The other day we were speaking about some of the original versions of fairytales. We were focused on “Cinderella” story and that make me think about the real stories that are behind our fairytales, and I decide to bring you one of my favorites: Peter Pan. 

But, who is Peter Pan? Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright James Matthew Barrie.
The story is about Peter Pan (a mischievous boy who can fly and never grows up) who spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang, the Lost Boys, interacting with mermaids, Native Americans, fairies, pirates, and occasionally ordinary children from the world outside (the Darling siblings).
So far all we know the story, right? But what happen if I told you that a kind of real Peter Pan lived in our world? And also that for me is it nothing less than the author himself?
James Matthew Barrie was born into a wealthy Victorian British family. When he was 6 years one of his brothers, David (almost 14 years) died (and this always remained some people to the “boy who wouldn’t grow up”).
His mother never recovered from the loss, and ignored Barrie. In “Peter and Wendy” (the real name for the story of Peter Pan), Peter told Wendy that he has parents but the day he come back they had forgotten him and replaced him with another boy (a similarity with his famous character, do not you think so?) Also this lack of feelings form his mother, will make Barrie look for a mother-son relationship in their marriage, and to add, he will also made Peter look for a maternal relationship on Wendy.
As his mother does not recover from the loss of David, that cause on Barrie a strong desire to please and try to fill the space left by his brother. This desire to be like his brother caused on Barrie to grow in age, but his height was not consistent with this; in fact, upon reaching adulthood his height was only one meter and a half, this problem which now day is associated with the desire to be a child forever (like Peter Pan) and do not grow, can bring psychological problems that are related to physical growth.
“Peter Pan” is born when Barrie came into contact with Llewelyn family, 1897-1898.

The Adventures of Peter Pan were created by Barrie in order to entertain the children and some of the adventures and antics were done by Llewellyn’s children themselves and Barrie (he felt more comfortable with them than with adults).
Besides, for Barrie the adult world and the world of children coexisted as two parallel universes, so the communication and the good things of both were impossible. Growing up for Barrie meant giving up forever the cheerful life of the child and likewise remain forever a child being equaled giving up the pleasures of adult life, especially anything related to love. Given this bleak scenario, the small Scottish whose body refused to be measured over a meter and a half, was held between the two worlds, and that will be reflected in the literary space in a physical separation between the world of the elderly and -London- the world of children-the ever- Neverland.
For all these reasons I think that Barrie feel reflected and express their feelings on “Peter Pan”. Do you think the same after ready this post?