birth, her 'uncle,'
Lord Asriel is really her father, and her mother is a beautiful scholar,
wife of the politician Edward Coulter. As a baby, Lyra was given into
the care of a Gyptian woman and hidden on Lord Asriel's estates. When
Edward Coulter came looking for the child, her nurse fled with her to
Asriel's house, where Asriel challenged Coulter to a duel, and killed
him. As a result, the courts confiscated Asriel's property and land, and
ordered the child to be placed with nuns. Asriel, however, stole her
back, and hid her in Jordan College, where the Gyptians have been
watching over Lyra ever since. Although Asriel stipulated that Lyra's
mother should never be allowed to see her, her mother's position in the
machinery of the Church is now so high that she could not be stopped.
Her mother, Lyra learns, is Mrs. Coulter.
The
Gyptians decide to send an expedition north to rescue the children
kidnapped by the "Gobblers." John Faa finds that Lyra is learning how to
use the alethiometer, which could help them to find the missing
children, and so reluctantly allows her to go with them.
On
the journey north, they meet beautiful witches, a Texan balloon
aëronaut, Lee Scoresby, an armored warrior-bear, Iorek Byrnison, and
what they think at first is a ghost. The 'ghost' is alive, just (in this
world an obscene, terrible, unthinkable thing) a child without a dæmon:
"A human being with no dæmon was like someone without a face, or with
their ribs laid open and their heart torn out" (215). The purpose of the
Oblation Board becomes clear. They are the perpetrators of an
unspeakable cruelty: separating children from their dæmons. The child,
unbearably bereft, dies.
Lyra is captured
by hunters and sold to the experimental station run by the Oblation
Board. Roger and Billy Costa are among the children held there, and the
three find both the place where children and dæmons are separated, and
the caged and fading severed dæmons. Mrs. Coulter arrives at the station
and the children fake a fire drill in order to release them. Lyra is
caught, and she and Pan are put into the separator and prepared for
"intercission." Mrs. Coulter stops the process just in time, and Lyra
escapes again. She organizes the children into a gang, and they try to
fight their way past the guards and their wolf dæmons. In the nick of
time, witches, and Iorek Byrnison arrive, and the children escape, only
to have to face a long march across the frozen Arctic. Mrs. Coulter
nearly snatches Lyra and Roger, again, but a witch clan-queen, Serafina
Pekkala, saves them and Lee Scoresby carries them away.
Serafina
Pekkala knows that although Lyra believes she came north to find and
rescue her friend, in fact she was destined to follow Roger north in
order to bring something important to her father. Lyra thinks it is the
alethiometer, but in fact it is Roger. Asriel has learned how to harness
the immense energy released when child and dæmon are separated. He
wants to enter the other world he knows exists, to trace the source of
Dust, which he has deduced is an elementary particle; a particle that
alters its nature "when innocence becomes experience" (373). Dust, he
says, is what theologians call original sin. He has come to the same
conclusion as the Oblation Board, though for different reasons; Dust
must be destroyed. He tells Lyra that somewhere is the origin of Dust
and therefore of "all the death, the sin, the misery, the
destructiveness in the world", and goes on: "[h]uman beings can't see
anything without wanting to destroy it, Lyra. That's original sin. And
I'm going to destroy it. Death is going to die" (377). He severs Lyra's
friend Roger from his dæmon in order to release the energy that will
open a window between worlds, killing Roger in the process. Mrs. Coulter
arrives and is briefly reconciled with Asriel, but refuses to join his
cause. He goes through into the other world, and Lyra, knowing that he
is wrong; that if the Oblation Board believe Dust to be an evil, it must
be good, follows her father.
Historical Context
The
story was published in the UK in 1995 under the title "Northern
Lights." When it was published in the US, an editor changed the title to
"The Golden Compass." Philip Pullman did not acquiesce, but his web
site reports that at the time he did not have the clout to do anything
about it. The story is more or less contemporary, as we see from the
next volume in the trilogy, "The Subtle Knife," which is primarily set
in our own world. Though parallel in time, to readers from our world,
Lyra's world seems like a mixture of periods, including an all-powerful
church with complex church hierarchy belonging to the middle ages or
Renaissance; regions yet to be fully explored or "discovered" by the
west; early modern to eighteenth-century technology, and a few
developments from the nineteenth century (such as hot air balloons).
