TY - JOUR
T1 - Beyond the collapse of meaning
T2 - Narratives of monstrosity in Philip Pullman's his dark materials
AU - Kellett, Kathleen
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© University of Toronto Press 2018.
PY - 2018/12/1
Y1 - 2018/12/1
N2 - Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, consisting of The Golden Compass (1995), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (2000), is a composite of multiple narratives in which adult and adolescent monsters enact radically different modes of monstrous meaning. An agentic protagonist that embodies the abject, the monster threatens the stability of subjectivity. It is therefore paradoxically a subject arisen from, and composed of, the abject. The Authority, or God, creates a rigid cultural narrative that supports separation and hierarchy, while Lyra Belacqua, a young adolescent, provides a redemptive vision of monstrosity. Her narrative is empathic and heteroglossic, and the subjective meaning that she creates arises from a multiplicity of abject perspectives.
AB - Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, consisting of The Golden Compass (1995), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (2000), is a composite of multiple narratives in which adult and adolescent monsters enact radically different modes of monstrous meaning. An agentic protagonist that embodies the abject, the monster threatens the stability of subjectivity. It is therefore paradoxically a subject arisen from, and composed of, the abject. The Authority, or God, creates a rigid cultural narrative that supports separation and hierarchy, while Lyra Belacqua, a young adolescent, provides a redemptive vision of monstrosity. Her narrative is empathic and heteroglossic, and the subjective meaning that she creates arises from a multiplicity of abject perspectives.
KW - Abjection
KW - Heteroglossia
KW - His dark materials
KW - Subjectivity
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U2 - 10.3138/utq.87.1.158
DO - 10.3138/utq.87.1.158
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85045681957
SN - 0042-0247
VL - 87
SP - 158
EP - 175
JO - University of Toronto Quarterly
JF - University of Toronto Quarterly
IS - 1
ER -