Finally got all the crap sorted out. I can post my dissertation here, or e-mail it to whoever's interested. About 12,000 words, on Children's fantasy, focusing on the BFG, CoS and Teh Subtle Knife... Lemme know what yis think... I'm happy either way, but if ye reckon it's smarter just to e-mail it people, that's cool too.
Tomorrow or the NEw Year is good.

I reckon you could just post it here for whoever's interested but if you decide to mail it ot put me on the list

Hope you can post it here Godric - I'd appreciate the opportunity to read it! Ta!

Here goes, hope ye enjoy.

Actually I'm having hassel with the footnotes, and have to go get drunk now, so I'll sort it out and post it when my hangover clears tomorrow. Sorry, see ye soon.

Or the day after... when your hangover clears.

...Yeah, gimme a while.
Added another to the list of friends' houses I've thrown up in.

Right this should work, footnotes have been awkwardly incorporated inot the text [they look something like this], there's still some errors in there, and I have since revised some of my thinking, one word in particular no longer strikes me as correct and I use it a few times, but ltes see what happens... Consider this a belated Christmas present, or an extension of your January hangover...

Introduction

The aim of this dissertation is to detail how writers of children’s fantasy utilise secondary worlds as a mechanism to reflect and criticise the primary world. Although often dismissed as works with no aim other than to amuse and provide escapism for children, many such works are in fact remarkably complex in the manner in which they offer social criticism, primarily by creating secondary worlds which are designed to be compared and contrasted with the real world that the writers see around them. This essay will deal mostly with three such novels, The BFG, by Roald Dahl, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J.K. Rowling and The Subtle Knife, by Philip Pullman. Before engaging in how these works use secondary worlds in the manner described, a number of terms need to be defined. The aim of the introduction is to explain what is meant by “fantasy”, what is meant by “children’s fantasy” and what is meant by “primary worlds” and “secondary worlds”.


The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms defines fantasy as “a general term for any kind of fictional work that is not primarily devoted to realistic representation of the known world” [Baldick, Chris; Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms; [Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990]; p. 81.] . Clearly this definition is far too wide and all-encompassing to be of much use, since a plethora of works which are not fantasy texts have no such devotion. Many texts are politically motivated, many are allegorical, and it can be argued that it is impossible for any text to give an accurate portrayal of reality. Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s School Days, for example, supposes to create an accurate portrayal of public-school life in 19th Century England. However it is a highly romanticised novel presenting an almost utopian ideal, which cannot be described as realistic. Rather, fantasy occurs when the reader is aware that the author is ignoring or changing fundamental aspects of reality, but in a textual world where such impossibilities are not problematic. Dracula, a novel involving an evil vampire terrorising Europe, is a clear example of a text that requires an extra step in the willing suspension of disbelief in order to be read, indeed in order to be written. By presenting a world where the impossible is possible Stoker creates a fantasy text, and in order for it to be understood, the reader must accept these impossibilities. In short, fantasy is when an author includes the implausible in their work. As Victor Watson writes in Reading Series Fiction, the reader must enter a tacit contract of desire with the author in order to suspend disbelief. This is the means by which fantasy must be approached.
What, then, makes children’s fantasy different from other children’s texts? I contend that it is a question of perspective. Events that occur within the imagination of characters in the texts, be they day-dreams, dreams, hallucinations or a juvenile misunderstanding of reality are not to be considered fantasy, since such incidents are a part of reality. Maurice Sendak’s picture book Where the Wild Things Are is not a fantasy text because although the young boy in question, Max, journeys to a distant land and plays with monsters, we are aware that the journey took place only in Max’s imagination, and children indulging in such imaginary adventures is an aspect of reality. No changing of the ground rules of reality takes place, therefore Where the Wild Things Are is not fantasy. What occurs is that Max matures, he is aware that his journey was not actual. If it had been, if the impossible had become possible, Where the Wild Things Are would be fantasy, but there is nothing impossible about a child imagining an adventure of this nature, so we do not consider it to be a fantasy. It is as plausible that Max imagines these events as it is plausible that Irvine Welsh’s characters in Trainspotting have bizarre hallucinations, as it is that Dante can dream of Virgil leading him through Hell in The Divine Comedy. Children’s fantasy, as a genre, is as difficult to define as children’s literature in general, but it must comply to the general understanding of fantasy as detailed above.

Fiction abounds with places that do not exist. Streets, towns, cities, entire countries and even whole galaxies have been imagined in the heads of authors and relayed through their texts to the reader. Can any of these places be considered to be real? What makes Conrad’s Costaguana “more real” than Tolkien’s Middle Earth? I contend, again, that the difference is an understanding between the author and the reader. Conrad’s Costaguana, Shakespeare’s Belmont and Doyle’s Barrytown are all invented places that the reader can never visit. But their status as generic places (Costaguana is a generic South American “any-country”; Belmont a generic Italian “any-estate” and Barrytown a generic North Dublin “any-suburb”, inspired by Kilbarrack), means that we are entitled to accept their possible existence within the real world. Nonetheless, the notion that the real world can accurately be portrayed in fiction is a controversial one. In The Fantasts, T.E. Little contends that:

All writers of creative fiction are sub-creators of Secondary Worlds. The Secondary world of a non-fantastic writer will be as close to the Primary World as his talents and the needs of his art will allow…. A licence is granted to writers of ‘normal’ creative fiction to change the Primary World for the purpose of their art. Fantasy begins when an author’s secondary world goes beyond that licence and becomes ‘other’…. Such a sub-creation should be called a Tertiary World. [Taken from Cornwell, Neil; The Literary Fantastic; [Hertfordshire, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990]; p. 16.]

I have some difficulties with Little’s differentiations. His assertion that all fiction is set in a secondary, if not a tertiary domain is surely based on the notion that no part of a creative work can possibly be entirely accurate, and therefore cannot belong to the primary world. However an endless number of fiction writers incorporate real events and real people into their works, just as a number of non-fiction titles contain inaccuracies and personal opinion. It is arguable that some works of fiction present a more accurate representation of the primary world than some works of non-fiction, which would render the reasoning behind Little’s categorisation as obsolete. The view that anything a mature reader accepts as a plausible part of the primary world, such as Costaguana, may be considered to be part of a literary primary world as much as Joyce’s Dublin or Hemingway’s Pamplona is an acceptable one. Only a small stretch of the imagination is required by the reader to accept these places in the writer’s work, the same amount that is required to accept any fictional character’s existence. All of these places could plausibly exist in the primary world, so may be considered to be a part of the primary world.
Implausible places supposedly existing in tandem with the primary world, such as Rowling’s Hogwarts or Swift’s Lilliput, or entirely created environments existing independently of the primary world, such as Tolkien’s Middle Earth, may be considered secondary worlds. The reliant factor is the plausibility of these places to the mature reader, and the level of disbelief that one must suspend wilfully in order to read the text.
A secondary world, therefore, is a place the mature reader knows cannot plausibly exist. It is a place authors invent, and whose existence is dependent entirely upon readers accepting the author’s work. In works where characters move from primary to secondary worlds (or vice versa) the difference between the primary and secondary worlds within the text can be less clear. What delineates Privet Drive, which does not exist, from Hogwarts which does not exist? The lines become more blurred still when house elves begin to appear in Number Four Privet Drive. The answer is still a case of plausibility. Privet Drive is plausible. It is as likely to exist as any other generic geographical invention. To highlight this, another street in the Harry Potter series is named Wisteria Walk, which is the same name as the street Adrian Mole grew up on in Sue Townsend’s series. One Wisteria Walk is as easy for a mature reader to accept as the other, and both are to be considered in the primary world. However, the mature reader must be aware of the utter implausibility of Hogwarts as opposed to Privet Drive, of Lyra’s Oxford in Pullman as opposed to Will’s in order for them to be considered secondary worlds. Will’s Oxford, although contained in a work of fiction is nonetheless implicitly a part of our primary world.
The differences between primary and secondary worlds are as follows. If the intent of the author is that the setting of his or her work will be considered as plausible in the real world, then the setting of the text is to be considered to be within the primary world. If the intent of the author is that the setting of his or her work will not be considered as plausible in the real world, then the setting of that text is to be considered to be in a secondary world. It is possible, indeed common, for texts to be set in both the primary world and in a secondary world, or a number of secondary worlds.


