Abstract
Given its stance against organised religion, it is perhaps not surprising that Philip Pullman’s award-winning trilogy His Dark Materials has, alongside the plaudits and praise, invited controversy and debate. Jacobs (The Weekly Standard, 2000), for instance, views the “anti-Christian” theme in Pullman’s work as both misleading and dishonest, whilst Hitchens (The Mail on Sunday, 2002) denounces it as atheistic “propaganda.” Of central concern to these critics, and others, is the impact of Pullman’s heretical understandings on impressionable young readers. I would suggest that such concern implies a somewhat questionable homogenisation of young readers, and fails to recognise the empowering potential residing in Pullman’s text. Indeed, by drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of “carnival,” a literary mode which subverts official culture through laughter and role reversals, it can be argued that far from indoctrinating the reader or promoting uncontested atheistic understandings, the heretical disruptions and inversions in Pullman’s religious theme encourage an altogether more positive and plural response.
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Notes
The fact that the church exists in a different, “imagined” world means that it is unlikely to be viewed as an exact representation of Christianity. For instance, in Northern Lights Asriel reads the story of the Fall from the book of Genesis in Lyra’s world. This version clearly alludes to the sacred text of Judaeo-Christian tradition, but any notion of this being a literal transcription of the Bible in the reader’s world is compromised by reference to the moment when Adam and Eve succumb to temptation and for the first time are able to see “the true form of their own daemons” (Pullman, 1996, p. 372).
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to Dr Clare Walsh for all her support and guidance and to Dr Elaine Lomax for her comments on an early draft of this article.
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Chantal Oliver graduated from De Montfort University Bedford in 1995 and has since worked as a tutor in further and higher education. In 1999, she returned to De Montfort University to study on a part-time basis and in 2001 achieved a Masters degree in Literary Studies, the topic of her thesis being Robert Louis Stevenson’s “South Sea” novellas. Chantal is, at present, enrolled on a part-time M.Phil/PhD programme with the University of Bedfordshire. The focus of her research for this is a comparative study of radical “crossover” literature written by both adult and teenage authors for a readership comprising of children and young adults.
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Oliver, C. Mocking God and Celebrating Satan: Parodies and Profanities in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials . Child Lit Educ 43, 293–302 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-012-9165-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-012-9165-4