Liminality in books, nature, and children

Children, books, and nature all share the common thread of liminality. Children are in a liminal state between childhood and adulthood; books are in a liminal state between fantasy and reality; and nature is in a liminal state between civilization and savagery, and also between the beautiful and the sublime.

(I already discussed children in a previous blog, so I'll move on to books.) Books are inherently liminal because they hold ideas that are written down and describe something that is not usually right in front of the reader's face. They embody the state between the reader's world and the writer's world. A book is also an enabler of liminality, making it possible to be suspended between reality and the willing suspension of disbelief. It is an instrument of a transition of information.

Nature exists in a liminal state between civilization and savagery, although until fairly recently, nature was usually identified with the latter. Nature is clearly not civlization, as civilization is constantly at odds with nature, trying to make room for itself in the world. However, nature is not quite savagery either, as civilization could not survive without nature. And the last few times I've gone hiking or camping, I was not devoured by it.

Also, nature exists in a liminal state between the beautiful and the sublime. Nature is symmetrical and rounded and pretty in a very quaint way, and so it is beautiful. Nature is also asymmetrical and overwhelming and awe-striking, and so it is sublime. How can this be, when beautiful and sublime are at opposite ends of a dichotomy? First, as Derrida said, opposite ends of a dichotomy are not actually opposites, but defined in terms of their opposites, and intimately interwoven with each other. Male would not exist without female; West would not exist without East; civilization would not exist without savagery and nature; and the beautiful would not exist without the sublime. Second, nature is neither and both ends of a dichotomy because it is liminal. That is what children, books, and nature have in common. And maybe that is why when I was a little girl, I used to hike up in the mountains behind my house, find a nice spot in the trees, and read a book.

To expand your knowledge of liminality, go to http://www.liminality.org/about/whatisliminality/

Cinderella Moral Rebuttal

(Funny how it took me a couple of months to transition from notebook paper to blog.)

Junior Miss Pageant, with an emphasis on education
Cinderella
should have been
in the Junior Miss
Pageant to prove serene.

Academics and
grace are emphasized;
neither beauty, nor
bust are compromised.

The winner should be
the most graceful of wit.
The judge proclaims, "And the winner is..."
not the best of brains, but of tits.

Cinderella would have won
by shaking her booty,
so perhaps the moral here
is not wits, but beauty.

Lee Scoresby and the Western

Lee Scoresby embodies the Western hero. A Western hero is in the midst of the frontier, affectionate yet removed, would sacrifice himself for something more important, and is from somewhere frontierish, but is usually far from his home. Lee is from the most cliched possible Western place: Texas. Good ol' U S of A. His daemon, of all things, is a hare, not a beautiful hare, just raggedy and regular and average, like Lee himself, like the Western hero. "Hester was no beauty; she was about as plain and scrawny as a hare could be; but her eyes were marvelously colored" (517). Like Hester, Lee appears to be very plain, but upon closer inspection, has many facets and subtleties.

He and Hester have long been gone from Texas, spending a lot of time up in the Arctic. The Arctic is very much a frontier, in that it is wild and untamed, and there is an Other to fight: the Tartars and the men at Bolvangar. The claim could even be made that they are substitute Indians, being identified with nature and savagery and barbarity, but still vastly misunderstand. Like the Western hero, Lee fights these people without rethinking or regret. And like the Western hero, Lee is recognized as a hero for killing them.

However, despite his willingness to kill others, Lee also has a little moral soft spot, deep in his interior, and as such, is willing to sacrifice himself for a greater good if necessary. Just like every single Western book or movie, Lee takes as many of the enemy down with him when he dies. He makes the observation that there were 25 men, and he had 30 bullets. Like all Western heroes, Lee is an excellent shot. With Hester valiantly by his side, they kill every single one of the men before they die.

And not surprisingly, Lee Scoresby perfectly fits Neil Young's "Western Hero."
"Frontier town, home of the western hero
Frontier justice, dealt with the iron hand
He wore a long coat to the ground
He wore big boots that made a sound
He wore a six gun on his hip"

Animal Linguistic Capabilities

"The foxes of the Arctic, scavengers that they were, had picked up some language, but their brains were so formed that they could only understand statements made in the present tense" (576). In His Dark Materials, there are several references, both implied and explicit, to animal linguistic capabilities. At worst, I could just say that I am suffering from misplaced concreteness, and would like to explore the extent to which animals, or daemons, could actually speak to humans. Obviously they can communicate, but I am referring to animals' ability to have a language, in the way that we have a language.