At this point I would like to mention the three loose “categories” of fantasy. “High fantasy” takes place entirely in secondary worlds. “Transitional fantasy” occurs when characters from the primary world enter a secondary world. “Domestic fantasy” occurs when a text is set at least partly in the primary world, but where none of the primary world characters leave the primary world. Roald Dahl’s The Magic Finger is set entirely in the primary world, as is Matilda. Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl series however, partly takes place in the primary world, but we also see creatures from a subterranean secondary world operating in their secondary habitat. If Artemis, or other human characters were to journey into this subterranean fairy world, the books could be considered to be “transitional fantasy”. Seeing as it is only characters from the secondary world who make this journey, we can categorise Artemis Fowl and its sequels to date as “domestic fantasy”.

The aim of this dissertation is to discuss the relevance of these secondary worlds in children’s fantasy novels. Secondary worlds are often ones where the laws of reality as we know it are irrelevant and in a superficial way are very different from any interpretation of the primary world. There has long been a dismissive attitude to these worlds, and works containing them, as many consider them to be mere escapism. I will show, however, that this is not the case. The relevance of secondary worlds to children’s literature is not one of respite or escape, on the contrary they exist in order to draw the primary world in sharper focus, and allow writers to highlight what they consider the societal flaws of the primary world to be. As Eric Rabkin points out,

[Any journey into a secondary world] is indeed escape, but fantastic escape, and therefore a constant reminder of the world diametrically escaped from. The fantastic here, as in satire, is a teaching device. [ Rabkin, Eric S.; The Fantastic in Literature; [London; MacMillan; 1999], p. 42.]

Fantasy writers are extremely conscious of the textuality of their works, and by continually drawing attention to this serve to remind the reader of the fact that they are reading, and are existing in the primary rather than a secondary world. This constant reminder serves to force the reader to consider the primary world with regard to its similarities to, or differences from, a secondary world they are reading about. Having created a secondary world, fantasy writers can draw attention to whatever aspects of reality they please, and to encourage the child reader to be aware of these aspects of reality, and to question them.

Chapter One
Roald Dahl’s The BFG

“But you must understand that it isn’t easy to believe such amazing things straightaway.”





There can be little doubt that Roald Dahl’s The BFG is firmly classifiable as belonging to the genre of children’s fantasy. With relatively uncomplicated language and a straightforward narrative voice, the text provides little that would be unintelligible to a fledgling reader. The main character is an eight year old girl, Sophie, and the events of the novel are clearly not to be considered possible. Sophie is snatched by the BFG (Big Friendly Giant) and taken to the mysterious Giant Country. She discovers that a horde of bloodthirsty giants sneak off to eat human beings every night, leaving the vegetarian BFG to go about his hobby of collecting dreams and “blowing” them through bedroom windows for sleeping humans to experience. Both writer and reader are aware that in order for the text to be comprehended, fundamental aspects of reality must be altered dramatically, and utterly implausible situations must be accepted. A number of observations made by the BFG, and Sophie’s replies to them go some way towards explaining how fantasy works as a genre. Even after encountering giants, and witnessing a series of marvels and being privy to all sorts of unthinkable information, Sophie’s scepticism remains intact with each new revelation that the BFG offers her. The BFG ponders the nature of the epistemological link that humans make between experience and knowledge.

‘The matter with human beans,’ the BFG went on, ‘is that they is absolutely refusing to believe in anything unless they is actually seeing it in front if their own schnozzles. Of course quogwinkles is existing. I is meeting them oftenly. I is even chittering to them.’ He turned away contemptuously from Sophie and continued his writing. [sic] [BFG, p. 99.]

This, of course, is not strictly true. Child readers, however will be aware that some sort of evidence is required by people in order to justify belief in something. Plenty of people of all ages speculate on the existence of a number of unconfirmed items, events and organisms, but, without evidence, their claims will fall on deaf ears. It is indeed distressing for the emotive believer that this healthy empiricism is so strong in human nature. The entire notion of fantasy is based upon the rational impossibility of the events in the texts rather than the proven impossibility (it is, after all, not possible to prove that giants do not exist, but the utter lack of evidence leads one to conclude in this scenario, that absence of proof is not proof of absence, but nonetheless a strong indicator). Dahl invokes the reader’s sense of the fallibility of human reasoning, and rephrases the process of applying empirically gathered evidence into accepted knowledge into a condition of agnosticism, or scepticism as being inescapable in human nature. He also explains exactly the process of disbelief that needs to wilfully suspended in order to read a work of fantasy without seeing anything other than factual error. Dahl raises the fact that, unless we see, we do not believe, but the logical consequence of this is that we do not believe in anything we have not yet seen, despite the fact that their existence is not dependent upon our perceiving them.
Sophie, in fact, takes on the role of the reader in this text, as the BFG is representative of the fantasy writer. The BFG literally takes Sophie on an adventure, as a writer metaphorically takes a reader. He also collects dreams, and ‘blows’ them to sleeping children. This is symbolic of the effect that a writer should have on the imagination of the reader, and upon their minds. The novel concludes with a sincere verification of this interpretation, as the BFG finishes writing the book that we have just finished reading. Unless Sophie believes in the impossible stories he tells her, the story will not make sense to her. This is why, when Sophie announces her disbelief vehemently, (‘Of course I don’t believe that’ [BFG, p. 99.]) the BFG will return to his writing contemptuously, seeing as it is quite pointless to write a work of fantasy if the reader will simply refuse to believe it, no matter how justified they are. Realism is not a goal of fantasy writing, and therefore should not be an expectation of the reader. Sophie’s perpetual scepticism is explained by Todorov’s theory. In The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, (Originally published as Introduction à la Littérautre Fantastique), he writes:

The fantastic requires …[that] the text must oblige the reader… to hesitate between a natural and a supernatural explanation of the events described. Second, this hesitation may also be experienced by a character… at the same time the hesitation is represented it becomes one of the themes of the work. [Taken from Cornwell, Neil; The Literary Fantastic; [Hertfordshire, Wheatsheaf, 1990], p. 12.]

The BFG is a work of transitional fantasy, a work where characters from the primary world enter a secondary world. The primary world consists of the English village where Sophie lives in her Spartan orphanage, and London, particularly the locality of Buckingham Palace. Real people are referred to, though not by name. They include The Queen of England and a number of other members of the Royal Family. Although not specified, it is clear that the queen Dahl has in mind is Elizabeth II [Sophie recognizes the queen’s face from postal stamps, and Elizabeth II is the first queen to feature on British stamps since Victoria, who obviously predates the helicopters used later on. Quentin Blake’s illustrations in the Puffin edition also clearly resemble Elizabeth II, as may be seen on p. 153.]
. The secondary world is Giant Country (which may or may not incorporate Dream Country, which is also visited). The BFG acts as the means by which primary world characters travel between the two worlds, when he carries Sophie between the two and guides the military and air-force who follow behind him at a later point. Giant Country, it transpires, is located somewhere after the last completed place in an atlas, somewhere in the two blank pages at the back reserved for undiscovered countries that explorers are free to fill in for themselves as they discover new lands.

Sophie’s initial impression of Giant Country is that it is a horrible place, utterly devoid of a single redeeming feature. In fact, before she has arrived, she is quite convinced that the giant who has just snatched her is going to eat her. She is unswerving in her assertion of her own imminent doom. Her fears seem justified when the BFG begins to discuss the different flavours of different races of human beings to her. Sophie engages in conversation merely to prolong her own existence, and attempts to change the subject in an attempt to distract the BFG from his obvious ambition to devour her. The BFG eventually informs her that, although he does not himself eat humans, all nine of the other giants in Giant Country do; in fact they are extremely fond of human flesh. Despite the fact that her host will not eat her (indeed, the BFG is a gentle and sympathetic creature) Sophie is nonetheless under constant threat in Giant Country. All of the other giants are far bigger than the BFG, and are far more aggressive. The BFG is quite incapable of protecting Sophie from them physically, and hiding places in the barren desert that is Giant Country are few and far between After just a few hours, Sophie is almost eaten by a giant known as The Bloodbottler. The other giants threaten, beat and bully the BFG, and after a short time suspect him of harbouring Sophie, making no secret of their desire to eat her. Giant Country is quite inhospitable, barren and infertile, with nothing to eat whatsoever bar a disgusting tasting vegetable called a snozzcumber, which the BFG woefully informs Sophie will be her entire diet for the rest of her life, seeing as she is now trapped in Giant Country.
It is easy for the reader to condemn Giant Country and idealise the primary world. However, Sophie eventually learns of certain delights and astonishing discoveries that she would otherwise have been entirely ignorant of. The first is frobscottle, a delicious and invigorating soft drink with gravity defying bubbles that allow for amusing scatological side-effects. Furthermore, Sophie and the BFG eventually become friendly and Sophie is repeatedly delighted by his quirks and secrets, particularly his rather unique speech pattern.