Societal Context
The
societal contexts of "The Golden Compass" are inextricably bound up
with its religious and technological contexts. The society it depicts is
both like and unlike our own, and could be seen as an allegory of and
warning to our own society. Within Lyra's world we are shown a number of
distinct societies, each providing different ways of interpreting,
ordering, and understanding life. The witches are beautiful and magical,
and have great longevity, but their society is based on a clan system
and riven by political conflict. The bears led by Iorek are strong and
loyal, and skilled craftsmen. Their society is organized and effective,
but militaristic and oppressive to all but the leaders. The Gyptians are
resourceful, able to make and mend and make-do with almost nothing.
Their society is family-oriented, and led by wise and experienced
elders, but they are on the larger society's lower rungs. The Fellows at
Jordan College are scholarly, well-intentioned, and kindly, but
isolated, unworldly, and ultimately ineffective. Their society has
narrowed down to the confines of college and the books under their
noses. The Church is highly effective, and has managed to dominate the
wider society, but its own labyrinthine construction weakens it as
courts and councils jockey for power, negating each other's actions.
In
our own world, this volume and the sequence have received critical
acclaim and become bestsellers, bought by and for both adults and
children. Michael Chabon, in "Dust and Demons," suggests that much in
the novels is of questionable suitability for children, including the
complex character of Lyra, but adds that the ambivalent character of the
stories and their crossover appeal relates to the themes of the stories
themselves (5).
Religious Context
The
title of the series comes from Book II of John Milton's epic poem,
"Paradise Lost," and refers to the "dark materials" of God; the elements
from which he has made the world and from which, if he so ordains, he
will make more worlds. Milton was a Christian and a Puritan at the time
of the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate, and the
subsequent Restoration of the monarchy in Britain. His great poem tells
the story of original sin; of the choice made by Eve which led to the
expulsion from Eden. It has often been said that Milton inadvertently
made Satan the most interesting character in his poem; an energetic and
compelling character whose rhetoric is powerful. A parallel character in
"His Dark Materials" is the leader of the rebellion against religious
authority, Lord Asriel.
Although "Paradise
Lost" is a Christian poem, Pullman uses its themes to make the case
against organized religion; suggesting that the church has used the
threat of damnation and the promise of an everlasting afterlife to keep
people in subjection, and that ignorance rather than innocence is the
state it desires in its subjects. "His Dark Materials" depicts a
parallel "fall" which involves not a choice and a loss of innocence, but
rather than a sin to be deplored and expiated for all time, it is a
sign of humanity's finally coming of age and abandoning the
superstitions and childlike dependencies of its prolonged childhood.
Another
important influence is the work of William Blake. Like Blake's poetry
and engravings, Pullman's trilogy expresses a mistrust of authority,
particularly self-proclaimed and absolute, unfounded authority. The God
of this trilogy, "The Authority," an angel of incredible age, is like
the authoritarian and aloof patriarch in Blake's poem "To Nobodaddy," an
ancient, bearded old man, who has become an excuse for the exercise of
earthly powers. The opponent of that God and his Regent, and thus a
"Satan" figure, (though for much of the trilogy he doesn't fully
understand) has a name reminiscent of one of Blake's rebel angel-type
figures, Asriel. In the philosophy of the trilogy, both this God and
those who use worship of him as their vehicle of power must be
destroyed. Humankind must depend upon itself, not a father-figure; must
cease to base its happiness on a belief in future life, and concentrate
on truly living this life; must cease blindly to obey the dictates of
religion, and work out a true moral code. The trilogy could be seen as a
response or alternative world-view to children's fiction with an
overtly Christian message, such as "The Narnia Stories" by C.S. Lewis.
In
a review published in "The Times", Erica Wager called this "remarkable
writing: courageous and dangerous, as the best art should be," and
asserted that: "Pullman envisions a world without God, but not without
hope" (12).