There have been extensive studies conducted on this subject, for obvious reasons of interest. First, there are nine things that characterize language: 1) a mode of communication; 2) semanticity; 3) pragmatic function; 4) interchangeability; 5) cultural transmission; 6) arbitrariness; 7) discreteness; 8) displacement; and 9) productivity. A mode of communication refers to the means by which messages are communicated, usually vocal-auditory, but sometimes visual. Semanticity refers to the meaning of the communication. Pragmatic function refers to the purpose the communication serves, like helping an individual to stay alive. Interchangeability refers to an individuals' ability to both send and receive messages; this is usually the case, but some species can only receive or send, like silkworm moths. Cultural transmission is the need for some aspect of a communication system to be learned through interaction with other individuals, which is always the case for humans, but not the case for all species (e.g. some song birds and chimpanzee signals). Arbitrariness is the property that the names for words are not logically related to their meaning. (For example, the word "dog" does not sound like a dog or represent a dog in any logical way; it is arbitrary.)

Discreteness, displacement, and productivity are the three linguistic characteristics that have so far been found lacking in animal communication systems. Discreteness refers to the property of having complex messages that are built out of smaller parts. The messages in animal communication systems with which we are familiar do not have this property. Instead, each message is an indivisible unit. Displacement is the ability to communicate about things that are not present in space or time. For example, humans can talk about China or the color blue when we are not actually seeing it, and we can discuss what we did last year or what we plan to do next year. No animal communication system appears to display this feature. Last, productivity is the ability to produce and understand an infinite number of messages that have not necessarily been expressed before. For example, if I say "The pink gyrating apple tree is singing bad karaoke on top of my bottle of Jack Daniels," that is most likely a unique sentence that has never been produced before.

However, some animals do have some extremely interesting communication systems. Honey bees, for example, have extremely complex dances that they will do to communicate with the queen and the rest of the bees. For example, they can communicate with various nuances and variations in their dances (i.e varying speed, shape, and body movement), how much food they found, the quality of the food they found, how far away the food is, and in what direction. Also, European robins have extremely varied and complicated songs to mean different things, like "let's build a nest together" or "go get some worms for the babies." However, the birds cannot make up a new song to cope with a new situation. The robin is creative in his ability to sing the same thing in many different ways, but not in its ability to use the same units of the communication system to express many different meanings. Also, crabs and spiders have interesting gestural communication systems involving courtship, territory, and food, but again, they do not fall under the aforementioned parts of language: discreteness, displacement, and productivity. It would seem then that under the lens of misplaced concreteness, daemons would not only not be able to communicate as they do with their humans, but that they wouldn't even be able to communicate as humans do with other individuals of their own species.
(If you are seeking further enlightenment on animal linguistic capabilties, you can visit www.grandin.com/inc/or find a copy of the ninth edition of Language Files: Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics from Ohio State University, and check out pages 21-37.

Anima(l)

Animal inherently contains anima, which means "soul." Perhaps daemons are animals, rather than a rock or a hot dog or a spirit, that talks with us because we cannot have souls without animals, and we cannot have animals without souls. Maybe that is why an animal is man's best friend, rather than a hammer or a dollar bill or even another human. We can bond with animals because they definitely have souls, as well as personalities, if you have ever spent time around them, but mostly because they don't talk back to us. It is difficult for an animal to hurt our feelings or stab us in the back without the power of speech and two-way communication.

Animals contain the good and the bad in humanity, or what Freud would term the id and the superego. The id is base and desires very basic things as soon as it thinks of them: food, shelter, heat, sex, fruit rollups. This is the part of the animals that just eats everything they see when they see it. The superego is the moral part of us that would say, "You can't eat those fruit rollups because they belong to somebody else. If you really want fruit rollups, go buy some!" And while the argument can be made that animals are inherently the absence of morals, I believe that they have a lot more morals than we do. They're a lot nicer to each other for one, and they don't wage war on the others for being a different color. And like I already mentioned, they don't backstab and lie and break promises and put other animals in cages. We do that.

Daemons

"[Y]ou must help your humans, not hinder them. You must help them and guide them and encourage them toward wisdom. That's what daemons are for" (895). True words spoken by Serrafina Pekkala to Pan and Kirjava. If you had just read The Golden Compass, you would have an incomplete concept of daemons. They would seem to be external, inseparable friends who usually agree with you, and always help you in a benign and beneficial way. Your daemon is the one "person" in the world who will always be on your side. While most of this is true, they are not always external. As Will, Mary, and Dr. Grumman discovered, daemons always exist, and every person has one, even if it is internal, and you can't physically see it. Daemons are part of your personality, part that you don't always want to face or think about. This is why when Father MacPhail was going to sacrifice himself for the bomb to kill Lyra, he was very calm and excited in a martyr sort of way, while his daemon was extremely agitated. This merely represents conflicting feelings that are always present in an individual. When Lyra is trying to explain about daemons to Will, she says that "As you grow up you start thinking, well, they might be this or that...And usually they end up something that fits. I mean something like your real nature. Like if your daemon's a dog, that means you like doing what you're told.... So it helps to know what you're like and to find what you'd be good at" (884). Daemons are an external manifestation of our other thoughts and character traits.

