This document provides an in-depth analysis of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan and argues that it conveys a deeper message about growing up and retaining one's imagination. While Peter Pan is commonly seen as advocating eternal childhood, the author believes Barrie suggests we must grow up enough to survive in the real world while still maintaining some youthful imagination. Mr. Darling is seen as the most childish character despite advocating growing up, showing how conformity comes at the cost of imagination. The story ultimately warns that totally refusing to grow up can lead one to become truly "lost" like the real-life Michael Llewelyn Davies, who inspired Peter Pan but drowned as a troubled young man.

1. Tom Curr Fall, 2014
Senior Essay
Dr. Levy
Coming to Terms With Being a Pirate:
The Politics of Neverland and the void between reality and imagination
It is a conservative ideal to protect a child's innocence and to retain a core collection of
"classic" literature for kids to grow up with. However I believe that doing has only served to
promote leftist ideology in children and thusly radicalize children's literature as a key theatre of
campaign for the left. Consider whether children who grow up wanting to be Peter Pan, for
example, would be greater moved by archetypal conservative or liberal policies; Surely, it would
be the latter.
Just as children's literature has become a theatre of campaign for the left, so, we will
learn, has the real world, capital driven and 'adventureless', come to embody all that they find
habitually disappointing. As George L. Bernstein explains in his work, Liberalism and Liberal
Politics in Edwardian England, leftist "recognize the need to correct the abuses in the institutions
which [are] the bulwarks of social order," and use children's literature to spread this message to
the most easily influenced members of society- kids (Bernstein, 6). In the case of J.M Barrie's
Peter and Wendy, we have a commentary on the corruptive power of growing up in a capitalist
world where stories and magic are routinely replaced by stocks and profit margins. We also have
a description of the dangers involved with eternal childhood or a failure to grow up. Barrie, I
believe, suggests that one must retain enough of one's childhood and imagination to avoid
suffocating in the soul-sucking monotony of the adult world, whilst conforming enough to its
demands that they may traverse its rocky paths successfully. Essentially, you must be mature

2. enough to survive in the so-called 'real world,' but maintain enough youthful imagination to
enjoy the process.
Since his first appearance in Barrie's 1902 work, The Little White Bird - as a week-old
infant, surrounded by faeries, cavorting through the night - Peter Pan has transcended literature
to embody our 'inner-child'. His refusal to grow up is the archetypal refusal to conform and, as
such, Peter Pan has become ingrained in our psyche as the avatar of everything we wish we
could, but cannot, do. A cultural symbol of resilience and youthfulness, Pan has become a role
model and a hero to children and adults across the globe. Yet his birth-place; the pages of
Barrie's work; remains a largely unexplored medium for examining the repercussions of crushed
childhood dreams, the effect of societal expectations and the influence of capitalism on children.
A taken-for-granted text, Peter and Wendy has been adapted countless times from
Barrie's original publication. Peter Pan became a pseudo-obsession for many during the
twentieth century, with six major movies and with sculptures erected in his image across the
globe: in Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Belgium, England and, Barrie's
homeland, Scotland. Race horses have been named in his honor; an operation to evacuate Cuban
children from the then-new Castro regime during the 1960s was code-named Operation Peter
Pan and, in the past thirty years, Peter Pan Syndrome has become the term to describe men with
underdeveloped levels of maturity. Peter even has his own bus-line, a brand of peanut butter and
a record label. In short, he has become an icon. And yet despite all the attention, the message of
his story, I believe, remains widely missed. Peter and Wendy takes a much deeper reading to
truly grasp than many people realize.
As Vera Winifred Schott explained in her article, The Peter Pan Players of Wichita, for
most, Peter is the undoubted hero of the piece and the role model Barrie provides children with:

3. "this whimsical, capricious lad will forever storm and capture the citadels that guard the hearts of
the children of the world" (Winifred Schott, 768). Similarly so, Mr. Darling and Captain Hook
are the antagonists to Pan's elaborate whimsicality. But what if I were to tell you that Peter and
Mr. Darling are but shadows of one-another? That Mr. Darling is no less a lost boy than Peter,
and that Peter is no less capable of piracy than Hook? That, rather than an innocent children's
story, Peter and Wendy is a warning to those wishing never to grow up, that they will, in time,
find themselves lost; and to those who grow up too fully, that they risk becoming a pawn to the
capitalist machine - pirates in suits. Peter and Wendy encapsulates Barrie's vision of children
salvaging some parts of their childhood into adulthood and thusly being immature enough to be
happy while mature enough to cope.
Barrie's discourse was practicality and the avoidance of growing up too soon, his voice
one of hundreds to use children's literature as a way to promote leftist ideals (his later works
include several, more clear, social commentaries - such as The Twelve Pound Look which details
a divorced wife gaining an independent income). Yet he is almost unique in his deliberate
undermining of capitalism and it's nefarious influence, stripping the magic from our lives one
sale at a time. James Hart, Malia Marmo and Nick Castle (script writers for Steven Speilberg's
1991 adaptation of Peter Pan, Hook) made a pointed reference to the symmetry between piracy
and capitalism when Wendy reacts to hearing that Peter has become a successful corporate
lawyer, remarking "Peter, you have become a pirate" (Hart, Marmo & Castle, Writ. "Hook").
It is generally understood that George Darling (the children's father) is the implicit villain
of the piece, a real world mirror of Hook's more obvious antagonism. He is mockingly described
by Barrie as, "one of those deep ones who knew about stocks and shares" (Barrie, 2) and is
thusly held up as the condemner of childhood, an example of the pitiful and shallow

4. preoccupation with material things that accompanies a capitalist life. And yet, as Ann Yeoman
suggests in her work, "Now or Neverland, Peter Pan and the myth of eternal youth. A
psychological perspective on a cultural icon", there is an underlying intimation to Barrie's work
that Mr. Darling is, in fact, the most wholly childish character to walk either the rooms of No.14
or the forests and beaches of Neverland. Yeoman highlights "Mr. Darling's childish tantrums
about his tie that will not tie and his medicine that he refuses to take" (Yeoman, 12). This,
coupled with his tendency for ill-judged practical jokes - "I shall pour my medicine into Nana's
bowl, and she will drink it, thinking it is milk!" (Barrie, 23) - sharply contrasts his apparent
desire for his children to grow up, "Be a man, Michael" (Barrie, 21) and his inability to
comprehend Peter's existence, "Pooh-pooh. Mark my words , it is some nonsense Nana has been
putting into their heads" (Barrie, 8). Mr. Darling appears to be a man caught in limbo, aware of
the societal expectations of manhood but painfully unaware of his failure to fulfill them.
Peter and Wendy is about the struggle between growing up and staying young (between
Peter and Hook / the children and their father) and yet, as the story begins, it is George Darling,
the figure regarded as the antithesis of youth, who seems the most fundamentally childish and in
need of maturation. Anne Jefferson, in her review of Jaqueline Rose's The Case of Peter Pan or
the Impossibility of Children's Literature, alludes to as much, "The Barrie text itself in fact
speaks, not to one child (the child) but to many different kinds of children" (Jefferson, 795).
Perhaps the suggestion is that, rather than a sign of immaturity, the refusal to conform wholly to
the adult world and to retain some sort of youthful spontaneity is, in fact, the enlightened route to
take in life. Perhaps a way to avoid some of the stress which may cause childish tantrums like
those Mr. Darling suffers, the conscious preservation of one's youth and imagination, or at least a
shadow of it, is essential to a stable adult life. As Barrie highlights, there will come a time in our