As with all the other texts I address The BFG is an extraordinarily textually aware work. As mentioned, the entire adventure is a parallel for the relationship between the fantasy writer and the fantasy reader. But there are a number of other mechanisms by which Dahl reminds his audience of their place as readers, firmly posited in the primary world. Dahl creates a peculiar giant dialect, comprising of substituting similar-sounding words for each other, and adding suffixes and prefixes in inappropriate places, as well as disturbing the regularities of conventional English grammar. There are also a large number of neologisms.

The Bloodbottler pointed a finger as big as a tree-trunk at the BFG. ‘Runty little scumscrewer!’ he shouted. ‘Piffling little swishfiggler! Squimpling little bottlewart! Prunty little pogswizzler! I is now going to search the primroses!’ He grabbed the BFG by the arm. ‘And you is going to help me do it. Us together is going to winkle out this tasteful little human bean!’ [BFG p. 57.]

Although few of the above words appear in dictionaries, and sentences which are grammatically correct are quite a rarity, not to mention the Bloodbottler’s confusion of ‘primroses’ with ‘premises’, we are nonetheless capable, with a little consideration, to understand the meaning of all such dialogue in the book. However, the fact that we can understand what we are reading in spite of its apparently nonsensical structure forces the reader to consider the process by which they read the text, and force the reader to become aware of their role as readers of the novel, rather than participants in the adventure, which would be the goal of an author attempting to write a work of sheer escapism. Dahl also has the BFG explain the process by which he learnt to read and write, by borrowing a book from a sleeping child and teaching himself. By containing passages dedicated to the act of reading, Dahl again creates textual awareness in his works. Indeed, there is an episode in the book involving Sophie reading the BFG’s description of the dreams he has collected. The descriptions are written in block capitals, with extremely poor spelling and grammar. This textual hiccup again highlights the textual nature of the work. In fact, one of the dreams involves the dreamer having written a book:

I HAS RITTEN A BOOK AND IT IS SO EXCITING NOBODY CAN PUT IT DOWN. AS SOON AS YOU HAS RED THE FIRST LINE YOU IS SO HOOKED ON IT YOU CANNOT STOP UNTIL THE LAST PAGE. IN ALL THE CITIES PEEPLE IS WALKING IN THE STREETS BUMPING INTO EACH OTHER BECAUSE THEIR FACES IS BURIED IN MY BOOK AND DENTISTS IS READING AND TRYING TO FILL TEETHS AT THE SAME TIME BUT NOBODY MINDS BECAUSE THEY IS ALL READING IT TOO IN THE DENTIST’S CHAIR… WHEN I WAKE UP I IS STILL TINGLING WITH EXCITEMENT AT BEING THE GREATEST RITER THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN UNTIL MY MUMMY COMES IN AND SAYS I WAS LOOKING AT YOUR ENGLISH EXERCISE BOOK LAST NITE AND REALLY YOUR SPELLING IS ATROSHUS SO IS YOUR PUNTULASHON. [BFG p.108-9.]

There is enormous textual awareness in this passage. Not only does the reader become aware of the change to capital letters, but also, this is the first time the BFG’s speech pattern is applied to anything other than the BFG’s speech, here it is applied to his writing. Although the BFG spoke in such a pattern before, the narrative voice did not allow for anything other than perfect spelling and punctuation, which is obviously lacking above. The fact that in spite of the highly imperfect nature of the BFG’s note, we can still easily understand its meaning calls our awareness to our reading again. Furthermore, the fact that the dream concerns the reaction of readers to a book calls to mind our own reactions to The BFG itself, and hopefully the reaction will be as positive in the case of the actual novel as it is for to the novel in the dream. Added to this is the delightfully tongue in cheek fact that the worst spelling and punctuation in the passage occurs when the dreamer’s own spelling and punctuation are mercilessly criticised. The inconsistency between the dream and waking reality depicted here also calls to mind the fundamental differences between the work of fiction and the reality of the reader.
Also of note in the creation of textual awareness is the very end of the book, when the BFG has finished writing the book we have just finished reading.

But where, you, might ask, is this book that the BFG wrote?
It’s right here, you’ve just finished reading it. [BFG, p. 208.]

There can surely be no more assertive declaration of the intent of the author to create textual awareness than by referring to the novel as such within its own pages.

Another specific tool of developing textual awareness is to include essences of intertextuality. Intertextuality occurs when a text deliberately calls to mind another text. The reasons for this may be to draw comparisons to the similarities between the two texts, thematically or to encourage the reader to compare the plights of characters in one text to those in another, or even to draw comparison between the author being referenced and the text doing the referring, or the author of the second text.
The BFG contains many instances of intertextuality. The scene in Buckingham Palace where the Queen’s butler calculates the necessary height of the furniture required to seat the BFG, and how much food will be needed to provide him with an adequate breakfast is reminiscent of the Lilliputians’ efforts to figure out how best to provide for Gulliver in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. The reason for referencing a work of such declared social satire and for comparing the petty Lilliputians to the human race will be explained later. Charles Dickens is also referenced on a number of occasions. The BFG refers to him as “Dahl’s Chickens”. By including his own surname in the perversion of one of the English language’s most renowned writers, Dahl is being obviously intertextual and again, will hope to draw the suffering of Dickens’ characters to those of Sophie, as again will be elaborated upon later. Dickens is actually the source of the BFG’s literary skills, the book which he borrowed having been Nicholas Nickleby. In his book of memoirs, Boy: Tales of Childhood, Dahl informs us that Dickens was a particular influence upon him in his youth, particularly The Pickwick Papers. The BFG itself became intertextualised in a later work of Dahl’s, Danny the Champion of the World, when Danny’s father tells him a bedtime story involving the BFG.

A further feature of The BFG, one which both creates textual awareness and simultaneously reinforces the links between the primary and secondary world, is when The BFG explains to Sophie that humans from different parts of the world taste differently, the basis for their taste involving a pun on the name of the place where they come from:

“Human beans from Wales is tasting very whooshey of fish. There is something very fishy about Wales…. I will now give you another example. Human beans form Jersey has a most disgustable woolly tickle on the tongue,” the Giant said. “Human beans from Jersey is tasting of cardigans.” [BFG, p. 28. However, there is a certain confusion at one point which obliterates any sense of predictability the reader may have established, when the BFG explains that Danes, from Denmark, taste like labradors, whereas people from Labrador taste like great danes.]

This style of punning continues as Sophie is informed that people from Wellington taste of boots, and that people from Panama have a distinctly “hatty” flavour. As well as raising textual awareness by punning, the BFG, by mentioning places from the primary world, calls our minds away from Giant Country and back into the primary world, as Dahl here provides us with an early example of precisely the type of mechanism a fantasy writer may use to remind us of their intention to make their reader more, not less, aware of the real world and its conditions. Just as Sophie in this scene is forced to re-evaluate her own species as she is told how humans taste to giants, so too will the reader discover that the beastly giants are not much less bloodthirsty than some of the human characters we meet, and than many of the human beings throughout history who have unleashed terrifying war and bloodshed.

As Sophie becomes more familiar with Giant Country she is forced to re-evaluate the primary world, and the reader is forced to re-evaluate it with her. Before Sophie even leaves the orphanage it is clear that it is an unpleasant place, and in the very first chapter it is mentioned that punishments are handed out for such inoffensive misdemeanours as leaving your bed at night to visit the lavatory. It baffles Sophie that the BFG, who lives in a land where he is surrounded by murderous, monstrous giants, is moved to tears by her tales of cruelty in the orphanage. It is an early reminder of man’s inhumanity towards man, which is further developed later. Indeed, the references to Dickens, famous for portraying the suffering of orphans, and whose favourite topic was social inequality and injustice, are deliberate here. The social commentary that marks Dickens’ work is by no means lacking in The BFG, as Dahl hopes to enlighten us by referencing the Victorian novelist.