Like every other motif in His Dark Materials, daemons are affected when Lyra and Will make the transition from innocence to experience, from ignorance to love. When they touched each other's daemons, they settled permanently in the form they were in the moment they felt the other's touch. "And [Lyra] knew too, that neither daemon would change now, having felt a lover's hands on them. These were their shapes for life: they would want no other" (915). So Pan settled as a pine marten, and Kirjava settled as a large beautiful cat, with intricate subtleties in her fur. And like every other daemon, they symbolize their person. Lyra and the pine marten are large and powerful, "lithe and sinuous and full of grace" (914). Will and the large cat have a million subtleties and nuances, and are beautiful and fierce. It makes sense, considering the importance of the Christian message of love, that their daemons settle, which I think is one of the ultimatums of the story, when their love is consumated (although not technically :-) ), reflecting the now permanent state of their daemons. Having their daemons settle is the last step from innocence to experience, since a settled daemon embodies experience, and in Will and Lyra's case, love also.

Christian Love

Love is quintessential theme and message in His Dark Materials. Phillip Pullman didn't approve of C.S. Lewis's Christian Chronicles of Narnia, nor of J.R.R. Tolkien's Christian Lord of the Rings, for the sole reason that they could not send a true message of Christianity without the message of love. If Christianity could be summed up in one word, it would be "love"; love is the underlying theme of Christianity. By having Will and Lyra fall in love, and additionally, sacrificing that love for the good of the world rather than themselves, Pullman sends the ultimate Christian message of love and sacrifice. This is why innocence and experience runs so thickly through the story, because experience grows of love. Although Will and Lyra underwent extreme adversity and hardships and cared deeply for each other, they were not change from innocence to experience until they loved each other. That is why the Dust stopped flowing so quickly out of the worlds. The transition from innocence to love and Christianity is of paramount importance to Will and Lyra, the rest of the world, and also to the story, and especially to the message of the story. "[Lyra] happily used to swim naked in the river Cherwell with all the other Oxford children, but it would be quite different with Will, and she blushed even to think of it" (page 866). There are a few moments, liking swimming, of transition from innocence to love. Also, their regularly just being around each other changes. "Suddenly Lyra gripped Will's arm.... Her hand was warm. he was more aware of that than of the great mass of leaves and branches above them. Pretending to gaze vacantly at the horizon, he let his attention wander" (page 885). And when their transition to love was complete, "The terrible flood of Dust in the sky had stopped flowing....The Dust pouring down from the stars had found a living home again, and these children-no-longer-children, saturated with love, were the cause of it all" (page 893). In the end, love makes the whole world right, or at least makes it possible to make it right. This is the quintessential message of Christianity that Pullman thought C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien failed to include in their literature: the message of love.

Christianity and love should be inseparable.

Joseph Campbell's Dark Materials

Joseph Campbell was an ardent Jungian scholar, best known for his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which details how Jung's archetypes of the collective unconscious are manifested in every single work of literature, or even of orality. Every story has at least these three basic archetypes: the Self, the Anima/Animus, and the Shadow. His Dark Materials is no different from any other story in this regard. Lyra represents the Self since she is the main character, who undergoes the most enlightenment and changes, and whose consciousness is reflected in the layout of the other characters. The Anima reflects the Self's gender and general ideas, in Lyra's case, Mrs. Coulter. Although she would seem to be the Shadow if one had not read the entire book, ultimately she helps Lyra's cause, and mirrors her thoughts and feelings. For example, she actually saves Lyra's life three times, and she sacrifices herself at the end of the book, along with Lord Asriel, for the furthering of Lyra's cause, to overthrow The Authority. The Shadow is represented by The Authority and Megatron, which metaphorically represents all the bad excesses of Christianity that need to be shed off: the superficial bullshit, as the Pope calls it.

The "Five" Dimensions

Dimensions were brought to light in His Dark Materials in The Amber Spyglass on page 836. "It reminded [Mrs. Coulter] of a certain abominable heresy, whose author was now deservedly languishing in the dungeons of the Consistorial Court. He had suggested that there were more spatial dimensions than the three familiar ones-- that on a very small scale, there were up to seven or eight other dimensions, but that they were impossible to examine directly." There are five dimensions that have so far been scientifically "discovered" that I could find. The Zero Dimension is the point, very much like the period at the end of this sentence. It exists only in time, not in space, because it is infinitely small. In time, it is the moment between past and future.

