Philip Pullman's 'The Golden Compass'

Philip Pullman is the author of the children’s book trilogy: His Dark Materials. Due to Pullman’s Atheist claims, the children’s book is extremely controversial all over the world. However, there are many situations throughout His Dark Materials that suggest that there is a God-like higher power at work. Despite Pullman’s claims on being an Atheist, his strong Anglican roots caused him to write a trilogy that sustains the concept of religion and replaces one God with another: Dust. Throughout the His Dark Materials, Pullman creates situations that seem to be more of Anglican values than Atheism because of his Anglican roots. In the first book of the trilogy, The Golden Compass, the concepts of a higher power are introduced in a form called

One important role of Dust is controlling what a person’s daemon ends up ultimately being after they have reached maturity and their character has fully formed. In the trilogy, Daemons are a person’s inner-self manifested into a physical animal creature. For children, Dust is not attracted to them yet because they have not matured. Due to immaturity, a child’s daemon is constantly changing from one animal to another. However for adults, Dust tends to gravitate towards them because they have matured, thus fixating their daemons to one single creature. As The Golden Compass progresses, it becomes more aware that the main driving force of power originates from a place called The Magisterium. The Magisterium uses the General Oblation Board, or the Gobblers, as its agent to carry out horrific tasks. One situation that Pullman explains is “bad” because it violates the views of the created order is the task of the Gobblers to severe the children from their daemons. Throughout The Golden Compass, children are kidnapped and sent away to have their souls ripped away from within them. Going through with this task and severing a child from their daemon is

In The Amber Spyglass, The Land of the Dead is introduced when Lyra ventures there to rescue an old friend: Roger. Pullman described this place as: “…A great plain that extended far ahead into the mist. The light by which they saw was a dull self-luminescence that seemed to exist everywhere equally, so that there were no true shadows and no true light, and everything was the same dingy color. Standing on the floor of this huge space were adults and children… so many that Lyra couldn’t guess their number.” (Pullman, The Amber Spyglass, The Whispers) There are creatures called harpies that live in The Land of the Dead who’s main objective is to scream, cry, and shriek all of the poor decisions made in one’s life. Will, the second protagonist introduced in The Amber Spyglass, accompanies Lyra on this journey. The harpies attack Will when they first arrive, “…he heard the words they were shouting—scoffing words, filthy words, all about his mother, words that shook his heart…” (Pullman, The Amber Spyglass, The Whispers) There are many similarities to The Land of the Dead and the characteristics of Hell, which makes Pullman’s claims to Atheism even more arguable. In both the Land of the Dead and Hell, only the dead can go there, no living person is allowed, the dead are constantly tormented, and it is an overall extremely unpleasant place to be. When any one dies, they end up in