Summary
Lyra is surprised that the Master has an interesting guest like Mrs. Coulter. During dinner, she eagerly sits next to her and the two immediately hit it off. Lyra excitedly tells Mrs. Coulter everything about herself. When Mrs. Coulter mentions that she has made several trips to the North to research the aurora borealis, Lyra remembers that her Uncle is doing similar research. Lyra is fascinated by Mrs. Coulter’s stories and her desire to see the North only intensifies.
After dinner, the Master tells Lyra that she has grown too old to stay in the care of the Scholars. She must leave soon. At first, Lyra is upset. She worries she will have to go to school or to study with one of the female scholars that she finds so boring. However, she is excited when the Master tells her that Mrs. Coulter will take her on as an assistant and student. Lyra prepares to leave early the next morning.
Before it is time to leave, Mrs. Lonsdale awakens Lyra and instructs her to sneak to the Master’s quarters without anyone seeing her. When Lyra arrives the Master is in a rush. He gives her his alethiometer but gives her no instructions about how to use it. All he tells her is to keep the device a secret from Mrs. Coulter. Somebody knocks on the Master’s door and Lyra must return to her bedroom before sunrise.
Mrs. Coulter finds Lyra in her room and the two board a blimp to London, where Lyra is to start her new life. When they arrive, Lyra feels overwhelmed by the glamour and wealth that Mrs. Coulter shares with her. Mrs. Coulter takes her shopping and to eat at a fancy restaurant. Everything about her new surroundings enthralls Lyra, but she is mostly excited by Mrs. Coulter’s plans to take her North in a few months. Meanwhile, Lyra begins to toy with her new alethiometer, and together with Pantalaimon, she tries to determine its use.
For six weeks Lyra accompanies Mrs. Coulter to various social gatherings, meetings at the Royal Arctic Institute, and shopping trips. During this time Lyra learns many new things from Mrs. Coulter. However, Pantalaimon thinks that Lyra is more of a pet to Mrs. Coulter than her assistant. He feels frustrated and doubts if they are actually ever going to go North at all.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Coulter organizes a cocktail party and invites dozens of important people from London high society. Mrs. Coulter tells Lyra that she cannot wear a shoulder bag to the party. But when Lyra resists the order, Mrs. Coulter’s dæmon attacks Pantalaimon in retaliation. Lyra and Pantalaimon are shaken, and Lyra starts to think that Pantalaimon may be right about Mrs. Coulter after all.
At the cocktail party, Lyra follows Mrs. Coulter’s instructions and responds pleasantly to all of the adults who ask her questions. One adult, a journalist named Adele Starminster, takes a special interest in Lyra when she discovers that Lyra is somehow related to Mrs. Coulter. Adele takes Lyra aside and asks her many questions regarding Mrs. Coulter’s personality and activities. Lyra gives Adele some information. But soon Mrs. Coulter appears and kicks Adele out of the party, saying that she was never invited.
Lyra becomes more suspicious of Mrs. Coulter and starts to eavesdrop on the adults’ conversations. She learns that the Gobblers are actually a Church group called the General Oblation Board, and that Mrs. Coulter is the group’s leader. Lyra also learns some new details about Dust, the mysterious material that her uncle has been researching in the North. Finally, she overhears that Lord Asriel has been captured. He is being held in the far northern fortress of Svalbard, where he is guarded by intelligent armored bears called Panserbjørn. Convinced that she is no longer safe under Mrs. Coulter’s care, Lyra gathers a few belongings and her alethiometer, and flees the cocktail party without Mrs. Coulter noticing.
Lyra searches for a place to sleep in the unfamiliar streets of London. When a pair of strange men try to kidnap her, Ma Costa and her son Tony come out of the shadows to save her. They invite Lyra onto their boat to eat and rest. In the morning she tells Tony and Ma everything that she has experienced since leaving Oxford, excluding only the alethiometer from her story. Tony then tells Lyra that they are gathering supplies to attend a roping, a large meeting of gyptians, since the Oblation Board has kidnapped many of their children. He expects that at the meeting the gyptians will plan a rescue party to the North to free their children. Lyra tells him that she would like to join their rescue party to save Roger, and also hopes to be able to free her uncle from the Panserbjørn prison.
Analysis
As Lyra begins her new life away from Jordan College she faces strong internal conflict for the first time. Within just a few hours of discovering Roger’s disappearance, she is so distracted by Mrs. Coulter that she forgets about her best friend all together. When she remembers him, she feels “guilty for not having thought of him once since meeting Mrs. Coulter.” Lyra also feels conflicted about who to trust. This leads her to follow the Master’s advice to “keep her own counsel.” Only by learning to first trust herself can Lyra learn who she can trust.
In London, Lyra learns many new things that she never had the chance to learn at Jordan College. Lyra received her education from the Scholars, some of the most educated people in England. However, they gave her a piecemeal education that has left her with large gaps in her knowledge of the world. Lyra has so little general knowledge that she thinks Mrs. Coulter is joking when she teaches her that the Earth revolves around the sun. This is an instance of situational irony, since one would not expect a child raised by university scholars to lack such basic knowledge of the world.
Lyra’s new setting allows her to meet many new people, and Pullman makes full use of their dæmons as a tool to quickly characterize the new characters he introduces. For example, Lord Boreal’s dæmon is a serpent, characterizing him as untrustworthy. Adele Starminster’s dæmon is a butterfly, characterizing her as curious, intelligent and harmless. The elderly woman that questions Lyra about her schooling has a scarlet macaw as a dæmon, characterizing the woman as obsessed with appearances but without depth of character. Throughout the work, dæmons often personify their human’s character traits.
Once Lyra leaves Mrs. Coulter’s home she faces a new and difficult situation. Pullman takes this opportunity to characterize Lyra as adept and quick on her feet. For example, when a strange man in the street asks Lyra what she is doing all alone, Lyra humorously invents a story that her father is a professional murderer and she is simply waiting for him to come from a job. The man is not sure whether to believe her or not, but the story is enough to give him second thoughts about taking advantage of the young girl.
Throughout The Golden Compass, Pullman establishes an ominous and fantastical mood. To do so he often uses ancient, strange words to describe seemingly ordinary things. One example is the “chthonic railway.” Chthonic means underground, and usually refers to mythological underworlds. By referring to what appears to simply be a metro, or a subway system, with such a dark and loaded adjective, Pullman establishes the ominous mood of Lyra’s world.