Dahl also mentions the horrors of warfare in The BFG:

‘Human beans is the only animals that is killing their own kind…. They is shootling guns and going up in aerioplanes to drop their bombs on each other’s heads every week. Human beans is always killing other human beans.’ [BFG p. 78-9.]

Despite this zoological inaccuracy (several animals are known to be cannibalistic, or kill their own kind for a variety of reasons) the BFG’s message is clear. No species is capable of more cruelty than mankind. He by no means defends the giants, whom he clearly loathes, but he makes no secret of the fact that, even in spite of his vile compatriots, he finds humanity to be a rather odious species. This point is verified later when the Queen calls to her palace the Head of the Army and the Head of the Air Force. Their immediate reaction upon hearing of the giants and their hideous ways is to dispose of them through the most violent ways possible. The BFG refuses to cooperate with them if their conditions involve warfare, calling to mind Gulliver’s refusal to help the emperor of Lilliput when he is requested to wipe out the Big-Enders completely [See Swift, Jonathan; Gulliver’s Travels; [London, Penguin, 1994], p. 48: “I plainly protested, that I would never be an instrument of bringing a free and brave people into slavery.”]. The cruelty and pettiness of mankind, particularly within the field of warfare, is Swift’s theme in that particular episode of Gulliver’s Travels as it is here in Dahl’s work. The respective military officers are also quite rude and dismissive of the BFG, condemning him for his imperfect English. Indeed they do not even address him directly, but speak to the Queen and Sophie as though the BFG were some sort of moronic being. Their pride is also deeply stung when they are insulted by him, quite deservedly. The reader is thereby forced to reconsider the primary world, with its flaws and imperfections.

By the end of the tale Giant Country is utterly redundant. The BFG no longer lives there, nor do any of the other giants, who are being held in a massive pit in London. The BFG makes no suggestion of his wish to ever return, nor do any of the other characters. He even becomes fully educated and literate and by the end of the novel no longer speaks in the jumbled dialect that he used when Sophie met him. By abandoning the secondary world, and concluding the action in the primary world, Dahl reminds us of the world we live in and all the ways it has been criticised. The relevance of the secondary world in The BFG is therefore to force the reader to consider the flaws of reality. It serves as a vehicle of social commentary, despite being centred around impossibilities of reality.

...And the one you've been waiting for, TPers:


Chapter 2
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“…how can I speak a language without knowing I can speak it?”





Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the second novel in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, for which seven books are planned. At the time of writing, the first five have been published, with the sixth book due for a July 2005 release. The phenomenal success of the series has surpassed anything previously seen in the field of children’s literature, and Rowling currently holds the position of being the world’s second best selling living author, trailing only Stephen King, who published his first novel, Carrie, over twenty years before Rowling was published. The fifth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix became the best selling book in the history of Amazon.com over a month before it was even published. The reasons for its success are multiple, but the fact that Rowling addresses both naïve and sophisticated readers simultaneously is a large factor.
The Harry Potter books are undoubtedly works of fantasy. They tell the story of a young wizard who is sent to live with his non-magical aunt and uncle in the primary world after an evil sorcerer murders his parents. Each novel is based around one year Harry spends in his magical school, where one regularly spies ghosts, talking paintings, moving staircases, three-headed dogs and where students are thought how to brew magic potions and learn about such fantastic creatures as unicorns, trolls and werewolves. Clearly, Rowling is aware that her readers will not read the text as having an emphasis on forging a realistic image of the world. In a manner similar to Dahl’s, Rowling’s secondary world is intended to be implausible in the mind of the sophisticated reader.
Each novel in the series to date has been a work of transitional fantasy. A familiar primary world is evoked, in this case a dull and generic neighbourhood in Surrey, and a number of events take place in real locations, including King’s Cross train station in London, and London Zoo. Both the fictional locality of Little Whinging and the real places throughout London are equally to be considered as belonging to the one primary world, as although Little Whinging does not exist outside the works in question, it is a plausible location that a sophisticated reader can understand as a stand-in for a similar location. It is a generic “any-suburb”, and its existence does not demand an extra level in the wilful suspension of disbelief that characterises fantasy. The secondary world consists of a number of localities inhabited by wizards and other magical beings. They include Hogwarts, the school where Harry and his peers are taught magic and Diagon Alley, a wizard-only street hidden in the middle of London where shops sell such instruments as magic wands and flying broomsticks.
Characters cross from one world into the other in a wide number of ways, but a number of mechanisms such as secret passwords and enchantments prevent non-magical people from accidentally discovering the magical world. The secondary world characters, however, are entirely aware of the primary world, and visit it for a number of reasons; some, such as Harry, have been raised in the primary world. From the beginning of the series the lines between the primary and secondary worlds are blurred. The series opens with Harry’s dull uncle, Vernon wondering why so many oddly-dressed people are around London, and the reader discovers that they are wizards celebrating the apparent downfall of Lord Voldemort. Early in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry is surprised to find a small, hyper-active house-elf named Dobby sitting on his bed in his room in Surrey. As the secondary world reveals itself as a more bizarre, complex and sinister place as the series progresses, so the two worlds cross over more and more.
Rowling’s works are quite forceful in creating textual awareness. Her main characters are students, who spend time studying, reading text-books, and writing essays. By having sections dedicated to reading and writing, and a number of scenes set in the school library as well as one in a bookshop, the reader is reminded of the process of reading that they are involved in themselves. A number of publications entirely unique to the secondary world are also mentioned; a magazine called Witch Weekly appears to be quite popular, and a newspaper, the Daily Prophet is very widely read, although it is often inaccurate and at other times deliberately publishes misinformation.
Another mechanism by which Rowling creates textual awareness is by including a number of invented words which enter the reader’s vocabulary as they appear and are explained. Although entirely alien to the reader, these are common words well known to the secondary world characters. They include “muggle” a term used to describe people without magical ability, “quidditch”, a magical sport played aloft broomsticks, “squib”, describing a person of magical stock who nonetheless has no magical ability, and the vicious insult, “mudblood”. By using such words Rowling forces the reader to stop and realise that they have encountered a word they have never seen before, a word, in fact, which has been invented for the express purpose of writing the novel. This draws their attention to the fact that they are reading. These words need to be explained to the reader just as they do to the characters who are fledgling to the secondary world.

‘Malfoy called Hermione something. It must’ve been really bad, because everyone went mad.’
‘It was bad,’ said Ron hoarsely... ‘Malfoy called her “Mudblood”… Hagrid looked outraged.
‘He didn’!’[sic] He growled at Hermione.
‘He did,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know what it means. I could tell it was really rude, of course…’
‘It’s about the most insulting thing he could think of… Mudblood’s a really foul name for someone who was Muggle-born’. [Chamber of Secrets, p. 89.]


Although this very scene features the most improbable occurrence of Ron vomiting giant slugs as a result of a backfired jinx, Rowling nonetheless reminds us forcefully of our primary world position by not only explaining to us a word we cannot possibly understand, because we are encountering it for the first time, but she has her characters explain it using terminology already unique to the series, making us consider just how initiated as readers of her work we have become. It is noteworthy that Rowling applies new meaning to existing English words, such as “squib”, on one hand, creates new words by compounding existing words, as with “mudblood”, and also introduces neologisms including “quidditch”, therefore incorporating three different manners of employing unique terminologies, which further develops textual awareness. There is also a mild example of the dialect Hagrid speaks, one which no other character in the books does. By stopping to interpret his statements, we are again reminded of this textuality. The text also features a magical diary, which can write back to anyone who writes on its pages.
The series also pays particular attention to the power words can have. So great is the fear of Voldemort among wizards in the secondary world that most refuse even to speak his name. He is referred to mostly as “You-know-who” or “He-who-must-not-be-named”, even in print. Only a handful of wizards call him Voldemort, including Harry’s seemingly omnipotent headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, who argues that this reverence creates even more fear. By debating the relationships between words and the objects they represent (almost in a Saussurean signified/signifier manner) Rowling further consolidates the textuality of her work. Indeed it transpires that the name Lord Voldemort is a pseudonym, consisting of rearranging the letters of his real name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, into the statement “I Am Lord Voldemort”, this anagram is a further example of textual awareness, delightfully, Riddle turns his name into a riddle of itself.
Also of note here is Harry’s newfound ability to speak Parseltongue, the language of snakes. Harry discovers a natural ability to converse with the creatures, one he never learnt, and was never even aware of until his friends informed him that he was speaking to a snake in a bizarre language, rather than the English he thought he was speaking. This linguistic discovery (for the reader also thought that Harry was speaking English until this revelation) also highlights the textuality of the work in question. Harry’s subsequent musings on the nature of language based on his discovery that he is fluent in a language without ever having realised it, raise issues concerning the nature of language and add further to the novel’s textual awareness.

