HDM book Essay

Former Member

Ive chosen the Amber Spyglass to base my personal study on but the teacher told me (after months of preparation) that I can't write about Dust or Daemons and their relation to growing up etc as I was amking it sound as if they were real elements. So now I have to think of a new topic. What can i write about? I'm totally stumped. :banghead:

Former Member

Ooh I loved that trilogy!
My AV is a picture of the Alethiometer

But what is a personal project? Is it just a coursework essay or something? And does it have to be on the book, or just based on themes raised by the book?

You could do something about the family dynamic, about Lyra's estranged parents or something. Or something more poetic about the actual structure of Philip Pullman's fictional parallel world. You could talk about religious themes, if that interests you. I thought Dust and Daemons wrt youth/adulthood would be cool - what does your teacher mean about you treating them as real things, and what's wrong with that anyway?

Former Member

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Former Member

Was the problem that you made them sound as if they were exsisting real things? If that's the case surely you should be able to discuss them as literary concepts used to convey to young readers the concepts of growing older / puberty in a way that conveys the concept without being too confrontational - after all isn't symbolism the whole basis of mythology / legend / fairie tales?

Though I thought the current high-minded approach to the triology was to compare it to Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained

Former Member

Yep Jim, that was the problem. She wants me to write about PP's technique in introducing new characters but I don't want to write about that. Well fuck her, she didn't help me all day so I'm writing about Dust and Daemons whether she likes it or not. She wont be in next week anyway for the actual "under exam conditions" write up anyway.