Beyond the Collapse of Meaning: Narratives of Monstrosity in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials

Abstract

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, consisting of The Golden Compass (1995), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (2000), is a composite of multiple narratives in which adult and adolescent monsters enact radically different modes of monstrous meaning. An agentic protagonist that embodies the abject, the monster threatens the stability of subjectivity. It is therefore paradoxically a subject arisen from, and composed of, the abject. The Authority, or God, creates a rigid cultural narrative that supports separation and hierarchy, while Lyra Belacqua, a young adolescent, provides a redemptive vision of monstrosity. Her narrative is empathic and heteroglossic, and the subjective meaning that she creates arises from a multiplicity of abject perspectives.