There are a number of instances of intertextuality in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. These primarily concern the names of the characters, which are largely taken from folklore and mythology. The handsome con-artist, Gilderoy Lockhart is named after Gilderoy, a handsome thief from English folklore. The ever vigilant caretaker, Argus Filch, is named after the thousand-eyed Argus from Greek mythology, and the petrification of the twelve year old Hermione is reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Hermione from The Winter’s Tale, who is thought dead, but reappears as a statue which comes to life. (Or pretends to be a statue, or somehow her spirits enters a statue of her likeness, either way the comparison is quite deliberate on Rowling’s part). The animosity between the noble Arthur Weasley and the sinister Lucius Malfoy calls to mind the rivalry between King Arthur and his rival, Lucius, in Arthurian legend. [An extensive list explaining the meanings and inspirations for characters names can be found at www.angelfire.com/mi3/cookarama/namemean.html. This site is aimed both at non-Anglophones reading translations of the books, and English speakers who wish to find out about the meanings of the more obscure names in the series. Almost all of the names are in some way relevant to the character’s situation or disposition.]


A peculiar defining feature of Rowling’s work is the mistrust of official sources of information, particularly mistrust of the author as an omnipotent and honest broker of events. The Daily Prophet newspaper seems to publish at best half-stories, and turns out to be heavily censored. Gilderoy Lockhart is a character who has published a number of autobiographical works depicting great events in which he has overcome a series of hideous monsters and villains. They are held as gospel by throngs of his admirers, but are eventually revealed to be lies, he simply jinxed the witches and wizards who actually performed the heroic deeds in question, affecting their memories, so that he could claim their glory without their objections. Even the enchanted diary deliberately distorts what, in the world of the text, is factually accurate information in order to implicate an innocent man in a serious crime. Harry’s textbooks also contain occasional inaccuracies [A companion book to the series which Rowling has written, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them [London; Bloomsbury; 2001], which is supposed to be one of Harry’s school books is also rife with error, as it mentions that Basilisks have not been sighted in Britain for over four hundred years (p. 4), However, Harry comes face to face with one in Chamber of Secrets, on page 234. The book also contains graffiti added to the pages by the characters of the series, adding to the textual awareness of the work.]
. Harry is frequently forced to alter his world view as new information concerning reality comes to the fore. First Harry realises that the “official” adult view of the world, as presented to him by his aunt and uncle, is false. Even when he enters the magic world, he learns that the “official” view of that world, as expressed through the powerful Ministry for Magic, is also inaccurate.

Unlike The BFG, where Sophie is alert to the dangers and horrors of the secondary Giant Country from the offset, Harry initially welcomes the magical world he has entered as utopian. He has hated living with his strict, bullying relatives, and welcomes the opportunity to escape. He learns, with a mixture of chagrin and secret delight, that he is famous in the new community he is initiated into for his mysterious role as an infant when he somehow caused a powerful curse from Voldemort to backfire, leading to the evil wizard’s downfall. He is enthralled and amused to discover an exciting world of broomsticks, wands and spells, and also finds that his parents have left him a small fortune.
Slowly, however, Harry learns of a darker aspect to the world. He has enemies at school, in the form of bully Draco Malfoy, and petty Potions Master, Professor Snape. He also discovers that, although weakened, Voldemort is still at large and waiting for the soonest opportunity to kill Harry and rise to power once more. The apparent ineptitude of the politicians in the Ministry of Magic turns out to be corruption, and innocent men are jailed on flimsy circumstantial evidence. Harry meets Voldemort at the end of the novel, and by this time has gained more insight into the nature of the powerful villain. It was previously assumed that Voldemort was merely a megalomaniac, but it turns out he has a sinister agenda, based around a type of racial purity, where only wizards of a proven magical lineage (as opposed to the abovementioned mudbloods) will hold power. His attacks on students of muggle descent border on ethnic cleansing. His utter demonic ruthlessness is exposed in an even more terrifying manner than previously seen. He possesses the young Ginny Weasley, younger sister of Harry’s best friend, Ron, who has a girlish crush on Harry, and almost kills her. It is uncovered that he was indeed responsible for the death of a student some fifty years earlier, a girl whose ghost still haunts a school lavatory. Sinister messages are scrawled on the school walls with blood, and Harry, learning more about Voldemort’s past, sees connections and similarities between himself and the most evil sorcerer of all time which greatly disturb him.
We have seen how the seemingly utopian secondary world transpires to be sinister and dangerous, every delight uncovered matching a newfound disturbing factor. We have also seen how the lines between the primary and secondary worlds become less and less defined, and how Rowling’s textuality forces the reader’s attention away from the text and into the real world. Clearly Rowling’s purpose is to remind the reader of the darker aspects of our own world. Ideologies based on racial purity, ethnic cleansing, corrupt and tyrannical government, bigotry, hatred, discrimination and class division and poverty are all frequently addressed in the novels, and are driving factors behind the mechanisms of the secondary world. These phenomenon, as even the most casual observer of history or current affairs will be aware, are far from confined to works of children’s fantasy, they are real and unfortunately all too commonplace throughout human history. Rowling aims to create awareness of these problems in what is in many ways a politicised text calling for tolerance and fraternity in the face of heinous evil and injustice. Far from operating as a work of escapism, Rowling highlights the nastier elements of reality by constantly incorporating them into her secondary world. This forces the reader to consider these elements in reality. The role of the secondary world in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, therefore, is to reflect and criticise the primary world through textual awareness and intertextuality.

Chapter 3
Philip Pullman’s The Subtle Knife
“I thought it was heaven when I first found it… And all the time it was full of Spectres and we never knew…”





The Subtle Knife is the second book in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. It is the sequel to Northern Lights and precedes The Amber Spyglass, which concludes the series. The events centre around a young character, Will, who leaves his mentally ill mother with a friend and sets off to find his father, who was lost on an expedition when Will was a baby. A number of threatening individuals are also looking for Will’s father, and when Will accidentally kills one of them he finds himself on the run from the law and his victim’s sinister associates. He escapes through a mysterious hole in the air and into the parallel world of Cittàgazze and meets Lyra, the central character from Northern Lights. She is on a mission to find out about mysterious ‘Dust’, and together they help each other, discovering that their missions are linked.
The first aspect of this book that must be mentioned is its primary world opening. Northern Lights is set entirely within a secondary world, with no part of the action taking place in the primary world. This makes Northern Lights a work of high fantasy but because its sequels include primary world characters who move into secondary worlds, the His Dark Materials series as a whole is a work of transitional fantasy. The book includes an author’s note, detailing this attribute.

THE SUBTLE KNIFE is the second part of a story in three volumes, which was begun in NORTHERN LIGHTS. This volume moves between three universes: the universe of NORTHERN LIGHTS , which is like ours, but different in many ways; the universe we know; and a third universe, which differs from ours in many ways again. The final volume of the trilogy, THE AMBER SPYGLASS, moves between several universes. [Author’s note to TSK, p.]

