The Subtle Knife Literary Elements

Adventure, Fiction

The novel has been set in a set of universes with pathways in between them at a time when radical changes are taking place.

The narrator is in the third person and supports the cause of Will, Lyra and the witches to destroy the Almighty.

The tone is hopeful as the narrator anticipates for Lyra and Will to succeed in their mission whereas the mood is tense as events keep happening fast.

The main protagonists are Lyra and Will who seek to destroy the Almighty and his corrupt cause whereas the antagonists are Mrs.Coulter and the church who keep fighting Lyra and Will to prevent them from achieving their destiny.

Mrs. Coulter seeks to separate Will and Lyra by kidnapping Lyra so that she can keep them from fulfilling their destiny.

Will finds his father and they bond as his father tells him about his purpose as the knife bearer which was to kill the Almighty.

The witches foretold Lyra's destiny of being the new Eve and it came to pass since she was tempted as Eve had been in the creation stories.

The witches said that the child would bring changes while referring to Lyra. This was an understatement because Lyra would cause the world to go into chaos as it's fate lay in her hands.

Biblical allusion as Lyra is prophesied to be the new Eve who would be tempted as Eve was tempted in the Bible.

Description of Will and his mother by the piano teacher. She described them as, '... With the untidy hair, the distracted half smile, and at the boy with the fierce, unhappy glare in his eyes.'

The narrator claims that Will's dreams were filled with anxiety and sweetness in equal measure such that he struggled to keep awake and at the same time longed to sleep.

The narrator draws a parallel between the different worlds in the universe. For example between Lyra's world where daemons were visible and Will's world where they were not.

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