The First Dimension is a line, which contains an infinite number of points, and temporally, represents the future.

The Second Dimension is a two dimensional plane, like a rectangle, which contains an infinite number of straight lines, and temporally represents the Present.

The Third Dimension is a solid, like a cube, which contains an infinite number of planes, and temporally represents the past.

The Fourth Dimension (time) is the space-time continuum, or reality. The infinite number of solids in the universe are in relationship with each other through time and energy. Temporally, the movement of the third dimension is continued to form a wave, "fractally" constituting the space-time continuum.

Apparently, there are technically somewhere between seven and ten total dimensions, but I was unable to find out what these last ones are beyond the first five. For further explanation of them, you can go to www.fractalwisdom.com/FractalWisdom/dim.html. However, most scholars agree that our physical environment and pragmatics of the human body allows us only to see three dimensions. Our consciousness is limited by our perception. According to physics professors Andreas Karch at the University of Washington and Lisa Randall at Harvard, "We just happen to be in a place that feels 3D to us....In our world, forces such as electromagnetism only recognize three dimensions and behave according to our laws of physics, their strength diminishing with distance. Gravity, however, cuts across all dimensions, even those not recognized in our world... [b]ut...the force of gravity is localized and, with seven branes (branes=any dimensional object in string theory), gravity would diminish far more quickly with distance than it does in our three-dimensional world. We know there are people in our three-brane existence. In this case we will assume there are people somewhere nearby in a seven-brane existence. The people in the three-brane would have a far more interesting world, with more complex structures...With gravity diminishing rapidly with distance, a seven-dimensional existence would not have planets with stable orbits around their sun.... I am not precisely sure what a universe with such a short-range gravity would look like, mostly because it is always difficult to imagine how life would develop under completely different circumstances....But in any case, planetary systems as we know them wouldn't form. The possibility of stable orbits is what makes the three-dimensional world more interesting." To read more on this article of multiple brane and dimensional existence, go to http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-09/uow-psu092805.php

Daemon Test Results

When I took the daemon test two years ago, apparently mine was a raccoon. So I have changed significantly in the last couple of years from someone who likes shiny things, causes trouble, digs through the trash, makes wrong decisions, is cute and fuzzy, and has dexterous wittle fingers. NOW I am a toucan!! A loud, obnoxious very colorful bird who lives in the jungle and enjoys a good bowl of Fruitloops.

"You an an extroverted, playful and confident sort of person. You seek out excitement, and you love to be right in the thick of things. You are enthusiastic, garrulous, and you love to attend large social gatherings. You love to laugh. If you spend too much time at home, away from friends and fun, you tend to "fade", becoming tired and a little depressed. A fun night out with your friends soon re-energizes you, though.

You make friends easily, and you probably jump between several groups of people. You probably have a group of friends for every need - the friends you drink with, the friends you jam with, the friends you talk with about the meaning of life... You blend in with each group of people, showing your sensitive side when you are with certain friends, and hiding it from others. You love to meet new people, and to make new friends. However, you are not a slave to popularity. You will speak your mind to defend yourself or one of your friends if necessary. You are no shrinking violet, and you are more than capable of fighting your way out of a tight corner.

That being said, your confidence and your enthusiasm for fun can sometimes lead to your making thoughtless comments which hurt or insult people. These people, however, are probably over-sensitive squares who don't appreciate your sense of humour. You don't have much time for people like that, anyway.

Your daemon's form would represent your social, playful, yet honest personality. He or she would probably urge you to create further mayhem, or would make snide comments in your ear about the people you meet on a daily basis."

To learn more about the nature of toucans, go to animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/toucan.html

