Essay about His Dark Materials

His Dark Materials is a trilogy by Philip Pullman, and one of my favourite stories. Thus, when given the option of choosing my own text as a basis for my final English essay in the gymnasium, His Dark Materials was the obvious choice. Especially since it contains a great many thoughts on life, with which I happen to agree.
I’ve decided to upload the essay here, and eventually add things that could not be included in the original paper (there’s a lot to be said!).

I chose to write about the text from l. 5 p. 547 to the end of p. 548, His Dark Materials: The Amber Spyglass, final chapter: The Botanic Garden. I am unsure whether it would be allowed to include so much text from the original here, so I’ll add a brief description of what takes place, soon.

The essay:

The Republic of Heaven

The text chosen for this essay consists of the two last pages in the book The Amber Spyglass, the third book in the trilogy His Dark Materials written by Philip Pullman. Though released primarily as children’s literature the series deal with an abundance of themes important to human existence. The pages have been chosen as they present perhaps the most clearly articulated expression of the views and ideas in the story, though they are obviously touched upon at other points in the narrative. In the following I will examine the text, with the purpose of explaining these themes and ideas, as well as relate them to similar texts from other sources.
One of the primary ways in which the story conveys these themes and ideas is in the way the universe, or, rather, the multiverse in the books work. Due to the nature of the world the conflicts of existence are made much more tangible, and thus, also, are the characters’ ways of dealing with these conflicts made much clearer to the reader. This is especially true for the relationship between Lyra and Will, which is the source of much of what can be learned from the part of the story chosen for this essay. For this to make sense, it is necessary to understand more of Lyra’s world, than is explained in the included text. The world of the story is really a multitude of worlds or universes, hence the term multiverse, and the story centres on Lyra and Will’s adventures across many of these universes. Towards the end of the story it is revealed that humans cannot exist for much longer than ten years in a universe other than their own, before falling sick and dying. Furthermore, the childrens’ means of travel, the Subtle Knife carried by Will, turns out to spawn ghost-like monsters that ‘eat’ the lust for life out of anyone who has entered or passed puberty, every time it is used.
As Will and Lyra come from different worlds, Will from ours and Lyra from a similar-yet-different world, this means that the two cannot stay together, despite being strongly in love as well as close friends, after their many shared experiences – most of which they will never be able to share with others, who would not understand them. Why they do not choose one of the two worlds will be covered lately, first Lyra’s feeling after this separation, as well as it’s implications on the vision of life presented in the text, will be examined.

 

“She had never dreamed of what it would feel like to love someone so much; of all the things that had astonished her in her adventures, that was what astonished her the most. She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it for ever.” (l. 10-13 in the included text.)

 

Primarily, at least at first, this passage shows how life is pain, as her past and her feelings have given Lyra a “bruise that would never go away”, but though the pain may be what is on the surface, it is not all there is. Lyra will cherish her “bruise” forever because it reminds her that she is alive, that she has lived, and, more than anything, that she has loved another person. This clearly indicates the belief that, while life may be pain, it is worth it, due to the connections we form with each other, as well as the experiences shared between us. This includes even bad experiences, or sad memories, such as Lyra’s, after all, she would not be the same person without it, nor would she have all the happy memories with Will. Furthermore bad experiences are needed to give colour and life to the happy ones, without one the other loses meaning and without either there is nothing.
This idea that life is worth something in itself is further explored when Lyra and Pan discuss the end of the kingdom of heaven. The here is always more important than the elsewhere, they say. This does not mean that one should only care about the immediate surroundings, or that it would be wrong to plan for the future. It does, however, mean that it is important to face realities, instead of wistfully imagining a better life than the current ones. Action not imagination and hoping (alone) brings good things. Coupled with the reference to the kingdom of heaven also makes this an attack on organized religion. An attack that resembles traditional accusations against organized religion, namely that organized religion destroys or worsens life by making people follow unnecessary rules, for the purpose of gaining a preferable position in the afterlife. By focusing on the elsewhere, rather than the here.
The song The Preacher and the Slave by Joe Hill is an expression of the same resentment towards organized religion, as shown in these stanzas from the song:

 

“Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right;
But when asked how ‘bout something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet

 

You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die”
(Lyrics found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Preacher_and_the_Slave)

 

But why did Will and Lyra not choose to go to one of their worlds and stay there? The answer comes readily in the text itself:

 

““But then we wouldn’t have been able to build it. No one could, if they put themselves first.”
(l. 30 in the included text.)

 

Before looking at what they wish to build, it is relevant to look at the statement, that no one could, if they put themselves first. The concept that one must never put oneself before others is known from many other sources. It is part of the categorical imperative of Kant, used to finding moral laws, that it is always immoral to make oneself an exception. However, more related to the situation of Lyra and Will is the idea, explored among others by Jean-Paul Sartre, that truly moral relations between people must be devoid of any exercise of power, they must be completely equal. If they went into one the worlds, they would never be completely equal in their relationship again; one of them would have to give up the majority of their life, though gaining a sort of moral power over the other. Not only would the one, whose home world they had chosen, be forced to watch the other slowly fade away – while they were still in their twenties! – but would also have an obligation to stay with the other, due to the sacrifice that person had made in coming. Such an obligation might erode their love, one of them would feel a burden, and the other might become resentful at the first due to being exposed to the pain of watching powerlessly watching him or her fade away.
The only way for it to stay a true, honest relationship was for it to end, for them to go to their respective universes.
Lyra ends with explaining what they are going to build: The republic of heaven. With the above in mind, it is fairly simple to figure out the meaning of this. The kingdom of heaven is focused on the elsewhere, governed by hard rules imposed by a single ruler, and aggressive towards alternative ideas. The republic of heaven, on the other hand, is focused on the here, on inter-human relations, and on life, accepting that both the good and bad parts must be faced and dealt with. Just before Lyra mentions the republic of heaven comes a passage describing how a multitude of different bells start ringing. The bells are all different, but none of them are judged because of it. It gives a picture of life as incredibly varied, and better for this diversity. And so it might be concluded that, to build the republic of heaven, it is necessary to learn to accept diversity, in addition to the other things discussed above. The final, and perhaps most important, difference is that the kingdom of heaven will make you conform, while you have to build the republic of heaven yourself.
All in all the views expressed in the story are critical of organized religion, but more than everything else they are optimistic about life, good and bad included.