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A Specialist Study of the character of “Lyra” and how she develops in the novel “Northern Lights” by Philip Pullman. Colin Campbell. I have recently enjoyed studying a novel by Philip Pullman entitled “Northern Lights”. I was particularly interested in the characterisation of the main character, Lyra, and how she develops throughout the course of the novel. I found her at first to be naive and headstrong, but as her character develops she learns more about how the world works. There is one thing in her, which I feel does not develop. This is her courage. I feel that she is consistently courageous to the extent of the plot. When the reader is first introduced to Lyra, her background story is told. “She (Lyra) was proud of her College’s eminence, and liked to boast of it to the various ragamuffins she played with by the Canal or the Claybeds.” Jordan College adopted Lyra, when she was very young, as her mother and father had died. She likes to think of it as “her college” and is very proud of it. However, she is not educated at the college and therefore has a lot of spare time, which she uses to play with streetchildren. This shows her character to be of a young, naïve and mischievous nature. “In many ways Lyra was a barbarian. What she liked best was clambering over the College roofs with Roger, the kitchen boy, who was her particular friend.” This backs up previous comments about her character’s childishness and mischievous nature.
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