engleski

Human and Animal Identity in Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" Trilogy

In one of the fantastic worlds devised by Philip Pullman in his trilogy, human characters appear in the company of their daemon, animal-shaped externalization of the soul. Daemons can be also viewed as living totemic symbols, as human’s animal Other, conferring to human extra power and abilities. Animal characters, on the contrary, do not have their daemon, and some of them crave for one in order to “humanize” themselves, i.e. to acquire a higher rank in the hierarchy of beings. It thus appears that the narrative adopts contradictory representational strategies with respect to animal: it opens a gap between human and animal on one side, and on the other it depicts human as deeply interwoven with the animal. Analysis of representational strategies used in the narrative, and of different roles played by humans, dæmons and animals, is intended to show that Pullman’s trilogy is yet another site of cultural and discoursive production of human identity, and that the latter is determined in opposition to animal, thus revealing its own relative and relational nature.

animal studies; Philip Pullman; fantasy; identity

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