Charles Blakey begins The Man in My Basement as heavy-drinking middle-aged single black man living in his childhood room of his mortgaged family home atop the disvalued property of his free-black ancestors who lies to benefit himself. He then meets Aniston Bennet who, by refusing to recognize current forms of organized government, challenges Charles to re-evaluate certain aspects of his culture. Bennet furthermore believes that societies forced to unwillingly punish citizens for crimes are "unhealthy state[s]" and claims his imprisonment is his self-imposed punishment for "crimes against humanity" (Mosley 120). After his experiences with Bennet, Charles remains a single black man living in his childhood room of his now paid-off family home who hides certain information to benefit himself. He buries the tapes and letters left in the basement by Bennet but also reclaims his ancestral heirlooms and establishes a black history museum. Charles reconstructs his personal and cultural identity as a result of his conversations with Bennet. However, when examined through ideas from His Dark Materials, some of the changes that Charles makes are neither positive nor logical.

Both The Man in My Basement and His Dark Materials explore different ways in which cultural rejection frequently produces social change. When Bennet reveals his refusal to recognize the validity of the official laws and consequences in his culture, Charles is forced to reassess his current ideology. He must redefine his concepts of knowledge and ownership. Lyra Belacqua who initially prides herself in her ability to lie must similarly re-evaluate her perceptions of the world by the end of His Dark Materials. As Lyra learns, Dust is the cleverly named elementary particle also known as dark matter that is similar to electrons and neutrons but is "not directly observed and of unknown composition" and is thought to hold existence together ("Dark"). Most people in her universe fear Dust because of powerful Church teachings, including Mrs Coulter who naïvely tells Lyra:

                    Dust is something bad, something wrong, something evil and
                    wicked. Grownups and their dæmons are infected with Dust so
                    deeply that it's too late for them. They can't be helped.…But a
                    quick operation on children means they're safe from it. Dust just
                    won't stick to them ever again. They're safe and happy and —
                    (Compass 282-283)

Mrs Coulter initially believes children and dæmons must be violently separated in order to rescue the children from Dust as adults. When Lyra encounters Lord Asriel while he is imprisoned on Svalbard with the armored bears, she questions the intense fear of Dust. He begins his explanation with the discovery of a new elementary particle:

                    Well, this new kind of particle was elementary all right, but it was
                    very hard to measure because it didn't react in any of the usual
                    ways. The hardest thing...to understand was why the new particle
                    seemed to cluster where human beings were, as if it were attracted
                    to us. And especially to adults. Children, too, but not nearly as
                    much until their dæmons have taken a fixed form. During the years
                    of puberty they begin to attract Dust more strongly, and it settles
                    on them as it settles on adults. (Compass 370)

As Lord Asriel explains, the new elementary particles were originally called Rusakov Particles after the scientist who made the discovery, but the Church soon adopted the name Dust from the Book of Genesis in the Bible: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return...." (Compass 373) Lord Asriel continues with the reason most people in their universe became afraid of Dust after science proved its existence:

                    That left [the Consistorial Court of Discipline] the problem of
                    deciding what [Dust] was. And given the Church's nature, there
                    was only one thing they could have chosen. The Magisterium
                    decided that Dust was the physical evidence for original sin.
                    (Compass 371)

Without much consideration except for explanations that supported its teachings and beliefs, the Church determined Dust to be shamefully sinful elementary particles that should therefore be destroyed. Thus, the conventional cultural belief defines Dust as evil.

Lyra initially also accepts the widely held idea of the wickedness of Dust because of her one-sided exposure to Church attitudes. Her conversation with Lord Asriel during his imprisonment, however, forces her to reconsider her perception of the elementary particles as well as the institution of the Church. Just as Bennet refuses to recognize the official regulatory system in his culture, Lord Asriel challenges the beliefs and norms of his universe. In fact, Lord Asriel is imprisoned on Svalbard in the custody of the armored bears because his dissent severely threatens the power the Church possesses within his culture. Not only does he explain the reasoning behind the intense fear of Dust to Lyra, but Lord Asriel also informs her that his interest is in finding to origin of the mysterious elementary particles (Compass 376). He wishes to harness Dust and create a window into another universe (Compass 377). As Lyra later learns from Mary Malone, Dust is consciousness (Knife 88). According to the creation story taught by the Church, Adam and Eve saw the true form of their dæmons upon eating the forbidden fruit, and, thus, humans became conscious beings (Compass 372). Lord Asriel explains:

