The Golden Compass Literary Elements

Fantasy, Young Adult

The Golden Compass is set in the England and Arctic of a parallel universe. In Lyra’s world, a powerful theocracy known as the Magisterium, or often just the Church, controls the government and society.

The narrator is a third-person omniscient narrator. This means that the narration is not limited to just one character’s experiences. The narrator mostly sticks to Lyra’s point of view, but occasionally describes events that occur while Lyra is asleep or far away.

The tone of the novel is empathetic and contains both humor and poignant observations about the events taking place. The mood is exhilarated and full of mystery, discovery, and liberation.

Lyra is the main protagonist and could even be considered a heroine. This is because she must grow in order to complete her mission to save the world. For the majority of the novel, Mrs. Coulter is the antagonist against whom Lyra struggles. Even so, Pullman first presents the college’s Master as the antagonist, while at the end of The Golden Compass Lord Asriel seems to occupy this role. Behind all of these antagonists there is one larger, faceless antagonist: the Church.

A major conflict in The Golden Compass is between the General Oblation Board, or the Gobblers, and the gyptians. The Gobblers are dedicated to kidnapping children all over England to perform medical experiments on them in the Arctic. Because of the gyptians’ marginalized position in society, their children are particularly vulnerable to kidnapping by the Gobblers. This is because gyptian children spend much of their time on the street and the non-gyptian population often turns a blind eye to the community’s problems. This state of affairs leads the gyptians to organize a mission to rescue their children. The conflict culminates in the gyptians’ raid on the Gobbler’s research base in the Arctic. Finally, the gyptians defeat the Gobblers with a coalition of witches, an armored bear, and an American aeronaut.

The climax of the novel begins when Lord Asriel’s butler awakens Lyra to reveal that her father has left the house with her friend Roger. Lyra chases after her father, who has kidnapped her friend to perform the very cruel medical procedure that Lyra had originally set out to save him from. Though the great armored bear Iorek Byrnison accompanies Lyra on the pursuit, he is unable to cross a wobbly bridge made of snow. Thus, Lyra must make the last leg of her journey alone. She arrives too late and witnesses her father sever Roger from his dæmon. In so doing he kills Roger and creates a bridge to a city in another world. This confirms the theory that Lord Asriel has held since the first scene of the novel: other worlds exist and it is possible for people to reach them.

“Pantalaimon watched with powerful curiosity until Mrs. Coulter looked at him, and he knew what she meant and turned away, averting his eyes modestly from these feminine mysteries as the golden monkey was doing. He had never had to look away from Lyra before” (p. 50). At this point in the story, Lyra does not know about the Oblation Board’s practice of severing children from their dæmons. Nor does she know that one day Mrs. Coulter will try to sever her from Pantalaimon. Mrs. Coulter is able to make Pantalaimon look away from his human, for the first time ever, with nothing more than a stern look. This foreshadows that one day Mrs. Coulter will attempt to separate the two on a more permanent basis.

“Lyra had to adjust to her new sense of her own story, and that couldn't be done in a day.”

Lyra discovers that everything she thought she knew about her identity and her origins was a lie. Many people spend their whole lives trying to come to terms with their identities. Lyra is likely to spend the rest of the narrative discovering the implications of the new information she has received about her who her parents really are and who she really is. In this way, it is an understatement that Lyra’s adjustment “couldn’t be done in a day.”

“Experimental Station”

Sister Clara tells Lyra that Bolvangar is an “Experimental Station.” This is not entirely untrue, since experiments do take place at Bolvangar. Yet these experiments are cruel and mutilating ones performed on children. Lyra and the reader both know that this is an understatement. In trying to hide a cruel reality, it only serves to draw attention to it.

Gyptian society is full of allusions to different groups in English culture. Their boating way of life is an allusion to the “boat people,” or “people of the canals” who for centuries made their living by trading goods along the canals and rivers of England. Some aspects of gyptian culture are allusions to the Roma culture that exists throughout England and Europe. The name of the gyptians is itself is an allusion to the word “gypsy,” which is sometimes used to refer to Roma people and is often considered a derogatory term. Since the Roma arrived in England they have faced persecution, prejudice, and racism.

As Ma Costa’s boat approaches the Fens, Pullman describes the region that the gyptians call home as a wild area full of dangers for outsiders. “Eels slithered and waterbirds flocked…eerie marsh fires flickered and waylurkers tempted careless travelers to their doom in the swamps and bogs” (p. 71). This vivid imagery evokes a strong sense of danger. Yet the gyptians feel safest in the Fens. Pullman’s eerie description of the gyptians' homeland strengthens his characterization of them as a strong, fearless people. They must live in and adapt to this landscape because of the prejudices they have faced.

Lyra must save the world without knowing that she is fulfilling her destiny.

Serafina Pekkala is well aware of Lyra’s mission because her people have had a prophecy about it for hundreds of years. At the center of the prophecy is an important paradox: Lyra will have no choice about whether or not to save the world. However, the only way that Lyra can save the world is by being ignorant that she is doing so.

Over the course of Lyra’s journey to another world, many external factors influence her actions. However, Lyra always maintains a sense of individual agency. She believes that she is making her own choices based on her desires and beliefs. Even when she accidentally brings her friend Roger to his death, Lyra persists in her belief that she is in control. She justifies her next steps towards fulfilling her destiny by developing the personal belief that “Dust is good.” All the while, Pullman makes it clear to the reader that Lyra has no choice but to move onward, regardless of her desires or beliefs.

Mrs. Coulter describes a severed dæmon as “the best pet in the world,” and shortly after refers to Lyra as “the best assistant in the world.” When Lyra and Pantalaimon are in London, Pantalaimon tells Lyra that Mrs. Coulter is using her as a pet rather than as an assistant. Many miles away, in the North, Mrs. Coulter uses the same language to describe Lyra’s status as an “assistant” and a severed dæmon’s status as a mindless “pet.” Pullman uses parallelism to highlight the way Mrs. Coulter is using Lyra, suggesting that Pantalaimon’s instinct was correct all along.

Pullman uses “White Hall” (the residence of the king) and “Westminster” (the district in London where White Hall was located) to refer to the government structures located there. This use of metonymy highlights the importance of geography in the complex power systems that characterize the world of the Golden Compass.

In The Golden Compass each human’s dæmon acts as a personification of his or her inner self. Children’s dæmons can take on different forms, representing their flexibility of character. Yet adults’ dæmons settle into an animal that reflects something profoundly important about their character. Since dæmons personify a human’s inner self, any efforts to hide one’s true character must eventually fail. Even in our world without dæmons, each person’s actions eventually reveal their character.