It must be pointed out that in dealing with primary and secondary worlds, the use of the term ‘world’, used throughout this dissertation is synonymous with the term ‘universe’, that Pullman chooses to use in this instance. In the books themselves, Pullman tends to describe ‘worlds’. This author’s note is important for several reasons. First, it creates textual awareness by raising the fact that the book is part of a series. Second, it helps to minimise any confusions readers may have, thereby predicting its audience, particularly those who may be surprised that the sequel to a work of high fantasy opens in the primary world. In predicting an audience in need of such assistance, Pullman is aware that his readership will include naïve or younger readers. Thirdly, there is the description of the primary world as ‘The universe we know’, or as ‘our universe’. Although none of the events which take place anywhere in the novel are factual, we are still to consider the primary world to be our own. Nonetheless, although the distinction is pronounced, there are aspects of the texts which allow us to compare the primary and secondary worlds, and to view the primary world from the perspective of the secondary worlds with which we have become familiar, thus allowing for a re-assessment of our own reality, just as we have seen to be the case with The BFG and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. This process of contrast and comparison begins with the authors note. The “otherworlds” are described as being “Like ours, but different in many ways”. This opens the floor, so to speak, for comparison between the worlds, and for the differences between them to be as potent as the similarities.
The blurring of the lines between the primary and secondary worlds is also enhanced by the structure of the series. Traditionally, transitional fantasy opens and closes in the familiarity of the primary world, as is the case with The BFG. We assume that we know all we need to about the primary world, but by examining it from the perspective of the secondary, our opinions of it are altered by the time the novel concludes. Although The Subtle Knife opens in the primary world, the His Dark Materials series opens and closes in Lyra’s secondary world. The secondary world plays the role of the primary world, and vice versa. From the point of view of readers, it is the world with which we have become more familiar. Nonetheless the addition to The Subtle Knife of the primary world serves to remind us of our position as readers in the real world, and allows us to judge the primary world from a new perspective.

Further blurring of the lines between the worlds occurs when Will and Lyra discover that the differences between their dialects are quite translatable. As is the case with Hagrid’s dialect in the Harry Potter series, and the language used by the giants in The BFG, these dialects enforce textual awareness. Lyra, and the characters from her world use the word en’t (e.g., “You en’t really going to poison yourself?” [TSK, p. 197.]) in the place of isn’t, aren’t or amn’t, much as the slang word ain’t is utilised in English, although since the word is used even by people of position in high society, we can assume that it is not considered to be slang. The children Will and Lyra meet in Cittàgazze also have a notably different dialect. They use the word ain as Lyra does en’t and end a great deal of their sentences with “all right?”.
There is also a moment in The Subtle Knife when the contrasts and similarities between our dialect and Lyra’s is highlighted during a conversation she has with Will.

“And anbaromagnetism, stuff like that. Atomcraft.”
“What-magnetism?”
“Anbaromagnetism. Like anbaric. Those lights,” she said, pointing up at the ornamental street light, “they’re anbaric.”
“Electric… That’s like electrum. That’s a kind of stone, a jewel made out of gum from trees. There’s insects in it, sometimes.”
“You mean amber,” he said, and they both said, “Anbar…” [TSK, p. 59-60.]

Not only does this discussion on language create textual awareness within the tale it is also a linguistic example of Pullman’s earlier note, that Lyra’s world is like ours in some ways, and unlike it in others. As the tale progresses Will and Lyra discover and note the differences and similarities as they become apparent. In this particular instance it is the sounds of the words they use which resonate with the characters, rather than the meanings, allowing for a consideration of the aspects of language that are heard rather than read. This raises textual awareness, by forcing the reader to stop and consider the sounds of the words in detail. It is left to the reader to establish which similarities and differences Pullman wishes to highlight, a topic I shall return to later.

Another example of textual awareness is Lyra’s alethiometer, a compass decorated with symbols, which a skilled user can ask questions of, which will always be answered truthfully. Lyra is a compulsive liar, in fact the similarity of her name to the word liar, is no coincidence, as a harpy in The Amber Spyglass reminds us when she exaggerates the link appropriately (“She seemed to be screaming Lyra’s name so that Lyra and liar were one and the same thing. ”). [Pullman, Philip; The Amber Spyglass; [London, Scholastic, 2000]; p. 308. The printing in italics of Lyra and liar is another example of textual awareness in the series.] Lyra, in fact is proud of her aptitude for lying blatantly. Her medium for lies is language, naturally. Curiously, she turns out to be something of a prodigy when it comes to the alethiometer. The most learned of scholars in her world study and practice for years to unravel the mysteries of this device, with very limited success, but Lyra has a peculiar gift, and despite being a child, immediately becomes an expert. Yet the truth is discovered in a hieroglyphic manner, as questions are asked and answered when the alethiometer’s needle points to a particular symbol. Lyra refers to this as the language of pictures, and some of it is explained to the reader. “The candle (for understanding), the alpha and omega (for language), and the ant (for diligence).” [TSK, p. 98.] By including a different system of communication, one which is ultimately more reliable than the phonetic alphabet used [In reflection of this even the author’s note is inaccurate, as a handful of pages, 148-150, take place in a fourth world, not mentioned in the note]the reader’s attention is drawn to the very manner by which they are reading, reminding them of their position in the real world. There is even a symbol used to indicate language, further enforcing this aspect of the work. However, just as the reader is reminded of their position in the real world, and as this apparent massive difference between the primary and secondary worlds seems obvious, Pullman mentions some ways in which the worlds are very similar. Lyra is given access to a very powerful computer, which she uses as she would the alethiometer, asking questions and being answered truthfully. However this time the answers are seen written on the screen in English. The alethiometer had strictly been the product of the Lyra’s world, one of the secondary worlds in the series, yet this episode is set in the primary world and includes a computer which can operate as a type of alethiometer, making the worlds seem more similar than they had just a few pages before. To reinforce this similarity, the computer is named The Cave, after Plato’s famous allegory. Plato, of course, was Greek, and the symbol on the alethiometer representing languages is taken from the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.

There is a further aspect of The Subtle Knife which not only serves to further enhance its textual awareness, but also to remind us of the differences and similarities between the primary and secondary worlds. On each page of the book there is a small symbol in the top outside corner. These symbols represent the world in which the events of that particular page are set. For the primary world there is hornbeam tree, for Lyra’s world an alethiometer, and for Cittàgazze, a knife. For the fourth world, there is what appears to be a star. By adding this element, the reader is given a second manner by which they may comprehend the text, reminding them of their position in the real world. It also proves a most useful device for searching out particular passages during re-readings, which further add to the book’s textual realisation [By creating an system whereby the reader can interpret the text symbolically, we are given an example of how Lyra reads her alethiometer, which is hieroglyphical, providing us with further textual awareness in this case.]. These symbols clearly demark one world from the next, allowing us to recognise the differences between the worlds, and to fathom clear boundaries between them. However, as the novel progresses, this demarcation is eroded, as the reader realises that the symbol notes simply the world in which the action occurs at the very start of the page. There are several pages which are set almost entirely in a world contrary to the one symbolised on the page, in fact a world is occasionally entered and left again on a page where it is not symbolised at all. There is no reason to assume that these markers could have been inserted at the precise point on the page where one world is left and another entered, so one is left to deliberate that the imprecision of these symbols is intentional. A particular episode, where Will opens doors between Cittàgazze and his own world regularly, searching for precisely the right spot sees a particular confusion between three worlds. Not only does Will come and go between the two with particular ease, the characters he escapes from in the primary world, Mrs. Coulter and Lord Boreal, are natives neither of the primary world, nor of Cittàgazze, but of Lyra’s world. So here the distinctions between all three worlds are jumbled and confused.

It is also worth mentioning that there are considerable geographic similarities between Lyra’s world and Will’s in particular. Lyra hails from Oxford in her world, as Will does in his, but when Lyra enters the primary world, she is disturbed to see that, although some features in this world are familiar to her, others are alien.

They got off in the city next to an old stone church, which she did know, opposite a big department store, which she didn’t.
“It’s all changed, she said. “Like… That en’t the Cornmarket? And this is the Broad. There’s Balliol. And Bodley’s Library down there. But where’s Jordan?” [TSK, p. 72.]

These geographical similarities extend to beyond the realms of Oxford. We have already seen in Northern Lights that the geography of Lyra’s worlds seems almost identical to our own, with recognisable place names. Russia is referred to as “Muscovy” [TSK, p. 109. Muscovy was a principality, centered around Moscow, which was its capital; it was a forerunner of Russia], obviously derived from Moscow. There are also references to places such as Norroway and Brasil, clearly Norway and Brazil. By highlighting such similarities, but yet such differences, Pullman offers us another reminder of ways in which we may compare the secondary world to the primary world as easily as contrasting it. Also, by having the place names spelt differently, he introduces textual awareness, as the reader quickly deciphers where precisely these places are. This is quite similar to the discussion Sophie and The BFG have when the latter repeatedly puns on real place names.