5. lives when we must grow up; the important thing is to be aware of this transition, and to hold
dear that innocent stage in our lives when all was true and nothing impossible. Barrie calls this
stage Neverland: "We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we
shall land no more." (Barrie, 7).
Two of Barrie's characters have this outlook on life, the narrator (Barrie himself we can
assume) and Mrs. Darling, "thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan"
(Barrie, 8). With this in mind, I would suggest that they are Barrie's preferred role models for his
readership. And yet, this is not the conclusion most readers come to. Barrie's message has been
somewhat bastardized by Walt Disney's 1953 animated version and it has become common for
people to see the characters of Peter and Wendy in shades of only black and white (adulthood
and childhood) determined and limited by their age. Thusly Barrie's good intentions have been
somewhat manipulated, the common conjecture being that the correct path to take in life is that
taken by Peter (so long heralded as the hero of the piece) and to refuse to conform and grow up:
"Peter Pan himself is the perfect emblem of the asexual innocence that children's literature is,
according to Rose, designed to uphold" (Jefferson, 794). Children fail to recognize the possibility
of being like Mary Darling, aware of her responsibility to be grown up but consciously still in
touch with her childhood. Consequently they grow up ill-prepared for the demandingly adult
world which awaits them, as Tracy C. Davis explains in her essay, Do You Believe in Fairies?:
The Hiss of Dramatic License, "drama has the power to make the improbable seem natural"
(Davis, 57) and thusly the world can seem shockingly real for children more accustomed to
Neverland.
This idea of children's literature misinforming it's chief readership about the adult world
is key. In an article entitled, Common Sense, Practicality and the Literary Canon the persistent

6. vilifying of practicality in children's literature is illuminated. While the article expresses the
possible ill-effects of such a wholly whimsical canon, the impossibility of changing it is also
outlined: "The notion of abolishing the canon (which no one seems to seriously suggest) is
impractical" ("Common Sense, Practicality and the Literary Canon", 2). The question must be
asked, then, why is something grounded in continuity and practicality (the canon) allowed to
continue championing free-spirited resilience and perpetuate the trend of ill-prepared children
who will, in time, struggle to come to terms with what's expected of them? In this manner
children, wishing to be lost boys and girls, are allowed to become lost men and women.
Again Barrie's tale provides a perfect example. While many a child may have suffered in
their adult lives as a result of growing up dreaming of Neverland, no tale can be as melancholy
as that of Michael Llewelyn Davies. One of three brothers who inspired Barrie's work, Michael
(rather than being the inspiration for his namesake, Michael Darling) was 'the real Peter Pan', his
impish smile and vivid imagination the model for the skeleton-leaf-clad marvel we have so come
to adore. Growing up under the joint care of their widower mother and Barrie, the Llewelyn
Davies boys enjoyed the idyllic childhood so many dream of, filled with magic and wonder.
With Barrie the constant catalyst for greater imagination and adventure, Michael came to excel
in the arts but, lacking a sufficiently grown-up male role model, he struggled to adapt to life on
his own. It was an abiding torture for Michael that real life could never live up to his
expectations or excite him as his childhood once had and, as he grew in to a young man, his
relationship with Barrie was, according to childhood friend Robert Boothby, to become "morbid
and unhealthy". Michael Llewelyn Davies drowned in a suspected double suicide just shy of his
21st birthday. In a chilling mirror of the character he inspired, Michael was a most wonderful
boy, destined never to grow up.

7. I must clearly state that I am not insinuating any blame on Barrie here: his sole aim, I
believe, was to entertain children and to inspire imaginations. It is just unfortunate that, such is
the world, where an innocence is so resolutely preserved, its eventual and inevitable tarnishing
will be all the more harrowing for the child involved. As Hook and his band of buccaneers
plunder and murder, so society robs us of our magic and murders what child we have left within
us. Barrie does in fact try to warn us of the ill-effects of a total childhood, highlighting its
impracticalities as Peter struggles to comprehend the real world. The very term "lost boys" must
also surely reinforce this notion and set alarm bells ringing for children hoping to follow in their
footsteps, and yet it does not. We marvel at Peter's insolence and at his refusal to conform, and
we champion his cause: "He will not be made to grow up and become a man with a beard,
business suit and briefcase" (Yeoman, 13). But there in lies the most common misconception:
that, in order to grow up, one must adhere to capitalist stereotypes and disregard all that once
made us dream. Again we must learn to see Peter Pan for what he is, an extreme, like Hook:
"Peter Pan, and all he embodies, belongs to the island of childhood that exists apart from and
invisible to the adult world" (Yeoman, 13). He belongs to a world where faeries fly, crocodiles
tick and where emotions exist only one at a time. Mary Darling, not Peter Pan, must be the
example we set our children.
To grow up and "become a man with a beard" is an important quote to consider. A
product of Edwardian culture, Peter Pan was born in to a world where facial hair was a societal
expectation for men and where women's suffrage was just an idea brewing between some
forward thinking ears. Bernstein explains, "At the end of 1908, Liberals were discouraged and
the party appeared destined for electoral defeat" (Bernstein, 105). This was a time when a man's
concerns were limited to his workplace and bank account, and where domesticity remained

