Golden Compass Essay

Astor Meredith-Goujon

October 28, 2014

Essay of “The Golden Compass”

            The book the Golden compass is about a girl named Lyra in a fictional world. She lives in oxford. In this world every one has something called a daemon. They are complaining are tied to a person from birth. If they get too far from each other they will die. Lyra doesn’t have any parents. Daemons are animals and they can change into any animal when the people are kids but they settle on one animal. I think that a Daemon is like someone’s soul. The Daemons change because kids have a lot of emotions and act a lot of different ways. But when a kid grows up they sort of settle on a personality and who they want to be and how they want to act so the Daemon doesn’t need to change to fit the person anymore.

            One of the reason I think this is because in the book it says, “‘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 form for him.’” One of the key things in this quote is that he says that settling is part of growing up. Which means that they are somehow related. It also shows how the child grows and only wants their daemon to be in one form. It also shows how Daemons always settle and everyone grows up so this is an important fact.

            Another reason I think that this is true is because when it says in the book, “‘Why don’t you just make some more armor out of this metal here Iorek Byrnison?’ ‘Because it’s worthless. Look,’ he said, and, lifting the engine cover with one paw, he extended a claw on the other hand and ripped right through it like a can opener. ‘My armor is made of sky iron, made for me. A bear’s armor is his armor is his soul, just as your daemon is your soul. You might as well take him away’-indication Pantalimon-‘and replace him with a doll full of sawdust. That is the difference.” This confirms that a Daemon is the soul of a person and that they are connected to them. It also shows how important a daemon is because it is connected with the person. Someone cannot live without a soul. A soul is something that represents you as a person.

            The last reason I think that daemons represents people’s emotions is because at the end of the book it says, “ His hands, still clasping her head, tensed suddenly and drew her toward him in a passionate kiss. Lyra thought it seemed more like cruelty than, love and looked at their daemons, to see a strange sight: the snow leopard tense crouching with her claws just pressed in the golden monkey’s flesh and the monkey relaxed blissful, swooning on the snow.” The people had bitter love between them. The Daemons interacting this way toward each other shows that Daemons represent emotions. The fact that the snow leopard had its claws unsheathed shows the bitterness and the monkey being relaxed and blissful shows the love between them. Also the snow leopard it’s cut the monkey with it’s claws which show that they don’t hate each other.

            A daemon is like how a person would be in their animal form.  They are the complete representatives of that. They are companions and they are tied to you. They are just like a soul in a real person. The point of the daemon is to show that you can’t live without a soul and how important emotions and feelings are. They are the most important things just like emotions.