Because we talked briefly about the mythological merit of
Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials Trilogy,
I decided to read them over Thanksgiving break. It was crazy the difference
between reading them as a kid versus a semi-adult who has taken this seminar.
Basically Pullman takes Milton’s Paradise
Lost and gives it a twist. What is good and what is evil is overturned. Pullman’s
trilogy is critiqued as anti-religion, but I don’t think that’s true. I think
Pullman is instead against those who blindly believe in what he deems lies,
religion. However, he doesn’t get rid of blind belief, he merely replaces
Christianity with a magical science (travelling through parallel universes and
dealing with conscious dark matter). Also, the Divine Creator wasn’t malicious
or powerful, he was a frail and mentally incapacitated old guy who’s image of
power was kept alive by power hungry angels. I feel as though this book was
mostly against the hierarchy of those believing in religion, that a higher
intermediary is needed between people and their gods, that there is a rigid
structure of how to believe in a god, and against all the truly awful things
done in the name of a false God.
I grew up in a non-religious family, have never been to
church, and before researching various creation myths recently, was pretty
ignorant of Christianity’s mythologies. The first time I read this book, I was
young, and didn’t follow the myth part of the book, I simply thought it was a
good series and thought it ruined a bit by bringing in angels and god. Now
reading the trilogy, armed with knowledge of the Christian myths, I was making
connections and insights with each chapter.
In these books, the rebel humans, angels, and other beasts,
who have unchained themselves from believing in the power of the Church, build
a fortress in the North just as Milton’s rebel angels physically unchain
themselves and build the fortress Pandemonium. The rebels of Pullman’s book
build a bridge spanning universes, as Milton’s build a bridge spanning Heaven
and Earth. The rebels in both works fight the Church. Milton’s God calls a
council in which the Son volunteers as a sacrifice while Pullman’s religious
council calls an assembly where Father Gomez volunteers himself. In Paradise Lost the angel, Raphael, dines
with Adam and tells him the story of the creation of the universe, just as the
angels Baruch and Balthamos tell Will about the story of creation in the
trilogy. In His Dark Materials, Mary
acts as the snake, the temptress, unknowingly helping Lyra recognize her love
for Will. In Milton’s work, Satan in toad and then later snake form comes to
Eve, tricking her into eating from the tree of life. In both works, both Adam
and Will choose to follow Eve and Lyra into sin because of their love and lust
for her. Both pairs go hand in hand into a new world full of pain, hardship and
death. However, here is where they differ. Milton’s Adam and Eve repent to God
and get to stay together, but Lyra and Will must part forever, never giving in
to the Church.
There are three creation myths told in this trilogy. The
first is the Church’s version, similar to Paradise
Lost, basically the central creation myth of Christianity in our world, but
it is a lie. The second is the truth of creation in this trilogy “The
Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord… those were all names he gave himself. He
was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves-the first angel, true,
the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are, and Dust is only a name
for what happens when matter begins to understand itself… He told those who cam
after him that he had created the, but it was a lie. One of those who came
later was wiser than he was, and she found out the truth, so he banished her…”
(His Dark Materials: pg 596). Both of these myths are told negatively, however
there is a third creation myth, of the Mulefa, highly intelligent being that
hook their claw into hard seedpods to use as wheels. There was a serpent who
asked a young, female creature about her knowledge of the past, present, and
future, to which her reply to each was nothing. The serpent advises her to
stick her claw in the seedpod to gain knowledge, and suddenly she gains wisdom
and goes to share it with the other beasts, transforming them into a people. “So they [the Mulefa] had a language, and they
had a fire, and they had society. And about then she found an adjustment being
made in her mind, as the word creatures
became the word people…it’s not them, they’re us.” (His Dark Materials: pg 639).
In this trilogy, Daemons are the souls of the humans, and
are separate from their spirit and body. In Christian Mythology, a Demon has a
very negative image, however in Greek mythology, the word Daemon is a “benevolent
or benign nature spirits, beings of the same nature as both mortals and gods,
similar to ghosts, chthonic heroes, spirit guides, forces of nature or the gods
themselves” (Wikipedia: Daemon (Classical Mythology)).
In this book, half of anything that happens is out of fear.
All this fear boils down to the basic fear of the unknown. The death of
themselves, of friends, of the world they know. The ghosts are initially afraid
of dissipating into the world. Mrs. Coulter from what would happen if Lyra
fulfilled the role as Eve, “She wasn’t only hiding Lyra: she was hiding her own
eyes.” (His Dark Materials: pg 551). They shield themselves because accepting
the unknown is too hard to bear.
Here are some quotes I thought were radical in both
connotation and denotation of the word…
pg 244 “There is a correspondence between the microcosm and
the macrocosm… there are grand purposes abroad… The universe is full of intentions, you know. Everything happens
for a purpose.” ----- Fate is prevalent in the trilogy, there are those who can
read the future, there are prophecies, is there a fate in our universe? On one
side we are free to make decisions, but on the other how do we know if these
are predestined decisions that we just think are free will.
pg 276 “’Now that world, and every other universe, came
about as a result of possibility. Take the example of tossing a coin: it can
come down heads or tails, and we don’t know before it lands which way it’s
going to fall. If it comes down heads, that means the possibility of its coming
down tails has collapsed. Until that moment the two possibilities were equal.
But on another world, it does come down tails. And when that happens, the two
worlds split apart… one moment several things are possible, the next moment
only one happens, and the rest don’t exist. Except that other worlds have
sprung into being, on which they did
happen.’”------ This is awesome, I’m not sure about the physical truth of it,
but these parallel universes certainly exist in our minds as “what-ifs”.
pg 489 “I never trusted children any more than grownups.
They’re just as keen to do bad things.”------ This is nuts to think about, and
true, it’s just the exact things they do that separate the kids from the
adults. Stealing toys vs money, lying about who broke the vase vs who cheated
in a relationship, bulling another kid to get all the awesome colored crayons
vs bullying coworkers in order to move up in the corporation ranks.
pg 740 “…pale, unremarkable figures in shabby clothes.
“These are your deaths?” said Tialys. “Indeed sir,” said Peter. “Do you know
when they’ll tell you it’s time to go?” “No. But you know they’re close by, and
that’s a comfort.”------ This is such a different approach to death, not one in
any culture I’ve heard of before. Death is a friend, a comfort, and they come
to take you gently. However, the people are still afraid of it.
pg 871 “The Christian religion is a very powerful and
convincing mistake, that’s all.”------- This is a quote from an ex-nun who
realized that the Church does nothing but try to suppress all that they can’t
control. And it’s true, somehow people started basing their lives on a book
voted to be holy by a group of men in power centuries ago.
pg 875 “When you stopped believing in God,” he went on, “did
you stop believing in good and evil?” “No. But I stopped believing there was a
power of good and evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good
and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are.”-----------This
is fantastic, and again, totally true. We are these forces, the embodiment of
our perceptions of morals.
I just can’t understand why people that believe in Christian
Mythology don’t question what is good and what is evil. Adam and Eve are
toiling in this garden under a higher power that tells them what to do.
Christianity is so set in their ways that the serpent was evil and brought pain
and suffering upon Adam and Eve. I look at it as Adam and Eve under
brainwashing by some “god” to ignore the true nature of their bodies. Why can’t
the serpent have been bestowing freedom and knowledge upon the two? They were
free of monotonous gardening, though this freedom came at a price of pain and
hard work. But without this temptation, the human race would have never begun. We
would know no happiness because we would have no suffering. Why was God so good
and the serpent so bad? To me it seems like God had brainwashed the two into
free labor, and the serpent set them free to pursue whatever they wished.