                    And that was how sin came into the world...sin and shame and
                    death. It came the moment their dæmons became fixed...Anyway,
                    it's what the Church has taught for thousands of years. And when
                    Rusakov discovered Dust, at last there was a physical proof that
                    something happened when innocence changed into experience.
                    (Compass 372-373)

But, Lord Asriel does not fear Dust. He instead believes the wickedness of the world lies within the origin of Dust: "Somewhere out there is the origin of all the Dust, all the death, all the sin, the misery, the destructiveness in the world. Human beings can't see anything without wanting to destroy it, Lyra. That's original sin. And I'm going to destroy it. Death is going to die." (Compass 377) Lord Asriel rejects the conventional belief of the wickedness of Dust. Lyra is thus forced to reconcile this additional and conflicting evidence with her preexisting ideology in the same way in which Charles must reconstruct his worldview after his experience with Bennet.

When cultural rejection is based on reliable fact and informed reflection, positive social change becomes a possibility. Lord Asriel and Bennet split apart and ultimately restructure multiple worlds as a direct result of their cultural rejection. Whereas Lord Asriel literally tears an opening between two universes, Bennet figuratively breaks down conventional views of knowledge and ownership. By the end of her physical and spiritual journey, Lyra successfully integrates her newly acquired knowledge of reality with her previous notion of the world. She witnesses Lord Asriel destroy the Authority, which requires the examination of all religious ideas including the absence of Heaven and Hell. Her passage through the Land of the Dead and experience with the Harpies teaches her not to lie. With help from Will Parry, Lyra frees the dead and saves consciousness. She also realizes the importance and necessity of sharing the truth with everyone else in her universe. Lyra positively reconstructs her personal and cultural identity as a result of her experience with the cultural rejection of the evilness of Dust. At the end of his time with Bennet, Charles also reassesses and alters his identity because of their conversations. He reclaims the ancestral heirlooms originally stored in his basement but also buries the tapes, letters, and body left behind by Bennet and never speaks of the man in his basement. Whereas the changes Lyra undergoes are positive, the identity Charles constructs is negative and irrational when examined through the affects of the cultural rejection in His Dark Materials.

As he explains the reclamations business near the beginning of his self-selected imprisonment, Bennet divulges his position on the connection between knowledge and ownership. He demonstrates his stance with the example of undiscovered diamonds: "The diamonds only exist for the man who has imagined them. They only exist for the man who knows and who can realize their extraction." (Mosley 149) Bennet argues that the right of ownership belongs to whoever unearths the diamonds. Charles initially disagrees: "But it's not really something reclaimed...It belonged to someone else and you took it. It's more like stealing." (Mosley 149) He argues that the right of ownership belongs to whoever owns the land in which the diamonds are found, which is the prescribed definition of ownership in his culture. However, Charles must reconsider his definition when Bennet further explains his position:

                    Knowledge is the only true prerequisite for ownership. If you don't
                    know something, then you can't work with it. There are only two
                    things that are important in ownership. The first, like I said, is
                    knowledge. The second is the ability to exert control over wealth.
                    (Mosley 149)

Although Charles verbally expresses his dissent for the connection between knowledge and ownership, his actions both before and after Bennet dies are in opposition with his words. After deciding to allow Bennet to remain imprisoned in the basement, Charles offers Bennet a deal:

                    I will ask you questions. And you will answer them. If you refuse
                    or I don't like your answers, then a privilege will be taken away. If
                    I don't like your attitude, I will suspend privileges. If you lie, the
                    same thing. (Mosley 180)