Euthanizing Toads and God

The extremely controversial topic of euthanization is commented on a couple of times in His Dark Materials, first for a toad and then for God, which seemed a bit blasphemous.
" 'It would be merciful to kill it,' said Tialys.
'How do you know?' said Lyra. 'It might still like being alive, in spite of everything.'
'If we killed it, we'd be taking it with us,' said Will. 'It wants to stay here. I've killed enough living things. Even a filthy stagnant pool might be better than being dead.'
'But if it's in pain?' said Tialys.
'If it could tell us, we'd know. But since it can't, I'm not going to kill it. That would be considering our feelings rather than the toad's.' They moved on" (752).
Like Dr. Sexson said, some themes are too important and deep to be in adult literature. Philosophizing about death and suffering, Lyra and Will don't want to kill the toad, even though Tialys makes the point that putting it out of its misery would be the more compassionate thing to do. Regardless of the debate, however, no action is ultimately taken because they have no way of knowing for sure what the toad prefers, since it cannot talk. Similarly, euthanization is different depending on whether the patient is capable of communicating. Clearly, a person who is dying from a terminal illness like Huntington's Disease, for example, would be more moral to euthanize than someone in a coma who cannot speak for themselves (as for as I'm concerned, that also goes for fetuses).
The second example of euthanasia is when Mrs. Coulter is talking to Father MacPhail. She says, "Well, where is God...if he's alive? And why doesn't he speak anymore? At the beginning of the world, God walked in the Garden and spoke with Adam and Eve. Then he began to withdraw, and he forbade Moses to look at his face. Later, in the time of Daniel, he was aged-- he was the Ancient of Days. Where is he now? Is he still alive, at some inconceivable age, decrepit and demented, unable to think or act or speak and unable to die, a rotten hulk? And if that is his condition, wouldn't it be the most merciful thing, the truest proof of our love for God, to seek him out and give him the gift of death" (789)? This passage really stuck me. Mrs. Coulter is talking about euthanizing God to a priest. That is about as ironic as it gets, although in God's case, it is a metaphor on Pullman's part, to discard all the junk of conventional religion that seems to accompany it these days. As an atheist, Pullman would like to see Christianity stripped of all its superficial bullshit, to put it bluntly. (If you want to learn more about euthanasia, you can go to www.euthanasia.com.)

Deconstructing His Dark Materials

Mary Malone's portal to the world of the malefa just happens to be located on Sunderland Avenue. To "sunder" means to "part", as in my heart is torn asunder, or the alternate universes were torn asunder on Sunderland Avenue! And if that isn't enough, Mary says that she "had had to locate it on a map of Oxford; she didn't know this part of town" (page 482). She doesn't know where the deconstruction begins because there is no beginning to deconstruction. There's no end; there's no middle. There is no structure because it has been deconstructed, which inherently does not include structure or absolutes. Also, each time Sunderland Avenue appears in a sentence, the following sentence is deconstructive. The second is followed by "[Mary] felt almost more foolish than she had ever felt in her life" (482). Again, she feels foolish because she does not understand the parting of the worlds on part avenue. This is very deconstructionist in nature because there is no true meaning. In a world with no true meaning, where everything is ambiguous, everything is possible. And in a world where everything is possible, a infinite number of meanings and universes are possible, with an infinite number of outcomes, like the Darwinian turn of the diamond-shaped body and absence of spine for the mulefa. "Each of those chances might have gone another way. Perhaps in another world, another Will had not seen the window in Sunderland Avenue, and had wandered on" (491). Also in a world where anything is possible, it is possible to fix the sick world, and make it whole again, to replace and repair the Dust, which is the reflection of our consciousness.

Dust: What the Bleep Do We Know?

Dust is described by Mary Malone as being "shadow particles" that are conscious. In the documentary What the Bleep Do We Know?, a study was conducted about some similar particles. As most discoveries are, the amazing results were found by accident. The scientists were trying to test the particles to see if they behaved in a linear or wave-like fashion. There was some confusion, and they needed to watch the particles in motion, rather than just after the fact, and particles behaved differently merely from being observed! They were conscious particles, and would change their direction and pattern because they were being watched/thought about. Even the presence of a camera was enough to change their movement. (To learn more about this study, you can rent the movie or go to its website.) This is immediately what I thought of when I learned more about the scientific properties of it from Mary Malone, as it seems to fit the description, although we wouldn't necessarily know if love and experience would also change the pattern. :-) Interestingly enough, Pullman wrote His Dark Materials before this study's results were published in 2003.

These conscious particles seem to be the same as those in His Dark Materials. Mary realizes that the Dust is conscious and even emotional. "They were conscious! The shadow particles knew what were happening and were sorrowful. And she herself was partly shadow matter. Part of her was subject to this tide that was moving through the cosmos. And so were the mulefa, and so were human beings in every world, and every kind of conscious creature, wherever they were" (page 817). Like the particles in the study, they have a consciousness, and that consciousness is connected in everything. Nothing is completely isolated or unrelated or even spontaneous; even the Dust is a product of consciousness, and are therefore conscious themselves. This should be good news in a world of increasing technology and atheists, who feel that they are not connected with the world if there is no God, like Mary Malone. When she realized that character of the Dust, she became "suffused with a deep, slow ectasy at being one with her body and the earth and everything that was matter" (page 817).

