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“To die will be an awfully big adventure.��

Peter Pan was one of my favorite childhood stories and I'm in awe of the layers upon layers I discovered reading it now as an adult. The narrator is inconsistent, almost vicious, changes opinions and switches sides, sometimes rude and insensitive, but always charming. The book is witty and sassy, and genius in a light, carefree way it touches heavy topics. If you are not paying attention a lot of content can go over your head, as almost every sentence can start a meaningful discussion. As with every truly great work of art, there is more than one perspective and approach in giving the interpretation, so I will fit only the ones that were most striking to me personally in this review.

The story opens with Wendy picking the flowers for her mother in what can be seen as an alteration of the garden of Eden. From then on, before even being two years old, Wendy has a realization that she will eventually grow up.

“Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!�� This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.��

Wendy is pressured to grow up - by society, by her parents, especially her father, and mostly by her age. In time Peter Pan appears, her maturation and sexual awakening have already begun:

“Now Wendy was every inch a woman, though there were not very many inches, and she peeped out of the bed-clothes.��

It is evident that Wendy has a deep internal conflict - of both wanting to preserve her innocence and childhood and grow into a mentally, emotionally and sexually mature woman.
At that very moment, Peter Pan arrives - the symbol of eternal childhood, innocence, carelessness, playfulness. The name Pan is alluding to Pan from Greek mythology, god of the wild, nature, rustic music and impromptus, and companion of the nymphs. Pan in Greek means “all��, “of everything��, in this context symbolizing the endless undifferentiated potential that a child is.
The vital part of growing out is letting go and mourning the freedom, wilderness, and carelessness of childhood and youth, and the theme of growing up and death go hand in hand. It is not by chance that both Michelangelo and Goethe were in the formatting age of adolescence, the final formation of identity when they made Pieta and The Sorrows of Young Werther, works deeply entailed with the theme of death and dying. And it is not a wonder that Peter Pan, on the other hand, can be interpreted as the angel of death.

“There were odd stories about him, as that when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened.��

He takes the children to Neverland, a world somewhere out of reality, where a person never grows up, and is forever fixated in the state and age in which they arrived. That could be seen as children that die at a young age, as Barrie's brother David did, that deeply affected him, but also, as childish parts that inevitably die in our process of growing up, ones that we cannot carry in adulthood.
Peter, could also be seen as Wendy's double, as the doubling effect is present thought the novel. As a side note, Barrie insisted in times that play was performed that a girl should always play Peter. Peter is exactly Wendy's size, as it is stated in both mind and body, alluding that Peter could be a part of the Wendy herself- the one part that takes her to the Neverland to an adventure, other space that is need for children to safely act out their inter psychic conflict.

“Wendy assured her confidently, “and he is just my size.�� She meant that he was her size in both mind and body; she didn’t know how she knew it, she just knew it.��

Interestingly, J.M. Barrie's grandmother died when his mother was just 8 years old and she was forced to grow up prematurely and take on adult responsibilities before time. Peter indeed carries Wendy's combative, confrontational parts, and also is brave, confident, and skillful enough to go in the battle with Captain Hook, the adult world pushed upon her.

Captain Hook is another complex character. He is an adult figure in the children's world, a figure of both authority and danger, always on the quest to destroy and kill Peter, and bend children to his own rules in making them a pirate and forxing then to take adult responsibilities. The captain is a personification of what the child perceives as a tyrannical part of the father, the imaginative double of Wendy's real father, Mr. Darling. It is interesting that Barrie also insisted that the same actor plays on stage Mr. Darling and Captain Hook. Captain Hook hates Peter and everything that he represents and is on a constant quest to destroy him, as adults pressure children to grow up, take responsibilities, and more often than not, in the upbringing of children unintentionally kill off the innocence, the carelessness, and at the same time, sadly, the playfulness and childrens fantasy and imagination. Mr. Darling is described at the beginning of the story as a tornado, often unpredictable, ferocious, egotistical, jealous and overall, he is obsessed with good manners and societal norms, and the way others perceive him and his family, another parallel with Captain Hook, who is obsessed with “good form��.
One really important characteristic of Captain Hook is that he himself is chased at the same time he chases Peter, by a crocodile with a ticking clock in the stomach, representing the chaos, transience and passing of time which eventually leads to death, chasing every adult person. To grow up requires a confrontation with both aging and mortality. In the end, Captain Hook is devoured by the crocodile of chaos and time, similarly to Mr. Darling to which the narrator gave the same end in a realistic manner;

“Mr. Darling was now dead and forgotten.��

Also, Captain Hook lost a hand during a battle with Peter and his claw is a repetitive motive. The loss of the hand can symbolize the castration fantasy that a child has in a wish to diminish the power of parent and grown-up. Still, the substitute is an iron claw, the constant threat to children to grab, harm, and abduct them. The world of Neverland is full of violence and aggression at both Peter's and Captain Hook's end.