Bennet gains ownership of privileges such as food to eat and books to read in exchange for knowledge. Just as Lyra must not lie but rather trade true stories with the Harpies for safe travel through the Land of the Dead, he must truthfully share his stories to secure certain freedoms. Originally disagreeing with the idea that knowledge is the only prerequisite for ownership, Charles reconstructs his cultural identity to allow for the definition. Further support for his change is evident in the way in which Charles handles the envelopes Bennet leaves under his cot. Rather than mailing the letters as requested, Charles conceals them with the tapes he secretly recorded of Bennet. As Charles narrates:

                         All that was left of him were those letters and about forty tapes
                    of his confessions.
                         He was right; I never sent his letters. I buried them with his
                    tapes in the basement where he died. (Mosley 248)

Since Charles ultimately believes knowledge prerequisites ownership, his knowledge of Bennet implies he owns Bennet. Charles strengthens his ownership when he hides the tapes and letters as well when he buries the body in his family cemetery because he is the only person who knows about artifacts and grave. By concealing the downright existence of the man in his basement, Charles further exerts his control over Bennet in accordance with the second premise of ownership. Through his exposure to cultural rejection, Charles successfully reconstructs his identity to include the connection between knowledge and ownership.

Although Lord Asriel rejects the culturally prescribed belief of the evilness of Dust, his idea of destroying the origin to destroy the sin is incomplete. Lyra learns the true nature of the elementary particles from the angel Xaphania: "Dust is not a constant. There's not a fixed quantity that has always been the same. Conscious beings make Dust — they renew it all the time, by thinking and feeling and reflecting, by gaining wisdom and passing it on." (Spyglass 491) Just as Dust created consciousness, consciousness creates Dust. Innocence became experience and humankind gained knowledge because of the necessary Fall from paradise during which Dust and consciousness resulted (Lenz 5). As she reflects on her journey at the end of His Dark Materials, Lyra resolves to spread the truth about Dust:

                    We shouldn't live as if [the Kingdom of Heaven] mattered more
                    than this life in this world, because where we are is always the
                    most important place...We have to be all those difficult things like
                    cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we've got to study
                    and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and
                    then we'll build...[t]he Republic of Heaven. (Spyglass
                    518)

She must freely pass on her knowledge and wisdom. Within the parallel experiences of cultural rejection and social change, Lyra reconstructs her personal and cultural identity by discarding false beliefs about Heaven and Hell and including accurate truths about life and death.

Charles, too, restructures his identity to include the unconventional connection between knowledge and ownership. His theory of knowledge as the only true prerequisite for ownership reveals problematic elements when examined through the idea of knowledge in His Dark Materials. Lyra understands she must remain in her own universe because her dæmon will eventually die in worlds other than her own (Spyglass 363). She must sacrifice an irreplaceable piece of herself to gain the knowledge of another world. Only after he surrenders two fingers can Will yield the subtle knife (Knife 176). He must sever part of his body to gain the knowledge of the knife, which creates evil and destroys consciousness. Factually informed cultural rejection such as Lyra denying the evilness of Dust based on her newly acquired knowledge of the truth leads to the possibility of positive social change as in the rescue of consciousness. When Charles accepts knowledge prerequisites ownership, he must abandon his just argument that the right of ownership belongs to whoever owns the land in which the diamonds are found. Bennet loses his exclusive claim on his past as he answers the questions required by Charles. But, the problem lies not within knowledge itself but rather with what is done with the knowledge. Even though Bennet claims the question is not of good or evil (Mosley 229), Lyra and Will must decide between selflessness to free consciousness and selfishness to damn death. Charles ultimately makes negative changes to his identity because the construction is between good and evil.

"Dark Matter." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 30 Mar. 2007. Wikimedia Foundation. 31 Mar. 2007. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter>

Lenz, Millicent. "Introduction." His Dark Materials Illuminated. Ed. Lenz, Millicent and Carole Scott. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005. 1-15.

Mosley, Walter. The Man in My Basement. New York: Back Bay Books, 2004.

Pullman, Philip. His Dark Materials: The Amber Spyglass. New York: Dell Yearling, 2000.

—. His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass. New York: Dell Yearling, 1995.

—. His Dark Materials: The Subtle Knife. New York: Dell Yearling, 1997.