Destiny vs. Free Will

The third and last most prevalent theme in His Dark Materials is destiny vs. free will. From the very beginning, there are predictions and prophesies about Lyra's role and task in the world. Simultaneously, however, she is the most independent, "free-willed" girl in Oxford, always getting into trouble and doing her own thing. She constantly breaks rules and is a wild child. If anyone could change their destiny, it would be Lyra, but she didn't change anything. The prophesy was made that she would betray someone and it would hurt her, and that for her to fulfill her task, she must not know what it is. The prophecy comes true three times, and each time everyone thinks that that is the true prophecy in action. First, she betrayed Roger by bringing him to Asriel, but it allowed Asriel to open the next universe by severing his daemon. Second, she betrays Pan by leaving him on the shore when she travels to the land of the dead. Third, she betrays Will by leaving them each in their own worlds. Each of these events caused Lyra great pain; each she wouldn't have done if she would have known ahead of time; and each she realized was ultimately for the better.
The fact that Will met Lyra at all was such a slight chance, even just considering that they both met in a world other than their own that they just happened to find, albeit through very different circumstances. There is much more to consider what a small chance it was, that it would pretty much have to be fate.
Something fateful happened to me of which the statistical probability was so small we had to attribute it to destiny. My mom died of Huntington's Disease when I was 16, and I have it also. I met a young man, a student at MSU on the football team, who has a 50% chance of having it-- he hasn't been tested yet-- and his mom also died from it, a year ago. (You have a 50% chance of having it if one of your parents have it because it's a dominant gene.) HD is such a rare affliction that only 1 in 10,000 people have it. There are only 12,000 undergraduates at MSU. Just by numbers, I should have been the only one on the whole campus who had it. Even if by some ridiculous chance someone else had it, what were the odds that that person would be an English major, that that person would be the same age as me, be in the same classes with me, sit by me, and be my friend, enough that we figured it out? I've calculated the odds at 1 in 900,000,000,000 (that's 900 billion for those of you who lost count of the zeros). There was such a small chance that we have never got over our astoundment at meeting each other. And Lyra and Will had an even smaller chance of meeting. "Both of them sat silent on the moss-covered rock in the slant of sunlight through the old pines and thought how many tiny chances had conspired to bring them to this place. Each of those chances might have gone a different way. Perhaps in another world, another Will had not seen the window on Sunderland Avenue, and had wandered on" (491). Later on Will says that if he had been 30 seconds earlier or later, he would not have seen the cat walking through the window at all, and none of their adventures would have happened.
Also at the end, Xaphania tells Will that he has to live his whole life to do what he needs to do, and he tells her that he doesn't want to know because then if he did it, he would feel unhappy and obliging, and if he didn't, then he would feel bad. And she said, then you have finally acquired the first step of wisdom. Sometimes events happen, whether good or bad, and no matter how you try to avoid them, it happens anyway. Master Shifu in Kung Fu Panda said that "Many people's destinies are fulfilled while they are trying to avoid them."

Knowledge vs. Organized Religion

The second most prevalent theme in The Dark Materials is that of knowledge vs. religion/ignorance/stupidity. I felt very blasphemous when I wrote that in the margin of the book; just establishing that as a dichotomy made me feel like I was sinning. However, once I thought about it, I realized that it's not really knowledge vs. religion, but vs. organized religion. The most obvious example of this is the war that Lord Asriel wages on the Authority, or since the Authority was apparently in need of euthanization, the war Asriel wages on Metatron and his allies. By the way, I think it is extremely interesting how Megatron was brought down, by Mrs. Coulter's feminine wiles, which have always served her well. "The Regent was a being whose profound intellect had had thousands of years to deepen and strengthen itself, and whose knowledge extended over a million universes. Nevertheless, at the moment he was blinded by his twin obsessions: to destroy Lyra and to possess her mother" (page 844). An angel whose power and knowledge were unequivocable was blinded by the classic male struggle between brain and penis. Megatron's death illustrates that his position was on the wrong side of the dichotomy. Being on the side of organized religion, he was also ignorant, and was thus doomed to die.

Here is an interesting blog that expresses thoughts similar to mine.

Innocence vs. Experience in the Dark Materials

I think that there are three very prominent dichotomous themes in His Dark Materials: respectively, 1) innocence vs. experience; 2) wisdom vs. stupidity/ignorance/organized religion; and 3) destiny vs. free will. I will blog separately for each of these, as each could be its own term paper. The first and most pervasive theme in Pullman's trilogy is innocence vs. experience. He draws hugely from William Blake for this, even going so far as to explicitly quote Blake several times in The Amber Spyglass. Lyra, Will, and Mary undergo a transition from innocence to experience. Obviously, this argument could be made for about every other character in the book, but that belongs in a book!

Lyra starts out ignorant of the world at Jordan College, just hanging out with other kids all the time. She gains her first stroke of knowledge while hiding in the closet, and sees the master attempt to poison Asriel. Then she first learns about Dust, not knowing at the time that Dust would end up leading the rest of her life. Through the death of a friend, the severing of Pan, and the love of Will, she gains the perspective that leads to her experience. She is no longer a child, and cannot return to her former state, whether she wants to or not. And at first, she does want to, but she ultimately realizes that it is for the good that she now has insight and experience, for her own good, and that of the world.

