Philip Pullman and the Specter of Depression
Class
Article
Graduation Year
2017
College
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Department
English Department
Faculty Mentor
Christine Cooper-Rompato
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Abstract
In this paper, I examine the way that Philip Pullman uses fantastical creations to examine mental health issues. My focus is on Pullman’s textual argument that depression functions as an inhibitor to the central purpose of human life—the creation and magnification of “consciousness” or “dust.” He has a somewhat roundabout strategy for this analysis, given his humanist and atheistic worldview. In an interview in 2011 whose focus was “the meaning of life” Pullman explained why he uses fantastical creatures and concepts in his writing that he doesn’t himself believe in: “One way of explaining [it] seemed to me to compare it to what mathematicians do with entities that can’t exist. There’s no such thing as the square root of -1, but if you include it in your calculations you can discover all sorts of interesting things” (BritishHumanists). This is exactly what Pullman does with the daemon and the specter. Though they don’t exist in the world we’re familiar with, when they’re examined in a world that bears many similarities to ours, it allows him to examine real issues with nonreal subjects. Humans have a triplicate nature in the books. Every person, regardless of the world they come from, has a spirit/ghost, a daemon, and a body. The interplay of the three creates a triangle. At each point is one of these three entities, and the personality and actions stem from the way they interact. To separate any from the other two is to make the daemon vanish and the bodiless spirit to descend to the world of death. That separation induces a condition which is very similar to major depressive disorder because it induces a state of total apathy towards feeling and living. This paper examines the inhibition through close readings and multidisciplinary research.
Location
Room 101
Start Date
4-13-2017 9:00 AM
End Date
4-13-2017 10:15 AM
Philip Pullman and the Specter of Depression
Room 101
In this paper, I examine the way that Philip Pullman uses fantastical creations to examine mental health issues. My focus is on Pullman’s textual argument that depression functions as an inhibitor to the central purpose of human life—the creation and magnification of “consciousness” or “dust.” He has a somewhat roundabout strategy for this analysis, given his humanist and atheistic worldview. In an interview in 2011 whose focus was “the meaning of life” Pullman explained why he uses fantastical creatures and concepts in his writing that he doesn’t himself believe in: “One way of explaining [it] seemed to me to compare it to what mathematicians do with entities that can’t exist. There’s no such thing as the square root of -1, but if you include it in your calculations you can discover all sorts of interesting things” (BritishHumanists). This is exactly what Pullman does with the daemon and the specter. Though they don’t exist in the world we’re familiar with, when they’re examined in a world that bears many similarities to ours, it allows him to examine real issues with nonreal subjects. Humans have a triplicate nature in the books. Every person, regardless of the world they come from, has a spirit/ghost, a daemon, and a body. The interplay of the three creates a triangle. At each point is one of these three entities, and the personality and actions stem from the way they interact. To separate any from the other two is to make the daemon vanish and the bodiless spirit to descend to the world of death. That separation induces a condition which is very similar to major depressive disorder because it induces a state of total apathy towards feeling and living. This paper examines the inhibition through close readings and multidisciplinary research.