��...he was so full of wrath against grown-ups, who, as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in the Neverland that, every time you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter was killing them off vindictively as fast as possible.��

The story is parallel, on the deeper layer there is a symbolism of Wendy's issues with her father, as we see the positive side of Mr. Darling only after the death of Caption Hook, and there is Peter with his mother issues, both obsession and rejection of mother's love. Wendy resolves Electra's complex, but Peter stays forever fixated in the Oedipal complex. The narrator makes it very obvious that Peter both longs and despises mothers. He wants to hurt Wendy's mother, Mrs. Darling, and at the same time wants Wendy, a girl his age and size, more suitable to be his romantic interest, to play a mother role for him and Lost Boys. Peter himself is conflicted regarding his role, in a sense he is a father figure for Lost Boys, making Wendy his partner in parenting, but at the same times, he wants Wendy to play the role of his mother, give him medicine, and comfort him every time he has a bad dream. The state of innocence and youthfulness, in which he rejected all of the responsibilities, makes him incapable to form a real relationship with a woman. Wendy has romantic feelings towards him and even tries to kiss him, but Tinkerbell stops it, and he does not understand Wendy's demeanor, as he only wants her to be his mother. His puerility shuts the door for sexuality, even though Wendy continues to express first signs of sexual interest and maturity, he stays in the state where the only relationship with women that he can achieve are ones with fairies and mermaid, not real women, but creatures of imagination. He embodies the Madonna-whore conflict present in men that can't step in their maturity, a view of women as high sexualized, a product of their own projections and fantasy (as in porn), or other women in noble, respectable roles, but lacing any sexual attraction.

That slowly bursts the bubble of fantasy of the perfect world of eternal childhood and leads us to harsh reality. Both staying in childhood and growing up carries certain inevitable sacrifices, the question is, which ones are we going to chose. In childhood there is joy, play, and no responsibility, there is a sense of selfishness and cockiness that Peter had, and bliss of adventure, and endless potential that one is. But, in a lack of differentiation and responsibility that adult formation of identity carries, there is no order, stability, long-standing relationships and sense of purpose and meaning. As Peter is everything is ever-changing, chaotic, disorganized. Peter does not recognize Wendy, he even forgets Tinkerbell and Captain Hook in time, he always lives in the present moment, with no continuity and sense of past or the future, and in that he loses and parts of self, and the potential always stays unfulfilled. He can be anything but isn't anything. Wendy, on the other hand, decides to grow up, and fulfill adult roles, despite having to lose Peter in the process. In maturity one has to conform to certain rules of society and embrace mortality, also sacrifice the pluripotentiality of childhood for actuality of a frame. Becoming something is always a death of all other possibilities you had at that moment, a training period narrows and constricts you, you have to take into account that you are limited and finale - in a sense, you are dying into the personality and definite identity.

It is interesting that in Peter-Wendy dynamic, she has to hold the mature pole and even in escape in the fantasy of Neverland, land of eternal youth, she decides to play a mother role, while Peter never wants to retain the dynamic of childhood, no matter what role he is in. She is also the one who remembers - in Neverland she remembers her parents and reality, and she even longs for the real world, in contrast to Peter that permanently escapes and cannot confront the real world. And in reality and later life she does not make a mistake of her mother, in forgetting Peter, she remembers the world of Neverland. It is also interesting that Peter wanted to take Wendy and was attracted to her because she knew many stories. Wendy is the one who has the power because she holds the narrative frame, in knowing both imagination and reality, she can tell stories that can give both Peter and Lost Boys continuity, meaning and purpose, which are lacking in the never-ending enjoyment of the Neverland. The narrative structure and knowledge combat the chaos and disorganization and enables her to have the best of both worlds.

But, in the end, a sacrifice that Wendy had to make is inevitable, and she has to let Peter go to mature. Sacrifice is inescapable, all we can do is choose our limitation or let it takes us unaware, as Peter did. There is a limitation in every possibility and every single thing in life both gives and takes. It is not accidental that Peter lost his shadow - he lost perception of a negative side of eternal youth and carelessness in loss of sense of the value of real relationships and incapability to create something truly meaningful and long-lasting.

“He had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred.��

Wendy is a role model in the course of adolescence - she choose her sacrifices, became a grown woman and mother, but also carried children from Neverland with her and remembered Peter. The magic of childhood was not buried and forgotten for her, as she retained a connection with joy, playfulness and adventure - she became something and continued to cherish the child's world at the same time.

“You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. ��