Peter Pan is a classic children’s story and it endures simply because it is a good story well told. Sir James Matthew Barrie rewrote Peter Pan numerous times, and the author got as close to perfection as can be achieved in a children’s story. Peter Pan has been analyzed over and over again, and some of the critics seem to go a long way to find things in it that simply are not there, such as Freudian symbols of genitalia in the thimble that Wendy gives to Peter. (Pharand)This is just plain silly. Peter Pan is a complex, well-crafted story about all the fantasies that children have and about their fears of growing up.
The book is simply written, yet the story is so complex that anyone who reads it can find whatever they are looking for. Normal children, even today in this time of bloody arcade games and violent television, will never see complex symbols in a crocodile. From a review on a collection of essays about Peter Pan we find this, “The dominant impression one is left with after reading these essays is of a Neverland where dark, threatening forces lurk just beneath the surface” (Pharand)
Peter Pan has been a stage play, a Novel, and numerous movies from the silent era to 2003 (the most recent version), and it has inspired sequels and prequels, more of which are in the works. It gets retold in various eras with different emphases, different tones from frothy to dark, and yet it’s still the same story, with the same elemental, archetypal appeal. There are a few stories that can thrive over centuries of retelling -“Jack line Giant Killer” and “Cinderella” come to mind–but few that are quite as interesting, complex, or ambivalent as Peter Pan. (Freeman 38)
Children of all generations since its writing have loved this story in whatever form they encountered it. It speaks to all their fantasies of running away to a magical land where they never have to grow up, of pirates, Indians, fairies, and flying and it has just enough scary stuff to thrill without causing nightmares. Peter Pan has characters they can laugh and cry with, and share their hopes, dreams, and triumphs. More than this, Peter Pan makes children the heroes, the central characters, and believably so, because the characters are true to life and they use reasoning the children can understand. While the book is generally read either with parents or siblings, the movies are watched in groups, and it never fails that when Tinkerbell needs children to believe in fairies, the whole theater full of kids responds out loud, “I do believe in fairies, I do believe in fairies, I do believe in fairies!”
The story in Peter Pan is exciting and suspenseful, and the children really care what happens to these wonderfully crafted characters from the nurse dog to Captain Hook. Kids actually feel sorry for Captain Hook. Peter is the good little bad boy who ran away to Never, Neverland. He learned to fly, and talk with flowers and fairies and he gathered all the little boys who fell out of their cribs or strollers everywhere and cares for them. They all live like a family and take care of themselves, eluding the Indians and Captain Hook with the help of the fairy Tinkerbell. Captain Hook wants to catch the lost boys to get revenge because he blames them and Peter for the loss of his hand to the crocodile. In some versions, Peter cut off the hand in a duel with Hook, but I prefer the crocodile version. With all these characters, every child can find one with whom they can identify. These characters are not little flat stick men, but believable friends with all their very human foibles, good and bad traits, hope and dreams, joys and fears. This and the very exciting plot keep kids coming back and bringing their children with them.
References
Barrie, J. M. Peter Pan: The Story of Peter and Wendy. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1911. Questia. 2008. Web.
Freeman, Matt. “A Century and Counting for Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up First Appeared on Stage in 1904, and Neither He nor the Story Have Aged Much Since.” Reading Today Oct.-Nov. 2004: 38. Questia. 2008. Web.
Pharand, Michel W. “Donna R. White and C. Anita Tarr, Eds. J. M. Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’ in and out of Time: A Children’s Classic at 100.” English Literature in Transition 1880-1920 50.2 (2007): 226+. Questia. 2008. Web.