Research Paper

Pullman walks a fine line in His Dark Materials trilogy. Didacticism reigns throughout the book, but simultaneously a message of “negative capabilities” permeates all the major themes of the novels. When considering didacticism, I envision someone trying to force their ideas on me; this is certainly the feeling I got with the Christian ideologies cleverly incorporated into the colonial primers. But, one of Pullman's messages – clearly there are many – is that you should determine the message yourself. He places a value on the unknown; the uncertainty of life is part of its beauty. This may seem counterintuitive considering that another message Pullman stresses is the importance of knowledge and wisdom against the conforming nature of ignorance. When weighing knowledge and wisdom against uncertainty it is tempting to categorize these entities as opposite. Pullman, through the medium of fantasy and children's literature demonstrates the necessity of dismissing this false dichotomy. One can be knowledgeable and wise while at the same time being uncertain. In fact, it is crucial that one be uncertain to be wise and knowledgeable.
It is through this dialogue of uncertain didacticism that Pullman is able to delve into controversial and heavy issues of religious corruption and human consciousness. He plays with these issues in a way which forces readers to think about the issues for themselves, and even if he forces his audience to think about issues under a new light, he does not attempt to force the reader into prescribing to any particular line of thought. I presume it is this thought provoking nature of Pullman's novels that is at the center of the fundamentalist Christian outrage concerning the atheistic edge of Pullman's work. Whether it is discrediting evolutionary theory, condemning other religions, or forcing moral judgments and ultimatums on people, stifling thought is an all too occurring theme within the more extreme sects of Christianity, and it is not surprising that this book rubs them the wrong way.
One particularly thought provoking passage was the mulefa's version of the story of Adam and Eve:
The story tells that the snake said, “what do you know? What do you remember? What do you see ahead?” And she said “Nothing, nothing, nothing.” So the snake said, “Put your foot through the hole in the seedpod where I was playing, and you will become wise.” So she put a foot in where the snake had been. And the oil entered her blood and helped her see more clearly than before, and the first thing she saw was the sraf. It was so strange and pleasant that she wanted to share it at once with her kindred. So she and her mate took the seedpods, and they discovered that they knew who they were, they knew they were mulefa and not grazers. They gave each other names. They named themselves mulefa. They named the seed tree, and all the creatures and plants.
This alternative interpretation of the biblical story provokes the kind of thinking that I'm guessing is extremely scary for fundamentalist Christians, but maybe this idea that Eve had to be tempted in order for us to gain consciousness is not so far off of the Christian message. I remember as a child growing and beginning to learn of some of the awful things that happen in our world, It became very difficult for me to understand why God – if there was a God – would let such things happen. A sermon that I heard growing up addressed this conundrum by explaining that God granted humans free will and consciousness because this was the only way that they could grow, and naturally as children, he would want them to grow. But, with free will and consciousness people would sin, and bad things would happen. At the time this really did not satisfy my young mind, but looking back on it, illuminated by this book, it seems strikingly consistent with the necessity of Eve's original sin. Of course, the priest who told the sermon had not said that it was a good thing that Eve sinned (that would be blasphemous!), but what a liberating idea! That sins can be good, that sins may be necessary to human consciousness and growth.
Hidden in Pullman's book is the idea that the greatest sin of all is failing to live a full life. In order to escape the world of the dead and to get to dissolve into the beauty of life again, you need to tell the harpies a story. “...the true stories the harpies want to hear in exchange...So if people live their whole lives and they've got nothing to tell about it when they've finished, then they'll never leave the world of the dead.” This seems to be parallel to an eternal condemnation to hell for not living a life worthy of a story. It is not that you are sent to hell because you are evil, it is like Mary Malone says, “I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of 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. All we can say is that this is a good deed because it helps someone, or that's an evil one, because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels.” What would this message, that people cannot be evil for doing bad things, do to the scare tactics of fundamentalist Christians? (and what would this message have done to George Bush's Axis of evil?)
In this dialogue of living a full life Pullman takes a poke at the Church by connecting failure to live a full life with Church guidelines that deny followers certain aspects of life. Mary Malone says in response to her chastity vows as a nun, “Will anyone be better off if I go straight back to the hotel and say my prayers and confess to the priest and promise never to fall into temptation again? Will anyone be the better for making me miserable?” This is a very powerful message for children's literature. It is didactic in the sense that it teaches us to live our lives to the utmost potential, yet it does not tell us what to do or believe. We are instructed instead to make our own decisions. We should not accept the abstract and culturally derived morals such as a vow of chastity that sacrifices a major part of the beauty and love humans are capable of experiencing. We should not live our entire lives striving for the kingdom of heaven... “the kingdom of heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn't live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.” We should strive to live a full life, to help people with our deeds, and experience as much love and beauty as is humanly possible in one lifetime.
Pullman's message is didactic, but it leaves the decision making to us. He does not respond to absolutism. Things are not that concrete, and people are too complex to give simple labels such as good or evil. Ideas should be taken for what they are - thought through as they apply to the individual. It is when opinions and faiths are forced on others in the name of morality or goodness that trouble results. It was a pleasant surprise, while reading Pullman's novels that the supposed evil, the Authority, the nemesis of good, was described in such a compassionate, beautiful way: "...his ancient eyes deep in their wrinkles blinked at her with innocent wonder ...and he would have followed them anywhere, having no will of his own, and responding to simple kindness like a flower to the sun." This does not sound like a description of the evil force that needs to be conquered. He was merely a being, who may have done evil deeds in his long life, but the truly evil deed - done in the feign of God's will, was the stifling of thought, the destruction of art, and the acceptance of ignorance.