Charming – Witty – Haunting
I have an affinity for Peter Pan. It was my favourite Disney movie growing up and still is, not to mention the loyalty I have for this representative of redheads (a sadly scarce phenomenon). Although I have not seen the play, I have read the book, watched countless films about it and enjoyed (twice in the space of a month) Peter Pan Goes Wrong.
J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan did not fail my expectations, even after reading it for the first time with adult-eyes. Its charm is anticipated in Peter but is carried through the entire narrative, Barrie creates a tale that is familiar yet fun and new with every page you turn.
‘Mrs Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children’s minds.’ (pg6) There is an immediate and gentle comfort from the beginning chapter in Mrs Darling’s mothering which throws a psychological lens on the family dynamic when reading the story as a young adult. The attentiveness and love of the mother is warming to read and yet serves to cast a precious fragility to the pitfalls of the children and to Peter later on in the story. Her love is a reminder that Neverland is quite real and the children are quite capable of feeling hurt, and that would be real also.
The story is full of charm and Barrie integrates every character with it; Barrie’s wit is unparalleled in the characterisation of Mr Darling who remarks on his own sorrow: ‘wearing myself to the bone trying to be funny in this house’. (p22)
What I found surprising was the near-gritty reality of life on Neverland. There is a passage describing the ‘chief forces’ on the island: ‘The lost boys were out looking for Peter, the pirates were out looking for the lost boys, the redskins were out looking for the pirates, and the beasts were out looking for the redskins. They were going round and round the island…’
The cyclical, almost-eerie eternity of the three clans (minus the beasts) on Neverland that follow and follow and follow each other around and around under the veil of night-time is unfamiliar. Barrie conjures up a sense of stoic ‘foreverness’ on Neverland and so stuck and proud these groups are, when it comes for our young hero, Peter, to be separated from his friends and from safety, the tone is unbelievably bleak and sad for a children’s story. The love that crafts the realness of these children and every adventure in this book is palpable, page to page.
Glomming onto the excellent and intelligent Jen Campbell’s musings, at the centre of the story of love is not the typical idea of Peter and Wendy’s romantic partnership. Rather, it is Wendy’s love for playing with Peter – her character double, a representation of her youth and playfulness – that carries the bittersweet inevitability that sees Wendy come back home again. Wendy falls for her childish, playful and fun persona but chooses also to return home in a found respect for herself. She will have to grow up, although not without remembering Peter as she does so.
This character detail is poignant in Peter Pan and is a testament to the simple idea of learning to enjoy yourself, past versions, fragmented parts, and be alright with moving on. Moving on and growing up should never have to mean forgetting who you’ve been, more less dislike the person you’re beginning to naturally slip away from. This is what J.M. Barrie proves so lovingly in this story.
Again, reading this as a 21-year-old, what resonated most sharply in Peter Pan for me was the character of Mrs Darling. A figure, in the manner of a grown-up Wendy, knows of Peter Pan and is left behind, having taken the care and love to tidy up the minds of her children. The reality of Mrs Darling is what grounds the children’s adventures in Neverland in bittersweet reality that truly makes Peter Pan a charismatic and worthy read.
Final thought: If Peter Pan turned up at your window, would you go with him? Imagining, and presuming, you’d merrily go along with him as a child, would you still go as you are now?
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