The secular angel in contemporary children's literature: David ...

with it, my story resolved itself into an account of the necessity of growing
up, and a refusal to lament the loss of innocence. […] Innocence is not wise,
and wisdom cannot be innocent, and if we are going to do any good in the
world, we have to leave childhood behind. (Pullman in Milton, 2005, 10)
In the previous chapter I argued that Almond is not too quick or eager to reject childhood or
ignore some of its merits, while Pullman’s premise in HDM is based on the belief that the
innocence that is unavoidably linked to the early years of a person’s life is something ‘we must
leave behind’ in order to acquire knowledge. His choice to express this while retelling the story
of Adam and Eve is far from coincidental or random, for the argument he makes is not limited
to a solitary aspect of life or a specific time in history, but extends to the state of humanity as a
whole; and so it is that he goes back to its very beginning —or to be more precise, to what the
Christian world considers to be its beginning. The greatest difference lies in the fact that the
foundation of this beginning is what needs to change for him in order to become significant.
For it is only in our understanding of what biting the apple truly means that we can change and
make the world a better place.
This Chapter focuses, to a great extent, on the theme and use of intertextuality in
Pullman’s trilogy. It explores and actively engages with the way in which Pullman has not
only borrowed concepts and ideas from several sources but has even used direct quotations, in
the form of epigraphs, which he has placed within the text. Throughout the analysis, several
arguments made are shared by other critics, such as the fact that Pullman inverts many aspects
of the story of the Fall and Man’s disobedience against God. However, my own argument
differs on a fundamental basis while still encompassing the above notions. I argue that
Pullman’s narrative is indeed a retelling of Milton’s Paradise Lost, but in this rewriting
Pullman deconstructs the story of Genesis to the point where it does not exist anymore. He
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