Midway through His Dark Materials, a character describes a never-ending conflict between liberating knowledge and oppressive ignorance:
There are two great powers . . . and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit. (Subtle Knife 335)
Pullman addresses this conflict by challenging the biblical accounts of creation and redemption with a highly unorthodox set of new stories that reject the stultifying power of the divine in favor of humanity's capacity for...
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Citation: Burke, Richard C. . "His Dark Materials". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 September 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=31707, accessed 14 December 2025.]
