MAGICAL REALISM AND THE POSTMODERN IMAGINATION IN PHILIP PULLMAN'S NORTHERN LIGHTS: INTERSECTIONS OF FANTASY AND REALITY

This paper explores the inner worlds of postmodern magical realism in his literary work Northern Lights (1995) and also refutes the claim that the text embraces traditional narration. Northern Lights intertwines the fantasy and reality worlds to weave a complex narrative that represents the world of magical realism. The method employed in our analysis is to closely read Pullman’s employment of his thematic contrasts and symbolic elements that intertwine the normal with the abnormal, allowing the fanciful to echo and deepen the characters' internal realities. The novel also presents the conventional boundaries between the ordinary and the paranormal, merging the well-known Oxford setting with fanciful features such as demons, Dust, and parallel worlds. Through this mixture, Pullman revisits some key concepts of power, authority, and institutional(ized) powers epitomized by religion. Lyra Belacqua, the protagonist, experiences a transformation that represents her personal growth towards self-actualization. Her evolving association with the alethiometer symbolizes her coming-of-age capacity to question and redefine authority. The alethiometer also embodies Northern Lights’ conflict between rationalism and mysticism. It has been inferred that Pullman's employment of magical realism is not just a matter of style, but it is an ideology, thus allowing for critical questioning of knowledge and autonomy. One of the major research implications is dust, the enigmatic atom, is found to obscure the borderline between science, religion, and metaphysics, thus reinforcing the novel’s magical realism. A major finding is that Pullman’s Northern Lights masterfully mixes elements of magical realism with postmodern inspiration, thus generating a tale where fiction and reality interlink to argue perceptions of belief, human experience and truth as well as deconstructing whatsocalled institutionalized religiosity.