Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas
explored in a literary work.
Will and Grace
The battle between Metatron’s forces and Lord Asriel’s
forces ultimately boils down to the human struggle for free will.
Metatron and his minions in the Church want to control human destiny
and enforce their rules on all the conscious beings of all the worlds.
Lord Asriel and his forces want to create a world in which free
will is protected, a world in which all thinking beings are allowed
to choose the course of their own lives.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, grace is the sanctification
God grants to some people. Like Adam and Eve, who exist in a state
of grace before the Fall, Lyra exists in a state of grace until
Lord Asriel’s battle. She reads the alethiometer with the help of
grace until Lord Asriel’s battle is won and Lyra realizes that she
is in love with Will. After Lyra grows up, she has to learn how
to read the alethiometer like everyone else. This is because free
will has triumphed over destiny. Because Lyra “fell”—grew up, started
craving knowledge—people gained the right to decide how they want
to live. In Pullman’s world, this right is very desirable, but it
does mean that everyone has to live without grace and without the
comfort and protection of a higher power.
Freedom Through Knowledge
The most offensive thing about the Church in His
Dark Materials is its relentless quest to ensure ignorance.
Beginning with Adam and Eve and the forbidden tree of knowledge,
God and the Church have sought to prevent people from becoming freethinking
adults by trying to restrict knowledge. When Adam and Eve defied
God and took from the tree, they abandoned the state of innocence
and became free adults who suffered and toiled, but who at least
thought for themselves. For some characters in Pullman’s trilogy,
like Lord Asriel, the witches, and the mulefa, Adam and Eve’s fall
was the beginning of good in the world. For the authorities of the
Church, the Fall signaled the ruin of humanity. The Church would
have preferred it if people dwelled in the state of innocent ignorance
forever. Lord Asriel and his compatriots stage their rebellion to
ensure that everyone has the right to attain knowledge and become
a freethinking adult.
The Importance of Sex to Maturation
Metaphorically, the first human sexual encounter occurred
when Eve told Adam to eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
From the very beginning, then, sex and knowledge have been intertwined. The
Church of Pullman’s fiction particularly objects to sexual knowledge
and seeks to curtail sexual activity in an attempt to prevent adults
from becoming independent thinkers. Lyra’s “fall”—the proto-sexual
encounter she has with Will in the world of the mulefa—badly damages
the aims of the Church. In engaging in a sexual relationship with
Will, Lyra chooses to grow up and abandon the innocence of her childhood.
Because Lyra’s destiny is to put an end to all destiny, her choice
to express physically her love for Will restores Dust to the world
and ensures that the Church will be defeated. After Lyra’s decision,
everyone will have the right to mature and make independent decisions
without fearing the censure of the Church.