Scientific & Technological Context
In
Lyra's world, Enlightenment rationalism has not become the dominant
mode of thought that it has in our own world, and that which in our
world would be scientific or technological discourses are in this world
closer to the philosophical or alchemical discourses of the eighteenth
century and earlier. Technological developments have been made, but
there are no internal combustion engines, no nuclear power, and no
computers. There are hot air balloons and Zeppelins, but no airplanes;
the Retiring Room at Jordan College is lit by lamps, and Asriel's
lantern has to be hand-pumped. "Anbaric" lights are relatively rare. As
well as technologically developed artifacts, there are also things that
in our world would belong in the realm of the mystical, mythical, or
magic: the alethiometer; the witches and their pine-cloud flying sticks;
sentient bears; a "spy fly" device; and, of course dæmons. Ideas and
theories which we now take for granted, such as quantum mechanics, chaos
theory, the divisibility of the atom, and the possible existence of
multiple universes, are heresy in Lyra's world, and those who
disseminate them are silenced. Nonetheless, much of the plot rests upon
what we would call "real" science.
Biographical Context
Philip
Pullman studied English at Exeter College, Oxford, on which he loosely
based his Jordan College. While he was writing the trilogy he was living
in Oxford, working in a shed at the back of his garden. Before becoming
a full-time writer, he was a school teacher for a number of years and
later taught trainee teachers at Westminster College, also in Oxford. He
was therefore very well acquainted with contemporary and classic
children's literature before he began writing it. He has been the
awarded several prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian
Children's Book Award, the Astrid Lindgren Award (with illustrator Ryoji
Arai), the Publishers' Weekly best Book of the Year Award, and the
Whitbread Book of the Year Award (for "The Amber Spyglass," the third in
the "His Dark Materials" trilogy), in the first instance of that prize
going to a book classified as for children (though read by many adults).
Pullman produced illustrations for the first two volumes of the trilogy
and small pictures as running heads for the second, to indicate which
world the characters are in at the time. These were not printed in the
first US editions of the novels, but are present in the 2002 editions
published by Knopf.
Complementary Texts
Philip Pullman's, "The Subtle Knife" (1997)
"The Amber Spyglass" (2000)
"The Book of Dust" (the fourth volume in the sequence; forthcoming) "Lyra's Oxford," illustrated by John Lawrence (2003)
John Milton's "Paradise Lost" (1667)
William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and of Experience"
Adaptations
"His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass" (2007) Dir. Chris Weitz
Discussion Questions
1. How does Philip Pullman establish sympathy for Lyra without falling into sentimentality or mawkishness?
- 2. How well do Philip Pullman's representations create a sense of real children in real childhoods?
- 3. How is Mrs. Coulter invested with a sense of menace before we know her real purpose?
- 4. At what point in reading the novel do we realize that it is not set in our own world, and how do we learn this?
- 5. What are readers' initial responses to Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter likely to be? Do these change later in the novel?
- 6. At what point in the book do readers learn about Lyra's destiny and why does she not learn of it at the same time?
- 7.
Why is the alethiometer a better and more interesting device in the
novel than another prediction device such as a crystal ball would be?
- 8. In what ways do Pullman's witches differ from traditional representations of the witch?
- 9.
The UK edition of the novel is called "Northern Lights." What is the
significance of the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) n the story?
- 10. Some aspects of the story might seem frightening or upsetting for younger readers. How does Philip Pullman handle these?
Essay Ideas
1.
Write an essay about Philip Pullman's creation of the dæmon and its
importance, not as a plot device but in terms of imaginative writing.
- 2. Write an essay about moral and other ambiguities of characters in the novel.
- 3. How does the passage from John Milton's "Paradise Lost" set the themes of the novel?
- 4.
How does Philip Pullman avoid the trap of sentimental anthropomorphism
in his depictions of talking animals such as the armored bears?
- 5. Write an essay about the ways in which science, philosophy and religion overlap in the novel.
Works Cited
