Childhood Innocence And Experience In Philip Pullman's Novel 'The Golden Compass'

As far as adults are concerned, children are innocent. Adults look back into childhood along with their experiences and maturity, which as a result brings out the most common assumptions of childhood; innocence and experience. According to adults, children are pure, and inexperienced, which in fact is debatable. Philip Pullman’s novel the Golden Compass is an excellent representation of childhood innocence and experience. This essay will explain how innocence and experience is perceived in “the Golden Compass” as well as the comparison between adults and children.

Innocence is usually associated with being pure. That being said, children are innocent because they perceive the world as benevolent and fair. They do not know the good or bad, or at least that’s what adults think. They were born pure and free from sin, which shifts as they gain experience. Philip Pullman’s novel “The Golden Compass” centers
As the reader of “the Golden Compass” would expect, Philip Pullman agrees with this distinction between children and adults. In the novel, this idea is brought upon by the Dust. Its been mentioned that the Dust only attracts adults but not children. Since the Dust represents the conscious thought, it is concluded that children lack this trait since they are not being attracted by it, in comparison to adults. To add, the fact that daemons stop changing shape and settle as a child reaches puberty shows that a child’s nature, in other words, personality is still not yet set or determined, again, in comparison to adults. Pullman mentions; “She just said, it 's something to make you more grown up. She said everyone had to have it, that 's why grownups ' daemons don 't change like ours do. So they have a cut to make them one shape forever, and that 's how you get grown up.” (Pullman, Ch 15) This quote confirms the difference between children and adults in terms of their