8. chiefly the domain of women. With this in mind it is interesting to note Barrie's serial references
to motherhood and the implications if lost. As we have already noted, Mary Darling is unique in
her role as an adult aware of, and in tune with, both Neverland and the real world. Her
significance however sprawls further as she is lorded by the inhabitants of both. The only actual
mother we meet in Peter and Wendy and the incarnation perhaps of Sylvia Llewlyn Davies,
Barrie does not hold back in his praise for Mrs. Darling. He describes her as "a lovely lady, with
a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes,
one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is
always one more" (Barrie, 1). Whilst Mary Darling is undoubtedly the hero of No. 14, in
Neverland a mother's care remains but a dream (the lost boys only lost because they are lost to
their mothers). Wendy promises to play mother to an otherwise motherless world and finds
herself in high demand. When she arrives, Peter exclaims, "'Great news, boys...I have brought at
last a mother for you all'" (Barrie, 83). The pirates, also longing for a mother, offer her safety in
return for love. Smee proposes, "'See here, honey...I'll save you if you promise to be my mother'"
(Barrie, 174). However, as we have already learned from the fate of Michael Llewelyn Davies, a
father is also vital to a child's healthy growth, so perhaps Barrie's contention is a need for greater
parenting. The facilitator of a happy childhood and a well adjusted adulthood, it is the
responsibility of parents to instill in their children the sort of imagination that will help them
navigate the capitalist world they grow up in without becoming "slaves to a fixed idea" like Mr.
Darling or Hook (Barrie, 176). They must help their children to retain a grasp of reality and
avoid becoming so disillusioned with the world that they come to despise it (i.e. Peter or Michael
Llewelyn Davies).

9. Peter Pan, the character, exhibits many traits one may want their children to inherit. He is
imaginative, inquisitive, spontaneous and without prejudice (except where adults are concerned).
He also showcases some traits we must strive to avoid carrying in to our adult lives. He is
impetuous and ignorant, as well as selfish and cocky to the extreme, concerned only with himself
and his quest for adventure: Barrie describes him as, "fond of variety," explaining how, "the
sport that engrossed him one moment would suddenly cease to engage him, so there was always
the possibility that the next time you fell he would let you go" (Barrie, 50). Almost pirate-like in
his disregard for another's last breath, James Hart, Malia Marmo and Nick Castle took this
conceited and aggressive side of Peter Pan and transported it to the real world. The result: a
businessman.
Mr. Darling and Captain James Hook, it would seem, are nought but lost boys become
lost men. Children of Victorian England, they were also raised in a generation cared for by
nannies, and therefore denied the hands-on parenting and education that might have preserved
the romantic parts of their childhoods. They are but mirrors of each other; constant reminders of
what the other would become should they swap worlds. They are men only in appearance, prone
to tantrums, as well as childish selfishness and desires. Hook, for example, rants, "'Fame, fame,
that glittering bauble, it is mine'" (Barrie, 169). Darling and Hook are a lingering premonition of
the fate that would await Peter should he, like Hook, remain in Neverland too long or, like Mr.
Darling, return to the real world and continue refusing to grow up. They embody the childishness
of capitalism; piracy and business exemplifying its potential to corrupt. They are but microcosms
of a greater structure with roots set in greed, selfishness, commercialism and the heartless pursuit
of greater monetary wealth. Harriss-White explains that capitalism is dependent on "the
deliberate attempt to order and mitigate its necessary ill effects on human beings and their

