Dust: The Original Sin

Dust, an interesting and intriguing concept created by Pullman in His Dark Materials. We know little about dust in the beginning of the novel, as it progressively becomes evident what Pullman intended for Dust to be. Is it sort of like soot, in the way that it is made up of minuscule particles covering surfaces? Or is it something deeper? When Lyra is reunited with Lord Asriel after Iorek usurped Iofur from his reign, we finally delve into the mythical topic of none other than Dust.

Dust is in the surrounding air around us, an awareness in the world and all of it possibilities. It is conscious and attracted to beings in Lyra’s world. What sorts of beings can Dust possibly seek? The adults. Dust is attracted to the wisdom, the knowledge, and the maturity that adults embody. This knowledge drives Dust to surround adults who have daemons who have reached maturation and keep to one particular form. This can also translate to adults being aware of their capability of sinning, of not seeing the world through innocent eyes anymore. Thus, Dust is a frightening concept to most of the adults in the world, for they cannot comprehend or control it. It is frankly out of their grasp. The Church and Mrs. Coulter would rather see Dust eliminated, freeing mankind of its burden of original sin.

All humans are born with the capability to sin and do so by maturing into adults. Mrs. Coulter’s brilliant idea to combat this was to sever the connection between children and their precious daemons in an effort to free mankind from original sin. However, little did they know that the energy link between human and daemon disappears, making them no longer the beings they once were. Now, they are empty shells wandering through life, as if they were zombies. Dust: incomprehensible, uncontrollable, spontaneous. Lyra hopes to find the source of Dust in an effort to truly comprehend whether or not it is good or bad; after all, her impeccable alethiometer uses Dust to guide her towards the truth of which she seeks. In a sense, Lyra’s journey is also a passage of rite, to find out the truth, that of which she does not know, but would like to.