The His Dark Materials series is rife with intertextuality. Both Northern Lights and The Amber Spyglass have epigraphs, and in the latter work each chapter has an epigraph. Particular reference is paid to Milton’s Paradise Lost and the works of the Romantic poets, chiefly Blake and Donne. The events of The Subtle Knife take place while Lyra’s father, the powerful Lord Asriel prepares for a war, not just with the church of his native world, but with God. In explaining his actions to Lord Boreal, Mrs. Coulter will obviously remind the informed reader of either Paradise Lost or of the mythology on which the epic is based.

Finally Mrs. Coulter said, “Very well, I’ll tell you. Lord Asriel is gathering an army, with the purpose of completing a war that was fought in heaven aeons ago.” [TSK, p. 207-208.]

It is in fact Asriel’s goal to complete the war started when Lucifer and his followers rebelled in heaven, as a scientist named Mary Malone discovers when she finds a way to use a computer to communicate with angels, (“Vengeance for- oh! Rebel angels! After the war in Heaven- Satan and the garden of Eden- but it isn’t true, is it? Is that what you- but why?” ) [TSK, p.261.] This again is in reference to Paradise Lost or the mythology on which it is based.
Mary Malone has already provided us with examples of intertextuality when she explains some of her findings to Lyra. In order for her to be able to interact with Dark Matter, in a far more primitive way than actually communicating with it as she did above, she needs to enter a certain frame of mind;

“ ‘… capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason -’ You have to get into that state of mind. That’s from the poet Keats, by the way. I found it the other day. So you get yourself in the right state of mind, and then you look at the Cave -”
“The Cave?” said Lyra.
“Oh sorry. The computer. We call it the Cave. Shadows on the walls of the Cave, you see, from Plato. [TSK, p. 92.]

Here we have references to both Keats and Plato. The quote from Keats describes the precise state of mind Lyra must enter in order to read the alethiometer, allowing for an instance of interior intertextuality within His Dark Materials. These references to other works serve to remind the reader of their position in the real world. The reference to Plato is taken from Book 7 of Plato’s Republic, which discusses the limits of human knowledge through perception alone. As well as providing an intertextual reminder of the reader’s position, this addition, like the BFG’s critique of human reasoning, addresses mankind’s understanding of their own fallible basis for acquiring knowledge of the world. The awareness of this fallibility is, to an extent what makes fantasy possible. It is also the case that The Subtle Knife explains why we have, until now, had no knowledge of any of the parallel universes, because the only one which was known to anyone other than Will was located in the inhospitable polar region, and the one Will found only appeared when it did because of the epic events of Northern Lights.

The Subtle Knife shares a common feature with Rowling’s Harry Potter series insofar as it has a primary world character whose view of the secondary world they encounter evolves. When Will first enters Cittàgazze he sees it as a haven. It is temperate, deserted and it is as good as impossible for him to be found there. Given that he is wanted in connection with a murder in his native Oxford it is natural that he should feel safer here in the parallel world he has discovered and his initial interpretation of Cittàgazze as a utopia is understandable. However as he learns more and more about this strange new world it transpires that it is far less hospitable than he imagined. Mysterious beings called Spectres attack adults, leaving them without a soul and they become indifferent to the point where they are almost comatose. As a result bands of Spectre-orphans run amok in a chaotic society where their brutal cruelty is unbound. What disturbs Will, however, is not so much the dangers he discovers which are unique to Cittàgazze, as the nastier elements of human nature which he sees there as much as he did in his own world.

“I thought it was heaven when I first found it. I couldn’t image anything better than that. And all the time it was full of Spectres and we never knew…”
“Well I won’t trust kids again,” said Lyra. “I thought back at Bolvangar that whatever grown-ups did, however bad it was, kids were different. They wouldn’t do cruel things like that. But I en’t sure now I never seen kids like that before, and that’s a fact.”
“I have,” said Will. [TSK, p. 272.]


As with The BFG and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, The Subtle Knife reminds us of the less savoury aspects of the real world by having comparable flaws in a secondary world. In this particular instance, the cruelty that children are capable of is highlighted. However, Pullman’s series focuses on what may be perceived as a particular societal flaw, that of horrendous oppression carried out in the name of religions. In Asriel’s opinion these atrocities, although committed by humans, have been so great as to justify all out war on the deity they worship. Lyra’s world is one ruled by a powerful Magisterium, or church, with a hierarchy resembling that of the Roman Catholic Church of our world. Its sinister agents torture, murder and terrorise with impunity, and in Northern Lights we see how they have been performing barbarically cruel experiments on children, cutting them from their dæmons (in Lyra’s world a certain metaphysical component of the human mind or soul is visible and material in the form of an animal. Children’s dæmons, such as Lyra’s Pantalaimon, can change shape at will. Upon reaching adulthood, the dæmons lose the ability to change and adopt a fixed form, for example Texan aeronaut, Lee Scoresby has a hare dæmon named Hester). In the pages of His Dark Materials, we see nothing but evil and hypocrisy from religious orders:

“That is what the church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy ,obliterate every good feeling. So if a war comes, and the church is on one side, we must be on the other, no matter what strange allies we find ourselves bound to.” [TSK, p. 52]

It is clear that we are being lead to the conclusion that, in our own world, the atrocities that have been carried out by religious institutions, and that continue to be carried out are unacceptable. The didactic element in His Dark Materials, the aspect of the series that has made it so controversial, is this anti-institutionalism. The book is not anti-religious, per se, as it does not definitely present an atheistic reality, but rather criticises the abuses of power that have been carried out by such institutions. This anti-institutionalism extends beyond religious institutions in a parallel universe which we are led to compare to our own world. In Will’s world, the police are seen as hostile and threatening figures of authority, and Will is constantly afraid that his unstable mother will be taken from his care. However, the sinister nature of the religious Magisterium, and the insistence that all churches are innately oppressive and hypocritical is an element of a secondary world which Pullman wishes to convey to his readers as being somewhat less than fantasy in the history of our own world. Although the episodes of the trilogy which are set in Will’s world do not contain murderous and oppressive clerics, there is the character of Mary Malone, a former nun who eventually found her life in a convent to be unfulfilling, on an intellectual as well as on a spiritual level. She tells Will and Lyra in The Amber Spyglass that:

“It gradually seemed to me that I’d made myself believe something that wasn’t true. I’d made myself believe that I was fine and happy and fulfilled on my own: without the love of anyone else” [Pullman, Philip; The Amber Spyglass; [London; Scholastic; 2000]; p. 466.]


Although many religious critics have written extensively against what they perceive as the anti-religious propaganda in His Dark Materials [A review available at http://home.swipnet.se/corbie/English/pull.html concludes that “The HDM trilogy is anti-religious indoctrination disguised as an adventure story for kids”. This is one of the more moderate of such reviews, as well as one of the minority which seem to have been written by a reviewer who actually read the text carefully. An example of a more scathing review, one which is less well researched and far more emotive, is available at www.amywelborn.com/reviews/pullman.html. It contends that “An artist truly dedicated to “realism” in his depiction of organized religion would shine light, not on inquisitions and heresy courts, but on hospitals, schools, art, literature, scientific knowledge and sacrifice.” ]
, they have largely used very poor arguments and methods by which to voice their grievances, most of which seem to be based on only the shallowest readings of the text. It is the case, however, that Pullman uses his dangers to illustrate the abuses of power that have been carried out under religious pretences throughout human history, and that he clearly wishes to caution against blind faith, presenting a world where individuals largely reach their own conclusions on such matters. By referencing such literary figures as Milton, Blake and Donne, who have also used literature as a means of theorising, criticising and intellectualising aspects of religious belief and practice, and have insisting upon the complexity, rather than the simplicity of such issues, Pullman uses textual and intertextual methods to express this didactic element of his series, the vehicle for which is his utilisation of secondary worlds.

Conclusion.