10. habitats," and Barrie moulds his chief antagonists to become a medium through which he may
highlight the reinforcing of such an ill-set moral compass in children (Harriss-White, 1241). As
stated earlier, George Darling is a son of the Victorian era; a time scattered with prejudices and
amorality. A subject of England, we can assume Mr. Darling grew up in a world where the poor
were afforded little regard, women were without suffrage and empires were formed on the back
of the unjust exploitation and enslavement of indigenous peoples. Where the wealthy white man
strode the avenues of Kensington garden - his pomposity only outshone by his waistband and the
arrogance with which he placed his shone shoes - all the while believing in his heart that he truly
owned the world. As Hershey H. Friedman and William D. Adler explain in their collaborative
article, Moral Capitalism: A Biblical Perspective, these were the notions of an antiquated time
which, if allowed to ferment, would pose a threat; not only to peace in England, but further-
afield. They point out, "A number of scholars had been warning the public that capitalism based
solely on greed was dangerous" (Friedman & Adler, 1014). Barrie saw these ideas being
reinforced in the lavish upper echelons of Edwardian society and feared the backlash of such
ignorance; society simply not ready for the stark realities that were crawling auspiciously in to
the public eye. George Darling embodies the arrogance of the capitalist venture and Barrie is
sure to highlight the shallowness of a life driven by "a passion for being exactly like his [your]
neighbours" (Barrie, 3).
Barrie's fear then was perhaps that, in a society so wholly segregated along boundaries of
wealth and creed, "there are at least eight ways in which capitalism creates poverty" (Harriss-
White, 1241). Children should not grow up in households that only accentuate the same old
thinking that created said boundaries. Rather than being taught "lessons in propriety" (Barrie, 4)
and to consider above all things their "position[s] in the city" (Barrie, 5), children should be

11. introduced to what Bernstein deemed, "the unifying power of the liberal policies" (Bernstein, 27)
and taught lessons in tolerance, empathy and fairness. It is certainly important to make children
aware of the harsh realities that await them in the real world. However, by preserving a child's
imagination and not letting him/her 'wise up' too fast, one may preserve the creativity needed to
change things for the better. After all, if children can imagine a world where boys fly, mermaids
swim and faeries cavort, then surely they may also imagine a world where women vote, poor
people eat and no man purposely profits off of the hardship of another. As described earlier,
children's literature is a key medium for leftist policy and there is no greater example of this than
the neo-leftist ideals which punctuate Barrie's otherwise seemingly inconspicuous children's
story.
Sir James Matthew Barrie wrote Peter and Wendy at a hugely pivotal moment in history.
On the cusp of a century of unprecedented reform and conflict, I believe he felt an inherent
obligation lay with his generation to start opening their children's eyes to the injustices that
existed all around them. By highlighting their inherent role as the perpetuators of such injustice,
he hoped also to highlight their ability to bring it to an end. In a chilling, albeit somewhat
implicit foreshadowing of World War One, Peter and Wendy culminates with alliances being
formed across Neverland and the whole island descending into a bloody and harrowing conflict,
which Barrie describes as "a massacre rather than a fight" (Barrie, 148). Perhaps more chilling
than any premonition of the war itself, would be Barrie's 'prediction' of a new type of warfare,
fueled in the allegory of Neverland by Hook's greed and intolerance of others. Where machine
guns, trenches and tanks replaced the infantry column and cavalry charge in World War One, so
surprise and improperness were Hook's innovations. Barrie writes, "The pirate attack had been a
complete surprise: a sure proof that Hook had conducted it improperly" (Barrie, 146) and

