KidLit Forum

The first thing that came into my mind while reading Peter Pan was gender role. The author depicts ways men and women respond as parents. Women generaly have a natural instinct for motherhood while men are childish and they want to avoid responsabilities. Wendy becomes the mother of the Lost Boys and she has the usual domestic roles.
Neverland is the perfect island where parentless children could live. But the sad part of the book is that the children are happy because of many things but they are always ready to abandon their close friends.

I am still concerned with the episode, in which Wendy is sewing Peter Pan's shadow. Shadow is normally a projection of something (body, thing etc.), but Peter Pan's shadow has it's own personality. It ran away from Peter and seemed that he is not able to control his shadow. Although the same person they look like separate bodies. But Peter Pan's shadow has the same character as Peter:they are both playful. This is interesting because the "other" should be different like in many other stories in which a bad character has a good counterpart. When Peter finds his shadow he tries to stick it with a soap "How exactly as a boy" (of course it doesn't work), but Wendy proposes Peter to sew the shadow and here the author shows the superiority of the women's thinking.

As Jacqueline Rose said [Chidren's literature is not only about childhood, is about the relation between childhood and adulthood.]

It's funny that the children are trying to run away from everything which deals with adulthood, but they end up acting like adults without even knowing and yet, maybe this is their own way of dealing with the fact that eventually they have to grow up...

Peter Pan presents the story of an imature boy who refuses to grow up. The fact that he has a major influence over childer might be justified by the childish estate he owns.“There could not have been a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a little boy who was staring in at the window. 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.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
The lack of affection from parents determines Peter to travel in human' world and look for a nanny. The idea was that the other boys from Neverland felt alone. Wendy's presence helped Peter. Not only that children felt the love of a rented mother, but were enthusiastic at the idea of enjoying the girl in human's world. Neverland is all children dream, the land were the adult presence can't be possible. The imaginary world make possible all children fantasy. The pursuit of maternal presence can be one of the theme of this book.

In the novel Wendy talks about how important is a mother's love. She tries to convince those children that Mrs. Darling will wait for them forever but Peter does not believe her and convinces the other boys that it is not true. He says that his mother forgotten him. In this novel women have a natural instinct for motherhood and the men seem to be a little bit immature. For example, when each of their child is born Mr Darling wants to avoid the responsibility saying that maybe they will not afford to keep the child.

In contrast with Wendy, Tinker Bell is childish, undisciplined and irresponsible. She represents everything an English lady could only dream at those times, she says and does what she wants without any shame or fear. Even if Wendy disapproves Tinker Bell's behaviour there are moments when she dreams of being more ' Tinkerbellish'. Moreover, as an archetype, Tinker Bell represents impulsive and provocative femininity and in order to exist the 'woman-fairy' needs children's imagination.