There are several other novels I could include which use textuality and intertextuality as being among their devises for using secondary worlds to reflect upon primary worlds. The Sterkarm Handshake, by Susan Price, for example, does so to warn against the dangers of fundamental capitalism and depicts a future where the environment has been destroyed by massive corporations who relegated its importance in the face of potential profit. However, there is not enough space to detail all the works of children’s fantasy that I would like to. Instead, I will revise the works dealt with briefly, and conclude that secondary worlds are a useful and creative method of social commentary.
The BFG introduces us to a hostile world infested with remorseless and bloodthirsty giants. However, lest one reach the conclusion that human beings are a necessarily morally superior species to the giants, the titular BFG is a kind, sensitive and delightful giant. Likewise, Sophie soon learns that humans are capable of horrendous cruelty, as the BFG reminds her that no other animal wipes out its own kind in such outlandish numbers, and that the notion that giants would be sufficiently nasty to declare war on their own kind is ridiculous. When Sophie meets the military men in Buckingham Palace, their arrogance, pride and predilection towards violent action without a suggestion of compassion or feeling for the suffering they will cause further reminds us of the darker elements of human nature.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets does likewise. The secondary world created by Rowling is sullied by poverty, snobbery, political corruption and the presence of obnoxious ideologies supported by ruthless megalomaniacs whose merciless violence in realising their visions of an ideal society enters the realms of genocide. Through a series of mechanisms, Rowling reminds us that these aspects of her fiction are by no means unique to her fiction. The reader is made aware of the grim reality of such factors as being prevalent in everyday life in the world around them.
Philip Pullman uses The Subtle Knife to highlight a series of what he sees as persistent evils throughout human history. His focus is primarily upon the atrocities and oppressions that have been carried out in the name of religion, but he also records the cruelty that children are capable of, as much as adults, and the violence and dark tone of much of his work serve as a reflection upon the dystopian nature of reality.
All of these novels, and many others, although initially presented as escapism for children, have much to offer the mature reader, and contain much in the way of intelligent social commentary. It is evident from these novels that “Fantasy… must not be understood as an escape from reality, but an investigation of it” [Apter, T.E.; Fantasy Literature; [London, MacMillan, 1982]; p. 2.] Ultimately, an example of a classic text with which they share a great deal in common is Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Swift famously creates secondary worlds for the purpose of satirising society. Although perhaps not to be considered works of satire, the novels mentioned nonetheless focus upon secondary worlds which have been crafted by the author to reflect upon and criticise the society which the authors see around them, and paradoxically do so by fundamentally altering fundamental aspects of reality. Although, on one level these texts may not be “devoted to a realistic representation of the known world” , [Baldick, Chris; Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms; [Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990] p. 81.] on another level they are very much devoted to such a portrayal of reality, and they do so very creatively.

Bibliography

Alighieiri, Dante; The Divine Comedy; [London, Anvil Press, 1996], trans., Peter Dale.
Apter, T.E.; Fantasy Literature; [London, MacMillan, 1982].
Baldick, Chris; Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms; [Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990].
Colfer, Eoin; Atemis Fowl; [New York, Hyperion, 2001].
Colfer, Eoin; Artemis Fowl- The Arctic Incident; [New York, Hyperion, 2002].
Colfer, Eoin; Artemis Fowl- The Eternity Code; [London, Puffin 2001].
Conrad, Joseph; Nostromo; [London, Everyman, 1992].
Cornwell, Neil; The Literary Fantastic; [Hertfordshire, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990].
Dahl, Roald; The BFG; [London, Puffin, 1982].
Dahl, Roald; Boy: Tales of Childhood; [London, Puffin, 2001].
Dahl, Roald; Danny The Champion of the World; [London, Puffin, 2001].
Dahl, Roald; The Magic Finger; [London, Puffin, 2001].
Dahl, Roald; Matilda; [London, Puffin, 2001].
Dickens, Charles; Nicholas Nickleby; [London, Everyman, 1993].
Dickens, Charles; The Pickwick Papers; [London, The Folio Society, 1981].
Doyle, Roddy; The Van; [London, Minerva, 1991].
Hemingway, Ernest; Fiesta- The Sun Also Rises; [London, Arrow, 1993].
Hughes, Thomas; Tom Brown’s School Days; [London, Penguin, 197].
Joyce, James; Dubliners; [London, Puffin, 1996].
King, Stephen; Carrie; [London, Cox & Wyman, 1974].
Little, T.E.; The Fantasts; [Amersham, Avebury, 1984].
Milton, John; Paradise Lost; [New York, Norton, 1993].
Plato; Republic; [Hertfordshire, Wordsworth, 1997] trans. John Llewelyn Davies and David James Vaughan.
Price, Susan; The Sterkarm Handshake; [London, Scholastic, 1998].
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Pullman, Philip; Northern Lights; [London, Scholastic, 1995].
Pullman, Philip; The Subtle Knife; [London, Scholastic, 1997].
Rabkin, Eric S.; The Fantastic in Literature; [London, MacMillan; 1999].
Rowling, J.K. Fantastic Books and Where to Find Them; [London, Bloomsbury, 2001].
Rowling, J.K.; Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets; [London, Bloomsbury, 1998].
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Sendak, Maurice; Where the Wild Things Are; [New York, Harper, 1963].
Shakespeare, William; The Merchant of Venice; [London, MacMillan, 1976].
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Stoker, Bram; Dracula; [Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1979].
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Townsend, Sue; Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years; [London, Penguin, 1999].
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www.amazon.com
www.angelfire.com/mi3/cookarama/namemean.html
http://home.swipnet.se/corbie/English/pull.html
www.amywelborn.com/reviews/pullman.html

It's just occurred to me that there's a title for that somewhere, can't quite remember what the name of it was. Feel free to send it around to whoever you like on a small scale, but, if for some peculiar reason you wish to show it to a large group (possibly as an example of the misuse of the word 'plausible', definitely not the word I should have used when I did), do let me know, permission will not be withheld. i should probably add that it's Co Odhran O'Donovan and Trinity College, Dublin, in case there's some legal thing invovled. Such things as the law are a mystery to me, as many can inform you.
Main thing, I hope you enjoyed, and feel free to bombard me with accusations of incompetence and misinterpretation. I've already been very retrospectively self critical of some aspects of this, but I really enjoyed writing it, which, as far as I'm concerned, is all that matters!!!


Oh, and if any of you want the proper thing, complete with such academic obligations as double-spacing, correct font-sizing and footnoting, lemme know and I can send yis on a copy.

I'm so pleased to come back to TP after a long (yucky) Christmas break to find this! Thanks so much -- I'll be reading it over closely later today or this evening, and I'm sure it's going to become an important part of my collection of kid-lit analysis literature. Any plans for placing it in print somewhere?

A plan is nothing more than a plan that can go wrong, so no, I have no plans whatsoever. BEst avoided, really.

Thanks for this Godric.

However I have real problems reading long passages with the yellow on black and with the lack of definition for paragraphs (I always stick in a second return) and so forth.
Do you reckon you could bung me a .doc or PDF of it. I promise not to steal anything.

Good point. I'm OK with this the way it is (actually I just copied and pasted the text into a Word file and printed it down to carry around with me and put under my pillow and all that ^_^ ), but I trust you saw to a simple copyright process? Dunno what your laws are there, but it shoudn't be that complicated. Not that I think Dtruslove would ever steal anything :rolleyes:, but this is the web, and our stuff comes up on Google.

This is awfully good stuff, Godric. I love especially how much you leaned on the primary sources instead of a passel of previous analysis. Maybe that means this should be out there for other scholars to consider -- there wasn't that much comparable. I'm going to have another closer read, then I'll make some more comments, if you don't mind.

I'm utterly clueless as to the legalities, but I've long ben of the opinion that if you really want to keep stuff private, then don't put it on the net, so I'll have no big probs. I've always believed in sticking to Primary sources as much as possible.
Dtrus, PM us yer e-mail address, I'll send ye the word document, no problemo

That's great Godric! I really like it. I liked the analyzing of the way the reader has to suspend disbelief.

I've read the BFG, but haven't gotten round to reading Pullman, yet.

I noticed two things wrong....Hermione's actually thirteen when she gets Petrified, as it's after her birthday in September and JKR confirmed that you have to be at least eleven to got to Hogwarts and in Artemis Fowl, Artemis and Butler visit the fairy world for short periods of time, such as when they shut down the Bwa Kell rebellion I think. I'm not sure this makes it not a domestic fantasy as most of it is in the primary world.

But those two things don't really matter and I really enjoyed that.

There I was looking for Literature and Philosophy graduates to proofread my work... I shoulda gone straight to the teenage girl who has her facts right. I forgot clean about the Bwa Kell rebellion, and never bothered to factor in Hermione's age other than at the start of the book. Thanks for setting me straight. To be honest, it does bug me when I make even the tiniest HP mistake. Better brush up on my canon!