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

Hobson argues that in the twentieth century the angel in literature is seen to serve a
very different purpose, its representation now being a ‘modern’ one. She raises the question of
why the angel was not banished despite the “even partial secularization of the European mind
in the twentieth century” (Hobson, 2007, 495) and states that,
First, this figure is often called upon to take up a position in relation to
‘modernity’ understood in liberal humanist terms as technological or social
progress; the angel appears to support, or conversely to oppose, the advance of
science, industry and even history itself. (…) A second way to approach the
newness of the twentieth-century angel is through the lens of debates over sex
and gender. (Hobson, 2007, 495)
This angelic modernization has been successfully achieved by all three authors, but the
modernity involved is not only related to sex and gender issues, but focuses in more depth on
the angel’s relation to science. The relationship between the angel and science is most
obviously delineated in Skellig, and Almond seems to be entertaining this seemingly opposing
idea on several levels. He achieves this by first ‘inflicting’ his angelic figure with arthritis —
or the personified Arthur-itis, as it is sometimes referred to in the novel— and secondly by
continuously juxtaposing the elements of science and medicine —in the form of “deep
injections right into the joint” (Almond, 2007, 64) and cod liver oil capsules— with the
doctrine of William Blake and the will to live and keep going by “keep[ing] cheerful, [not]
giving up, [and] remain[ing] active” (Almond, 2007, 65), juxtaposing, in essence, science and
faith, not in a higher power, but in the unknown, the otherworldly and the seemingly invisible.
Although the other two authors do not present such a straightforward juxtaposition between
faith and science from the angels’ point of view, they do represent the two as a binary
opposition and explore and challenge the ways in which one may either complicate or
complement the other.
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