Peter and Wendy (1911) made me want to grow up
I hope the play was different than the book because otherwise I have some questions about Peter Pan's popularity
The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two.
Sometimes, though not often, [Peter] had dreams, and they were more painful than the dreams of other boys. For hours he could not be separated from these dreams, though he wailed piteously in them. They had to do, I think, with the riddle of his existence.
‘When people grow up they forget the way.’
‘Why do they forget the way?’
‘Because they are no longer gay and innocent and heartless. It is only the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.’
Peter and Wendy, J.M. Barrie’s 1911 novel adaptation of his groundbreaking 1904 play, Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, is awful. Talk about disappointing expectations.
Not that it’s written awfully or anything, but the characters are no one who should be looked up to by anyone. I am shocked that this character has had the legacy that he has. I would have chalked it up to the animated Disney adaptation, but there’s at least 40 years of popularity between book and film.
Surprisingly, the 1953 Disney film is actually 70% accurate, possibly higher. Most of the events that happen in the film also happen in the book, and in a similar order. But Peter Pan is different, and the messages are polar opposites.
A short aside: I haven’t seen the 2003 live action adaptation, which is often touted as the best adaptation, but from reading the Wikipedia summary, it sounds about 90% accurate. All I have to go off of is the Disney animation, so I will be sticking with that.
Peter Pan is associated with youthfulness and wanting to not grow up, and the Disney film leaves you with the wonderful and depressing notion that youth is full of adventure and all of that goes away once you settle into adulthood. It makes you dread adulthood a little bit, with its silly and unseeing adults. After all, you can fly as a child! You can meet fairies! Wendy annoyed me as a kid; she tried to rain on Peter’s parade.
I don’t know how infamous the animated sequel, Return to Never Land, is (I assume all straight-to-VHS Disney sequels are infamous to some degree), but if you’ve never seen it, it’s about 2% accurate to the book and remains one of the better-constructed Disney sequels. It follows Wendy’s daughter, Jane, who doesn’t believe in Neverland but gets roped into Peter’s schemes. I mention it because it offers a final scene that by all rights should have been in the first film, even though including it would have wrecked the theme the first film was going for.
Wendy is grown up! She says a last “hello” and “goodbye” to Peter before he flies off to the stars. He seems to accept that she has changed, or at least that the change is irreversible.
See, that never happened in the book, but it would have helped to amend some of the damage caused by the film.
When I decided to read Peter and Wendy, I opted to read the last chapter first. It’s not so much a last chapter as it is an epilogue, and it was added to the play in 1908 (four years after it premiered). “When Wendy Grew Up” talks about the children slowly losing their ability to fly, slowly losing their belief in Neverland, and eventually becoming rather plain and respectable. The lost boys aren’t allowed to return to Neverland and likewise grow up to lead normal, uninteresting lives. Only Wendy is mentioned to keep Neverland alive by telling her adventures as stories to Jane. When Peter returns, he is frightened of Wendy’s age. He takes Jane back to Neverland with him instead, and the tradition carries down through Wendy’s successors.
I’d felt like the lost boys and the Darling children had lost something special when they lost their ability to return to Neverland. Then I read through the book, and by the time I finished rereading “When Wendy Grew Up,” it no longer felt bittersweet. It felt fitting and right. Even with the loss felt by them being unable to return, their staying in England was vastly preferable to them staying in Neverland forever.
Peter Pan is a child, and he is one of the most unfiltered depictions of a child put to paper. He is youthful, yes, and full of ideas and playfulness and acting grown-up when he is inclined to. He is also heartless and selfish and cruel. He doesn’t realize the extent of his actions or any notion of responsibilities; he may be innocent in a sense, but he flies against the notion that children are a representation of purity. He contains both the best and worst aspects of childhood, and Barrie, discontent, stretches him into something more sinister. Neverland is full of death, but only when Peter is around. When Peter leaves, the rest of Neverland goes into a kind of waiting mode, and the lost boys and pirates don’t get into any serious fights.
Peter convinces the Darlings to join him, and Peter tries to keep the Darlings from leaving him, even though he occasionally forgets who they are. Neverland has a habit of making people forget their past, and despite most of the book revolving around the Darlings’ time in Neverland, the narrator chastises them for their irresponsibility and thoughtlessness to their parents for not coming back sooner.
Childhood is given merit, but growing up is posited as a natural and desirable process. Even when Wendy and Peter are in Neverland, most of their time is spent playing at being adults—without the previously mentioned responsibility. Peter’s inability and unwillingness to form ties or accept responsibility is almost as constant as his depiction as otherworldly and not-quite-human.
J.M. Barrie drew most of his inspiration for Peter Pan from the Llewelyn Davies boys (four of whose names he used in Peter and Wendy), who he became an unofficial guardian for. Peter, the third child, was part of Barrie’s inspiration for the titular character. He reportedly hated the connection when he was older, and honestly, I can’t blame him. If I had to be shadowed for the rest of my life by a character best known for never maturing, I’d probably be upset, too.
The book makes distinctions between childishness and childlike wonder, or however else you want to describe the difference between growing “respectable” and growing mature. Mr. Darling is very childlike himself, but as silly as he may be, he is also well-meaning and lively and seems to get through his responsibilities alright. He does what he considers correct even if it is not considered respectable, and he tries to show his children love, even if his pride sometimes gets in the way. I thought Mr. Darling in the animated Disney film was terribly unreasonable and stuffily trying too hard to be respectable; Mr. Darling, I’m sorry you were slandered and reduced in this way. The Johns and Michaels who went to Neverland found themselves becoming rather dull grown-ups, but Mr. Darling, who never went to Neverland, is offered more personality in a few pages than what was summarized for John and Michael’s entire future.
Wendy, too, is granted some adventurishness through her storytelling, but the book makes a point that she stops waiting for Peter to return, and this decision ends up being better for her. Growing up didn’t mean she lost her imagination; it meant she gained responsibilities, and she presented that imagination and liveliness through different means. Neverland had its place, but it was never meant to be a place where she lived forever. After all, she’d imagined Neverland long before she’d visited it. In a way, it was made for her; she certainly wasn’t made for it. She couldn’t wait for Peter.
And thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.
I am glad children are not Peter Pan.
Quotes are from Peter and Wendy, 1911. You can read the work (and see the original accompanying illustrations) here.
Another note: Captain Hook’s childhood is depicted somewhat as being “all work and no play,” which cuts across Peter’s “all play and no work.” The narrator’s sympathy for Hook also increases as he goes towards his final scene. Couldn’t find somewhere specific earlier to mention it, but thought it was interesting enough to include.
Questions. Questions? Have you read Peter and Wendy (also titled Peter Pan and Wendy)? Do you have thoughts? If you’ve seen another film adaptation, I’d also be interested to know how it compares.
Alright, thanks for reading.
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Barrie had lost one of his older siblings to an accident as a child, and he remembered how his mother tried to keep him in her memory as he once was. That was a partial inspiration for Peter- the Llewellyn Davies family helped fill out the rest.
The Disney version does have problems (e.g. the whole "What Made The Red Man Red?" thing), but Disney at least respected Barrie's staging and casting decisions for accuracy. Whereas when Steven Spielberg made the sequel film "Hook" in the 1990s, there wasn't entirely the same fidelity to the text.
I teach this book to 11th graders and I’m intrigued by your opening judgement of it as “awful”! I think your interpretation is spot on, but is a book about the value of growing up inherently bad? I also think what sets Wendy apart is she’s the only one who both remembers the valuable things from childhood imagination and also matures into adulthood - that’s the core for me. Wendy is the primary admirable character for that reason.