Will starts out with a little more insight into the world than Lyra, as his mother is schizophrenic and at the same time is actually being persecuted and followed. Through his discoveries of the alternate world, the severing of his own daemon, sacrificing himself for the good of others, and the love of Lyra, he too gains the experience and insight necessary to finish out his life. He is no longer a child, and like Lyra, cannot return to his previously innocent state.

Mary seems to have already transitioned from innocence to experience, in her realization that Christianity is "a terrible well-thought out mistake," and her giving up her life as a nun in exchange for science. She illustrates, however, that no matter how experienced you think you are, you are still ignorant and innocent of many things. Socrates said that a wise man knows that he knows nothing. Mary goes on to another transition to still more experience, in her living and establishing a mutual symbiosis with (and I'll get to that in the civilization vs. savagery blog) the mulefa. Through her communing with the mulefa, her own discovery of Dust and her ability to personally change the world, she also gains experience. She tells Will at the end that she would like to be his friend forever because he is the only one she can talk to about the events, because their knowledge and experience transcends that of everyone else who has never traveled to another world or seen Dust or their daemons.

William Blake is best known for his theme of innocence vs. experience (and his etchings!). Pullman knew this, of course, and it is a pervasive theme in His Dark Materials. Everyone, through realizing things they did not ever imagine were possible to realize, come to experience out of their innocence. Everyone feels nostalgic about their lost state of innocence, but ultimately, they accept their experience and gained knowledge, and realize that it is for the better for themselves and the world as a whole. "There is no progression without contraries." -William Blake

More information on Blake.

Humpty Dumpty is Derrida in an Eggshell

Humpty Dumpty assigns whatever meaning he wants to whatever word he wants. This is a somewhat deconstructionist activity while he is having conversations. Alice is told that "There's glory for you" apparently means "there's a nice knock-down argument for you." (ch. 6, Looking Glass) adjectives and verbs and nouns all have different personalities, and he apparently has to pay them at the end of the night/week for their use. "Impenetrability means" "that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you mention what you mean to do next."

Learn more about Derrida's theories.

Other Interesting Deconstructionist Quotes
In that direction lives a March hare, in the other lives the Mad Hatter. Visit either you like: they're both mad.
But I don't want to go among mad people, Alice remarked.
Oh you can't help that, said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"you must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here.
Alice didn't think that proved it at all." (ch. 6, alice's adventures)

"I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of that is-- 'Be what you seem to be'-- or if you'd like it put more simply-- 'Never image yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise." (ch. 9, alice's adventures) also, mustard-mine, and the moral of that is the more there is of mine, the less there is of yours

I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. and then the Gryphon says I mean what I say! Very indignantly. all this chasing of meaning. (ch. 10, alice's adventures)

The gnat is always trying to get Alice to make his jokes for him, and then when he finally does, he gets very sad about it. It may be a commentary on cultural expectations, and gnat may represent women or minorities. "You shouldn't make jokes," Alice said, "if it makes you so unhappy." (ch. 3, Looking Glass)

Hyper-Real: He's an anglo saxon messenger and those are anglo saxon attitudes. "The messenger kept skipping up and down, and wriggling like an eel, as he came along, with his great hands spread out like fans on either side." (ch. 7)

When Alice and Unicorn meet, they both have certain preconceived expectations of what the other is supposed to be like, but they are both wrong. The Unicorn says that he always thought children "were fabulous monsters." And then Alice remarks that she always thought that Unicorns were fabulous monsters also. And the Unicorn says, "Well now that we've seen each other, ...if you believe in me, I'll believe in you. Is that a bargain?" (ch. 7)

Deconstructionism in Alice

Deconstructionism as a critical literary device is defined by an endless deferral of meaning. There are no absolutes, not black and white; everything is shades of gray. The best explicit example of deconstructionism in Alice is when Alice is talking to the knight in Through the Looking Glass.
" 'The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes.' '
'Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?' Alice said, trying to feel interested.
'No, you don't understand,' the Knight said, looking a little vexed. 'That's what the name is
called. The name really is 'The Aged Aged Man.' '
'Then I ought to have said, that's what the song is called?' Alice corrected herself.
'No, you oughtn't; that's quite another thing! The song is called 'Ways and Means': but that's
only what it's called, you know!'
'Well what is the song, then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
'I was coming to that," the Knight said. 'The song really is 'A-Sitting on a Gate': and the tune's
my own invention." (ch. 8)
This is quite obviously a deconstructionist dialogue. Meaning is endlessly deferred through language, just as the Knight is doing. He is causing multiple layers of meaning to be created from the name of the song, as it apparently has four different titles, which, of course, confuses Alice enormously. She is exposed to a variety of meanings, of many shades of gray, rather than black and white. This makes sense in Wonderland precisely because Wonderland doesn't make sense. Neither does deconstructionism, as there are no absolute answers. One of the main reasons that Wonderland is so confusing for Alice is because it is constantly deconstructing itself, deflecting meaning and logic and straight answers. A cat is able to vanish and reappear. Cards and flamingoes play croquet. A caterpillar sits on a mushroom of epic proportions and smokes a hookah. These are deconstructed ideas, and they run rampant in Wonderland.

