Fleetingness of childhood
The Golden Compass centers on the story of Lyra, a young girl who must leave the protected realm of her childhood behind in order to confront challenges in an unfamiliar and often-scary outside world. Lyra experiences angst when she realizes that her world must change. However, she is also very eager to encounter new experiences. Throughout the novel, Pullman plays with the tension between the joys and freedoms of childhood and the lure of becoming an adult and settling into one’s identity.
Lyra’s sailing mentor offers her some related advice. When Lyra asks why her dæmon must settle when she grows up, he suggests that the compensation for losing the adaptability of childhood is knowing what kind of person you are: “Ah, they always have settled, and they always will. That's part of growing up. There'll come a time when you'll be tired of his changing about, and you'll want a settled kind of form for him” (101).
Companionship
In the world of The Golden Compass, dæmons accompany characters throughout their lives and even into the afterlife. This is a powerful bond that strikes jealousy in nonhuman beings that do not have dæmons. Moreover, if this bond breaks then a person is considered to no longer be whole.
In this way, Pullman uses dæmons to draw out the broader theme of companionship and its sometimes difficult implications. Even in characters’ relationships with their dæmons, insecurity and fear of abandonment are present. For example, while aboard a ship Lyra watches Pantalaimon take the form of a fish and play with a dolphin in the water. She takes joy in her dæmon’s pleasure but also fears his desire to stray. Even beyond the relationship with one’s dæmon, companionship has serious consequences. For example, Lyra’s companionship with Roger is so important that his disappearance is enough to upend her life.
Loyalty and social debts
Loyalty is a powerful force that weighs heavily on the decisions of the characters in The Golden Compass. Often this takes the form of a social debt. For example, Lord Asriel has performed many good deeds for the gyptian people over the years. For this reason, John Faa feels that the gyptians owe it to Lord Asriel to protect his daughter Lyra. In turn, Serafina Keppala and her clan owe a debt to Farder Coram because he saved her life forty years ago. In the world that Pullman creates, such social debts may even overpower physical strength. After Lyra helps Iorek Byrnisson to recover his armor, Iorek is almost lost in a fit of rage. However, Lyra is able to convince him to control himself because he is indebted to her for reuniting him with his armor.
Compassion
As Lyra travels to increasingly distant parts of the world, she meets people who are very different from her. Sometimes these differences provoke discomfort in Lyra and she must struggle against her own prejudices. However, by maintaining an open mind and a willingness to confront new realities, Lyra is able to develop a deep sense of compassion for diverse others. This compassion becomes a vital tool that enables her to complete the tasks that her destiny lays out for her. For example, at first Lyra has trouble relating to Iorek because he does not have a dæmon. Yet learning the importance of his armor helps Lyra to feel compassion for Iorek, which in turn enables them to work together.
The child’s perspective
In The Golden Compass Pullman tells the vast majority of the story through Lyra’s perspective. However, at times the narrator describes events that Lyra is unaware of. These sometimes include conversations between adults that happen while Lyra is sleeping or playing. Often such conversations reveal information that is vitally important to Lyra but that no one wants to tell her. In other instances, Lyra must learn things by eavesdropping on adults who assume that she would not understand anyway. In this way, Pullman uses a third-person omnipresent narrator to highlight the tension between children and adults. On the one hand, the author gives importance to Lyra’s perspective as a child. On the other hand, the narrator underscores the way that adults often withhold information from children.
Religion and politics
Religion and politics are important and intertwined themes in The Golden Compass. A mysterious and faceless theocracy called the Church dominates Lyra’s world. Yet the novel makes no mention of spirituality in relation to the Church. Rather, religion seems to be little more than a political system. The Church also has the ultimate say on the truth. It attempts to suppress scientific discoveries that do not fit in with its teachings on the Bible and the nature of the world. In this sense, the novel warns of the dangers when religious institutions are too intertwined with politics and hold unquestioned power over political systems.
Social class
In The Golden Compass, as in our world, social class often defines a person’s life circumstances. Due to the unusual conditions of Lyra’s childhood, many of her playmates are of a different social class. However, Lyra never misses an opportunity to remind anyone who will listen that she has a rich and powerful uncle and a privileged position at Jordan College, or that she got to spend time at a glamorous London flat with Mrs. Coulter.
However, the flip-side of this privilege is inequality and discrimination, themes that Pullman highlights through the story of the gyptians. Often, the gyptians mention how English society views them with disdain, treats them as second-class citizens, and denies them rights. For many gyptian characters, this reality forms an important aspect of their identity.