42 pages • 1 hour read
Philip PullmanThe Subtle Knife
Philip PullmanFiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1997A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Technology, Culture, and Science
The relationship between religious dogma, social power, and scientific understanding is a major theme of The Subtle Knife and His Dark Materials as a whole. In The Subtle Knife, the contrasts between Lyra’s world, Will’s world, and Cittàgazze partly stem from the interplay of religion, social power, and science. The people of Lyra’s world conflate science and religion, as evidenced by Lyra’s word for physics, “experimental theology.” To Lyra, science and theology are indistinguishable. To Mary, the experience of being a nun and of being a physicist are largely at odds with each other.
The Magisterium, the ruling power in Lyra’s world, is often called the “church.” The name “Magisterium” comes from Roman Catholic doctrine, being the name for the teaching authority of the pope, bishops, and other leaders. Within the book, the Magisterium operates similarly to the Catholic church at the height of its power. The Magisterium’s opposition to Dust research appears to be inspired in part by the Catholic church’s role in silencing scientific research. In Lyra’s world, the Enlightenment, a European movement in the 17th and 18th centuries that encouraged reason as the way toward understanding, may have happened very differently, creating a timeline in which the early Catholic church continued its rise to power into the modern day.
The novel explores the corruptive nature of power itself, and the tendency for power-hungry individuals to hide behind the religious, civil, or scientific doctrine of their choice. Every major antagonist is eventually revealed as seeking individual power. This can be seen when Mrs. Coulter betrays Charles, whom she had sworn to be working in tandem with. It is also apparent in the secondhand information the reader receives about Lord Asriel, who is gathering an army to fight the shadowy Authority, but who Ruta Skadi and others worry is becoming a narcissistic ruler in his own northern kingdom.
Ultimately, The Subtle Knife warns against both organized religion and overly powerful governments, while celebrating scientific achievement. In the story of Cittàgazze, it warns against scientific advances being used for immoral, selfish ends. By using their invention for their own gain without regard for its impact on reality, the Guild members have doomed their entire culture to ruin.
Coming of Age
The Subtle Knife is both a literal coming-of-age story and a reflection on the differences between a child and an adult. Will and Lyra are both 12 during the events of the book, and go through major life changes during their trials. Will begins the story by leaving his mother for the first time. He is highly mature from acting as her caretaker for many years, but they have rarely been apart. Will matures quickly as he moves through the story. When he kills the intruder in his home in the opening chapter, he realizes he is no longer innocent. From that day on, he thinks, he will be a murderer, and he will never not be on the run from his crime. Later in the story Will’s maturation becomes more emotional as he learns to work alongside Lyra despite their differences. He also learns to use the subtle knife as he slowly accepts his fate as its bearer.
Lyra also matures emotionally. She learns to trust Will and work with him, and to better communicate with the altheiometer, ignoring it when she knows it doesn’t want her to consult it. Like Will, Lyra still has many childlike traits, especially when encountering new things such as the cinema. Both children stand in contrast to the children of Cittàgazze. The children of Cittàgazze will likely never be able to mature, as everyone in their city is eaten by Specters as soon as they come of age. Without adults or a viable future, their society has crumbled and all social order has fallen away.
The Subtle Knife also explores the idea of coming of age through Specters and daemons. Everyone in Lyra’s world has a daemon, usually an animal of the opposite sex whose species and behavior reflect and complement the person to whom they are attached. As children, daemons constantly shift, reflecting the malleability of youth. For example, Lyra’s daemon Pantalaimon typically shifts with Lyra’s emotions and needs, becoming a wild cat when she is angry at the Cittàgazze children, a dog when she feels Will’s need for comfort, and a small ermine when he is relaxed. When Lyra’s people become adults, their daemons settle into a single specific form, reflecting how adulthood is more of a fixed state. In the Cittàgazze world, Specters are only a threat to adults; children cannot see or be harmed by them. This suggests how children, in spite of their fragile physicality, are oddly resilient.
Free Will Versus Destiny
Throughout The Subtle Knife, characters are pulled toward inevitable fates that call into question the nature of free will. In the beginning, Will and Lyra resist the urge to work together. Although they both need to be in Oxford, they have seemingly different goals and different ways of approaching their investigations. Despite this, they are compelled to take care of each other, and become critical parts of each other’s journeys. Without Lyra disobeying the alethiometer and going back to Oxford, Will never would have gone to retrieve the knife. And without Will showing Lyra the window to his version of Oxford, Lyra never would have found her scholar and “serpent” Mary Malone.
The novel explores free will even more explicitly when Lee arrives at the Tartar village where John Parry is living, isolated from the modern world. Upon arrival, Lee finds that John has a Navajo ring belonging to Lee’s mother, which has been lost for many years. John insists that he used the ring to bring Lee to him, but Lee bristles at this idea. After an arduous journey through the Arctic, following vague leads to find John, Lee refuses to accept that his success was due to shamanic intervention. However, he cannot deny that John somehow acquired his ring.
Lyra and Will’s weapons symbolize the dichotomy between free will and destiny. At first glance, both devices appear to supply unlimited power; the alethiometer gives one the ability to communicate with Dust/dark matter, a universal, omniscient consciousness; and the knife can cut through human souls and the fabric between worlds with little effort. Anyone who can wield these weapons well can achieve a heroic destiny.
Lyra and Will are set apart as the chosen bearers by their ability to choose when, where, and why they use these abilities. Lyra chooses not to consult the alethiometer several times throughout the story, knowing that if she abuses her power the instrument will not work as well. Will asserts his free will when he fights against being the “knife bearer,” a status thrust upon him. However, he ultimately submits to fate when his long-lost father finds him in the Cittàgazze wilderness to tell him the purpose of the knife.
John Parry himself is a study in free will versus destiny. His chance encounter with the first “window” could be seen as an act of fate, but as soon as he passed through to Cittàgazze’s world, he counted on himself to survive among the Specters. He eventually finds himself in Lyra’s world, where he assimilates with a Tartar tribe and undergoes trepanning, a ritual meant to allow more Dust into one’s brain. Pullman leaves it up to the reader to decide whether this makes him more or less free to follow his own will versus that of the universe.
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