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Originally Posted by Lush
Yeah, I give up.
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Pity, dear, as I always enjoy your posts, even if I disagree with them.
I, too, am disappointed by the implications of Susan's depiction. There's a very strong, horrible tradition in western culture denigrating any form of female sexuality and it's a shame that Lewis, with his love for Joy Davidman and his great learning from her, went this ambiguous route that is so open to such an interpretation. But we are all allowed our interpretations.
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Originally Posted by davem
Is again my interpretation of the work. My feeling is that Pullman believes that there is a core of good in each being which must be 'awakened', whereas in my reading of the work they are morally neutral - which is one reason why I am not convinced by his conclusion. I see nothing in the story to make be believe that any of the characters have the capacity to create a perfect world. Pullman clearly does.
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I must begin by saying that I have read HDM only once and not given it the depth of consideration which you have, so my thoughts are clearly less measured. That said, I'm not sure about this
core of good which must be 'awakened'.
True that if we take Pullman at his word that every person must, in himself and herself, experience a "fall" from innocence, then it follows that this initial stage, if it is in keeping with the religious traditions of fall which Pullman and Milton worked in, must be some form of guileless, candid, uncorrupted state unaware of the knowledge of good and evil. (Wait, it's been so long since I read Milton that I'm not sure this applies. I mainly remember that he thought Eve was a great cook and he really loved epic similes.) Pullman would then reject the concept of original sin and believe that good can be drawn out of people.
However, if Pullman as an agnostic or possible atheist believes in evolution, then the question is, I think more murky. This particularly relates to the idea that humans have daemons, animal forms of alternate identities. If people have evolved, where or when does the ethical question of good and evil come into existence? Is it there in bacteria? Or does it evolve as cell division becomes more complex and sophisticated? Is the ethical form of human existence only something that is learned? Must human beings learn not to harm others in the pursuit of their own desires, for instance? This seems to me to be one way to interprete Lyra and the trilogy's conclusion and it is an evolutionary rather than an absolute question.
The daemons are, I think, central to understanding Pullman's conception of human identity. I relate this back to Lyra's behaviour as a child. Even if we grant, as
davem does, that such behaviour is morally neutral, I think that, in giving Lyra a name which highlights her guile and her lack of candor and straightforwardness, Pullman may in fact be suggesting that human nature is not essentially good, but that goodness must be earned at a cost.
In short, I'm not convinced that this "republic of heaven" necessarily implies a perfect world here on whichever planet of whichever dimension we exist in, but rather the world which grants to humans the greatest possibility of ethical behaviour.
Again, I think back to Tolkien. He worked within a concept of a fallen world, of human beings who always and inevitably fail. And he eventually decided not to write about the fourth age, or a fifth age, or a sixth age, or a seventh.
What does someone whose imagination is given over to these later ages do? Is there no hope?