12. suggests that "What he [Hook] should perhaps have done was to acquaint his opponents that he
proposed to follow a new method" (Barrie, 149). As seen in World War One, Neverland's was a
conflict "with no policy but to fall to" (Barrie, 148). With no thought for properness or valor,
wars were now purely about the assurance of victory and profit.
Barrie recognized that, by the turn of the twentieth century, capitalist influence had
rendered the ideas of "good form" and "fair play" (both values central to the world of Peter Pan
and James Hook) outdated. The new world was one, "governed by a model of capitalism oriented
around strict principles of rationality [which] encouraged too much selfishness" (Friedman &
Adler, 1). Rather than 'grow up', Barrie hoped his readership may 'wise up' to this looming threat
and avoid the tragedy which befell the "redskins" of Neverland and ultimately the millions who
perished in the quagmires of war over the coming decades.
Selfishness -manifested through capitalism- was Barrie's chief concern for the world and
his proposed source of injustice. He offers his readers a warning that says as much: "Off we skip
like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are, but so attractive; and we
have an entirely selfish time; and then when we have need of special attention we nobly return
for it, confident that we shall be embraced instead of smacked" (Barrie, 137). In an increasingly
selfish world, where capitalistic piracy was fast becoming the vocation of society's elite, such
faith, Barrie perhaps felt, was misplaced - a mother's love the only love that could truly be
assured. They alone possess the potential to raise generations of children who may treat others as
they wish to be treated and stem the tide of selfish, consumer-driven society.
Peter and Wendy is a taken-for-granted text. The inspiration for a Disney movie and the
home of the least practicable hero to swagger through the dreams of children; it's true message, I
believe, has remained prodded-and-poked-at, but ultimately missed, for over a century. What we

13. must take from Barrie's work and from the oracle of wonder that was his imagination, is this:
Firstly, if we refuse to conform wholly to all of society's demands we are destined to be lost. The
real world demands some level of maturity. One cannot simply act on impulse all the time as, to
do so, would see you lead a life lacking the continuity needed to either raise a family, hold a job
or simply cope with everyone else around you. And secondly, if we comply fully to the
conventions of our capitalist society, we are doomed to become pirates. As long as our greed and
consumer-driven lifestyles go unchecked we unknowingly fly The Jolly Roger. Pillaging in the
name of business, we charge our brothers interest and knowingly scam our clients out of their
hard-earned cash. But where there are pirates there are always fights, the implications of such
selfishness often terrible and far-reaching. Capitalist greed can break even the closest bonds and
has been the cause for conflict between brothers, between friends and even between kaisers and
kings. When all that is considered, you must ask yourself one final question, "Would your
mother like you to be a pirate?" (Barrie, 171).

14. Works Cited
Barrie, James. M. Peter and Wendy. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1911. Print.
Bernstein, George. L. Liberalism and Liberal Politics in Edwardian England. Boston: Allen &
Unwin, 1986. Print.
"Common Sense, Practicality and the Literary Canon." 123HelpMe.com. 8 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=18315>.
Davis, Tracy C. "Do You Believe in Fairies?: The Hiss of Dramatic License." Theatre Journal
Mar. 2005: 57-81. Print. JSTOR
Friedman, Hershey H. and William D. Adler. "Moral Capitalism: A Biblical Perspective"
American Journal of Economics and Sociology 6 Sept. 2011: 1014-28. Print. Wiley
Online Library.
Harriss-White, Barbara. "Poverty and Capitalism" Economic and Political Weekly 1 April 2006:
1241-46. Print. JSTOR.

15. Hart, James and Malia Marmo and Nick Castle, writers. Hook. Amblin Entertainment and
TriStar Pictures, 1991. Film.
Jefferson, Ann. Review of "The Case of Peter Pan or The Impossibility of Children's Literature"
by Jaqueline Rose, Poetics Today 1985: 794-96. Print. JSTOR.
Winifred Schott, Vera. "The Peter Pan Players of Wichita" Bulletin of the American Library
Association 10 Oct. 1932: 768-72. Print. JSTOR.
Yeoman, Ann. Now or Neverland, Peter Pan and the Myth of Eternal Youth. A Psychological
Perspective on a Cultural Icon. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1999. Print.