His Dark Materials
The Golden Compass
By Philip Pullman
Literary Analysis
The Catholic Church was said to be the most powerful and influential entity during The Middle Ages. Philip Pullman depicts this all-powerful entity in a very strange and new kind of way in The Golden Compass. The Golden Compass is set in a universe much like our own, but different in many ways. Human souls are not inside the body as they are in our world. The souls are outside the body as daemons in the form of animals. A particle called Dust is what connects the universes and flows within dæmons. This book is said to be very anti-God, but I believe that it is anti-organized religious power.
The main character in the book is Lyra Belacqua. Lyra is an eleven-year-old girl from Oxford, England. Lyra’s journey starts when Mrs. Coulter, a very powerful woman who works for the Magisterium, visits Jordan College. Lyra has lived at Jordan Collage since she was a little girl and not calls it home. Mrs. Coulter takes an interest in Lyra and “persuades” the Master to let Lyra be Mrs. Coulter’s assistant. After Lyra discovers that her best friend Roger and a Gyptian boy Billy Costa have been taken by Gobblers, she sets out to free them. Lyra has been prophesized by the Witches to be the girl who saves them all from the ever-growing, powerful Magisterium.
The Magisterium, in real life, is the authority and power of the church to teach religious truth. The Magisterium in The Golden Compass is a version of the Catholic Church gone wildly astray from its roots. The Magisterium censors all things that happen and suppresses any people who try to defy the Magisterium like Lord Asriel. Lord Asriel is Lyra’s uncle who is an explorer and dose work in experimental theology. A branch of the Magisterium called the General Oblation Board run by Mrs. Coulter researches Dust and how it affects humans and dæmons. The Magisterium fears Dust and seeks to destroy it. How the Magisterium plans to destroy Dust is to cut people’s dæmons away before Dust settles in them. A person without a daemon is like a person without a soul.
The Magisterium wants people to be ignorant about the worlds around them. I believe that ensuring ignorance will only make people seek out the truth. One thing that the Catholic Church has always strived to do is prevent people from becoming freethinking adults. If knowledge was open to the public who knows what information people would find that the Catholic Church has concealed. In The Golden Compass Lyra’s quest is more than just to find her friend; it is to discover the truth about the unknowns that the Magisterium has so fervently hidden. Lyra’s quest leads her to discover the truth about Dust and other worlds that can be seen in the Aurora in the far northern sky. The Magisterium has even destroyed almost all of the alethiometers (a device which measures the truth) in fear of people finding out about the secrets the Magisterium holds.
Many people believe that if a book or movie is unfavorable on the subject of religion the book or movie is anti-religion. However, most of the time the book or movie is trying to make a point that if a religion has total power there is bound to be fatal consequences for humanity. In The Golden Compass the Magisterium has too much power and plans to use that power to rule the universe. Also, freedom of knowledge is taken away to make people believe and think like the Magisterium. The religious entity in this book has too much power. The Magisterium is using this power to take over the universe. The Magisterium is also using its power to take away the knowledge of the things that the Magisterium fears. The book is not anti-God; the book is anti organized religious power. I believe that Philip Pullman did not want to teach children to be anti-God. I think Philip Pullman wanted people to know that they always have a choice and to never let someone say otherwise. Believing that people have a choice is the central idea and theme to The Golden Compass.
