Would you rather stay
a child forever or grow up to become an adult?
I have been reading J M Barrie lately. You know, the author of Peter Pan. Up until now, I had only ever encountered
Peter Pan through the eyes of Disney.
And as we know, Disney likes to take the sting out of any story. But Barrie’s writing is really quite
brilliant. It is both thought provoking
and disturbing, alternately mixing whimsy with darkness. Barrie is now definitely on my (long) list of
must-read authors (for all ages).
I started out reading Peter Pan.
I thought I should, since I had put a copy on Mulan’s Kindle. I very quickly realised that even though
Mulan can easily read the Disney version, Barrie’s version may need to wait
another year or so. Well, I will leave it
up to Mulan to decide when she is ready.
Aside from the more complex language in Barrie’s version, I
think a big part of the difference between Barrie and Disney can be summarised
by the final words of Barrie’s book. He
writes:
and thus it will go on, so long
as children are gay and innocent and heartless.
In Disney’s version, heartlessness is removed. In Barrie’s version, heartlessness is a
central theme of the story. And it is
only with this heartlessness that the story of Peter Pan gains a heart. When Disney took out the heartlessness, it
also took out the heart.
In part, Peter is heartless because he forgets. He has to forget. Part of being a child who grows up is
learning. But if a child never grows up,
then it also means that they can never learn.
They forget everything except the immediate events. In Barrie’s Peter Pan, Peter kills Captain Hook. He also kills most of the pirates. In Barrie’s Peter Pan, Tinkerbell dies (fairies only live a short time). Peter doesn’t mourn or rejoice any of
this. He forgets it all. He even forgets that any of these people
existed. All the adventures that he has
had, all the people that he has met, are forgotten. And he doesn’t even care that he has
forgotten. He is on to his next game,
his next adventure:
"Who is Captain Hook?"
he [Peter] asked with interest when she [Wendy] spoke of the arch enemy.
"Don't you remember,"
she asked, amazed, "how you killed him and saved all our lives?"
"I forget them after I kill
them," he replied carelessly.
When she expressed a doubtful
hope that Tinker Bell would be glad to see her he said, "Who is Tinker
Bell?"
"O Peter," she said,
shocked; but even when she explained he could not remember.
"There are such a lot of
them," he said. "I expect she is no more."
Another part of the heartlessness is the casualness of
killing and death. The lost boys get
killed, and replaced. And it appears
that Peter sometimes kills them:
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
And pirates, lost boys, redskins and beasts all kill each
other:
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. …
All wanted blood except the boys, who liked it as a rule, but to-night were out
to greet their captain.
Another essential part of the heartlessness is that Barrie
focuses much more on the parents, and especially the mothers. Disney makes it all about the children, and
how the children are having fun. Barrie
makes it more about the pain a mother feels on losing a child. This pain is emphasised because, even though
the children recognise that their mothers miss them, the children still choose
to abandon their mothers to go and play.
The children just expect their mothers to sit waiting for them, until
the children choose to return.
In Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens** we learn that
when Peter was a week old he flew out the window of his nursery (children
originally are birds, and at this age they don’t yet realise that they have
become humans). He flew to Kensington
Gardens and lived there with the birds and fairies. Eventually, he decided to return home to his
mother:
(** Since we have just been to Kensington Gardens, it was fascinating to
read about Barrie’s version of the gardens, which really is a delightful
child’s eye view.)
The window was wide open, just as
he knew it would be, and in he fluttered, and there was his mother lying
asleep. Peter alighted softly on the wooden rail at the foot of the bed and had
a good look at her. She lay with her head on her hand, and the hollow in the
pillow was like a nest lined with her brown wavy hair. He remembered, though he
had long forgotten it, that she always gave her hair a holiday at night. How
sweet the frills of her nightgown were! He was very glad she was such a pretty
mother.
But she looked sad, and he knew
why she looked sad. One of her arms moved as if it wanted to go round
something, and he knew what it wanted to go round.
'O mother!' said Peter to
himself, 'if you just knew who is sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed.'
Very gently he patted the little
mound that her feet made, and he could see by her face that she liked it. He
knew he had but to say 'Mother' ever so softly, and she would wake up. They
always wake up at once if it is you that says their name. Then she would give
such a joyous cry and squeeze him tight. How nice that would be to him, but oh!
how exquisitely delicious it would be to her. That, I am afraid, is how Peter
regarded it. In returning to his mother he never doubted that he was giving her
the greatest treat a woman can have. Nothing can be more splendid, he thought,
than to have a little boy of your own. How proud of him they are! and very
right and proper, too.
But why does Peter sit so long on
the rail; why does he not tell his mother that he has come back?
