The role of scientific language in Philip Pulman’s ‘His Dark Materials’

Abstract

Philip Pullman’s epic is a ‘dark matter’ made up of religious and scientific underpinnings which challenge his readers’ knowledge of the world, making them ‘intellectually adventurous’.

Although scientific language seems to sound uncomfortable to his younger readers, he builds on myth and physics a new dimension of « stark realism dealing with matters that might normally be encountered in works of realism, such as adolescence, sexuality, and so on; and they are the main subject matter of the story - the fantasy is there to support and embody them, not for its own sake ».

Pullman’s heroes (Lyra, Lord Asriel, Mrs Coulter and Mary Malone) are all scientists involved in a new political opinion of the world and in the role to be played in a universe which seems to be ‘probabilistic’.