Bijan Boroumand Period 2

Lyra’s Character Sketch

The main character in The Golden Compass is Lyra Belacque, a young and curious girl. She
lives in a place called Jordan College. She is very adventurous, and likes to play with her
friends, such as Roger. We left off in chapter five, when Lyra has decided to run away from the
mysterious Mrs. Coulter. We don’t really know who Lyra’s family is yet, all we know is that she
has an uncle named Lord Asriel, and her parents may once have been important.

Social - We learn soon on that Lyra is very uncooperative. She probably gets this attitude from
having no friends that aren’t servants or other lower-class children. She doesn’t like to follow
orders, especially from Mrs. Lonsdale. “ Don’t want to look at nothing,” Lyra would say (56). Mrs.
Lonsdale would reply with a smack on her leg and the words “Wash, you get all that dirt off!”
(57). Lyra would just keep complaining and asking why she had to listen. Lyra is also very
naughty. She would do naughty stuff, such as sneaking into the catacombs and playing around
with the skulls. “What are you doing?” Roger would say, “You en’t supposed to touch ‘em.” But
Lyra would just ignore him, and keep playing around with the skulls (44). One of Lyra’s better
qualities was her leadership. She was a leader, once she even led a troop of kids to raid Ma
Costa’s gyptian boat (32). There were successful in raiding the boat, casting it down the canal
while Lyra’s raiders searched for bug. The didn’t find it in time, and they had to flee into the
narrow lanes of Jericho (33).

Physical - Lyra is a younger girl. We can tell this by the way she acts and the way she’s
treated. Her dæmon changes forms, and only kids before puberty have dæmons that change
forms. Her dæmon pantalaimon has many forms, such as a moth (3), or an ermine (25). Lyra
likes to play with the servant kids, and other lower-class kids. Therefore she get dirty because
she’s always playing around in muddy areas. Mrs. Lonsdale would notice this, and she would
force Lyra to wash and get the dirt off of her. Lyra was is also very energetic. She would engage
in mini wars with other kids, such as the brick-burners. They’d raid the brick-burners claybeds,
pelting the kids with lumps of heavy clay and tipping over the soggy castle they’d built (32).

Emotional - We find out in the first few pages that Lyra is very curious: she likes to sneak
around and find out stuff that she’s not supposed to know. “Happy now? Can we go?”
Pantalaimon would whisper. “Don’t be silly! I want to look around” replied Lyra. She learned a lot
of things in those first few pages because of her curiosity. She even saved Lord Asriel from
getting poisoned. Lyra is very daring. We learned this on page 33 when she raided the Gyptian
boat and cast it off from the bank. She’s even willing to go and help out rescue the children from
the Gobblers! (124). Lyra is a tough girls. She doesn’t cry as much as other girls her age. We
know this from the incident on page 12 when Lord Asriel twists her wrist painfully. When she got
hurt, she would just grit her teeth and move on (13).

Lyra is a very rounded character. We learn that straight on in chapters 1-5. We will learn more
and more about this character as the story progresses. Lyra has many different qualities:
physically, socially, and emotionally. We will see how these qualities help her, and maybe harm
her in intense situations in the next few chapters.
Bijan Boroumand Period 2