I quite shrink from the truth,
which is that he sat there in two minds. Sometimes he looked longingly at his
mother, and sometimes he looked longingly at the window. Certainly it would be
pleasant to be her boy again, but on the other hand, what times those had been
in the Gardens! Was he so sure that he should enjoy wearing clothes again? He
popped off the bed and opened some drawers to have a look at his old garments.
They were still there, but he could not remember how you put them on. The
socks, for instance, were they worn on the hands or on the feet? He was about
to try one of them on his hand, when he had a great adventure. Perhaps the
drawer had creaked; at any rate, his mother woke up, for he heard her say
'Peter,' as if it was the most lovely word in the language. He remained sitting
on the floor and held his breath, wondering how she knew that he had come back.
If she said 'Peter' again, he meant to cry 'Mother' and run to her. But she
spoke no more, she made little moans only, and when he next peeped at her she
was once more asleep, with tears on her face.
It made Peter very miserable, and
what do you think was the first thing he did? Sitting on the rail at the foot
of the bed, he played a beautiful lullaby to his mother on his pipe. He had
made it up himself out of the way she said 'Peter,' and he never stopped
playing until she looked happy.
He thought this so clever of him
that he could scarcely resist wakening her to hear her say, 'O Peter, how
exquisitely you play!' However, as she now seemed comfortable, he again cast
looks at the window. You must not think that he meditated flying away and never
coming back. He had quite decided to be his mother's boy, but hesitated about
beginning to-night. It was the second wish which troubled him. He no longer
meant to make it a wish to be a bird, but not to ask for a second wish seemed
wasteful, and, of course, he could not ask for it without returning to the
fairies. Also, if he put off asking for his wish too long it might go bad. He
asked himself if he had not been hard-hearted to fly away without saying
good-bye to Solomon. 'I should like awfully to sail in my boat just once more,'
he said wistfully to his sleeping mother. He quite argued with her as if she
could hear him. 'It would be so splendid to tell the birds of this adventure,'
he said coaxingly. 'I promise to come back,' he said solemnly, and meant it,
too.
And in the end, you know, he flew
away. Twice he came back from the window, wanting to kiss his mother, but he
feared the delight of it might waken her, so at last he played her a lovely
kiss on his pipe, and then he flew back to the Gardens.
Many nights, and even months,
passed before he asked the fairies for his second wish; and I am not sure that
I quite know why he delayed so long. One reason was that he had so many
good-byes to say, not only to his particular friends, but to a hundred
favourite spots. Then he had his last sail, and his very last sail, and his
last sail of all, and so on. Again, a number of farewell feasts were given in
his honour; and another comfortable reason was that, after all, there was no
hurry, for his mother would never weary of waiting for him.
Sadly, for Peter, he waited too long, and his mother had
another child. She put bars on the
windows, and Peter could never return:
He went in a hurry in the end,
because he had dreamt that his mother was crying, and he knew what was the
great thing she cried for, and that a hug from her splendid Peter would quickly
make her to smile. Oh! he felt sure of it, and so eager was he to be nestling
in her arms that this time he flew straight to the window, which was always to
be open for him.
But the window was closed, and
there were iron bars on it, and peering inside he saw his mother sleeping
peacefully with her arm around another little boy.
Peter called, 'Mother! mother!'
but she heard him not; in vain he beat his little limbs against the iron bars.
He had to fly back, sobbing, to the Gardens, and he never saw his dear again.
What a glorious boy he had meant to be to her! Ah, Peter! we who have made the
great mistake, how differently we should all act at the second chance. But
Solomon [the wise old bird in Kensington Gardens] was right—there is no second
chance, not for most of us. When we reach the window it is Lock-out Time. The
iron bars are up for life.
All of this makes Peter
Pan a wonderful Philosophy for Children discussion-starter book (even the Disney version would work to some extent).
Would you rather stay
a child forever or grow up to become an adult? I could easily see a warm-up involving the
children choosing with their feet by walking to the “child” side of the room or
the “adult” side of the room. Once
there, they could say what they think are the best parts of being a child or an
adult, and the worst parts. What do they
think they will gain when they grow up?
What do they think they will lose?
It could turn into an ethics discussion. Have you ever gone out somewhere without
telling your parents? Have you ever been
in two minds about whether to do what is fun for you or whether to do what
someone else wants? How do you decide
which to do?
It could turn into a discussion of human nature. They could talk about whether children really
are heartless. Are humans naturally good,
or bad, or something else? Does growing
up (being educated in society) change us for the better, or for the worse?
---
I also have some other book-review-ish writings at my old
blog site (most recent listed first):
And my one year of doing a PhD in China.
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