Here is the American Heritage's Definition of "Deconstructionism."

Here is a page on Derrida from the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy.

Dichotomy of Homonyms in Alice

Much of the characters' logic in Alice in Wonderland is based on an ever changing dichotomy of homonyms. In Through the Looking Glass, the knight says that one time when he fell into his helmet, another knight came along and put it on with him still inside of it. "...[I]t took hours and hours to get me out. I was as fast as-- as lightning, you know" (ch. 8). Alice then objects that it is a different kind of fastness. The words are always changing their meaning in Alice, not quite like a portmanteau, but stretching them to the brink of their homonymity. Later on, Alice says to a wasp that he could make his yellow wig look much nicer if he had a comb, to which he expresses interest, and asks how much honey she has (in her comb). Like "fast," "comb" changes its meaning to the other end of the homonym dichotomy. Lastly, when the Red Queen asks Alice how bread is made, she says you need flour, and the White Queen asks where she would pick it. Alice says that it isn't picked, but ground, and the White Queen then asks how many acres of ground.
Each of these times, the characters are basing their logic on a dichotomy of homonyms that is always changing. This is appropriate for Alice, as nothing makes sense in Wonderland. Particularly in Through the Looking Glass, where everything is backwards, it makes a sort of sense that when presented with a homonym dichotomy, the backwards characters immediately switch to the other meaning. To think backwards, you must learn.

Dream #1: Shopping

I always have dreams about shopping. As a matter of fact, there is a whole shopping complex in a certain part of a certain town that I am familiar with, only because I see it in my dreams. I was lost in the beginning, but now I know my way around because I was there a few nights before. I am always looking for new jewelry or new shoes or cute clothes. Whenever I go to buy them, however, something goes wrong, the store closes or I forgot my money, or I can't find the cashiers. It embarrasses me to have so many dreams about shopping because I don't consider myself a shallow sort of a person, and they are the dreams I would expect skinny blonde girls with fake tans and liberal studies majors to have.

Also being a psychology major, I know that the mechanisms and neurotransmitters and causes of dreams have yet to be explained. There are two or three theories that seem to work, but then there are always contradictions. Going further back in the field, however, Freud wrote a whole book on dreams and the unconscious: The Interpretation of Dreams. Rather than think I am just dreaming about shopping, I prefer to look at the deep structure of the dreams. That I am looking for something which I can never seem to quite get my hands on. If I find it, it is not the right size, and if it is, there is always something preventing me from obtaining it. Maybe it is symbolic of my dissatisfaction with life, how I always seem to be chasing the unottainable, or dreaming the undreamable, or thinking the unthinkable. Then again, maybe I just like to shop.

bOZeman

Like 6 degrees of separation, there are many similarities between any two things one could choose to compare. This is no different with Oz and Bozeman.

1. MSU students are like munchkins, always singing and having fun and not quite grown up.

2. The Bozeman chief of police is like the wicked witch of the West, and all the other po-po's are like the flying monkeys, always out to get the yocals, who may have committed the atrocity of letting their license plates expire, or took some bitch's shoes.

3. The scarecrow, not having a brain, is like any number of cowboys and agriculture majors hanging around the town. This is also especially fitting since the scarecrow came from a farmer's field.

4. The tin man, not having a heart, is like any number of drunk ruffians stumbling down Main Street on a Friday, Saturday, or Monday night, trying to pick fights with people.

5. The lion, not having any courage, is like all the overly Liberal yuppies that dominate the town even more than cowboys in the last decade or so. These are the people that drive green Subaru Outbacks, wear an excessive amount of Patagonia, smoke weed, go skiing, walk their labs or golden retrievers (Toto's) down Main Street, and speak of nothing but Obama and women's rights. (Obviously, this is a very subjective interpretation!)

6. The nice witch from the North is like the staff at Sunny Side Up and every small business, as they are very kindly and often give thoughtful advice to clients.

7. Last, but not least, the Wizard is like John Ashcroft. While Mr. Ashcroft does not live in Bozeman, he is, of course, keeping a close eye on us! Like the Wizard, Johnny is a big fake and pretends to be smart, but does not ever have a clear idea of what the hell is going on.