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?
Hi Maria!
I am totally impressed after reading your post because I had never heard about the story of the writer of “Peter Pan” and it’s good to know about it.
I agree with you in your thought about that Barrie is reflected in the book and also the relationship with Wendy has now more sense than before reading your post.
Maybe all the writers of literature for children left some of their experiences in the book because it is difficult to create a fiction story from a paper in blank without taking some “real” situations into account and have it as a base to start or develop a new part of your book. But the writers are clever enough to hide all that things from the story and camouflage them.
Thanks a lot for discover this story!
Hi Jaime!
Glad that my post make you learned a little more about my favorite story, and the author of course.
I totally agree.
I think most of the books authors let something from them, maybe they are equal to the characters of the story, or maybe you found situations or even stories of his own life in their books. Many wil may try to hidethis evidence (who would say that Peter Pan can be almost mirroring a real person)
But I think they all do a job fnatastico making us dream!…so in that case, what does it matter?
Hi Maria,
To read this post for me has been very interesting, because as you say all of us know the Adventures of Peter Pan, but in my case I haven`t heard nothing about the real story of Peter Pan and neither about his writter. It is very shocked to know the real story and why Barrie writes Peter Pan.
Related with this, maybe we can propose in our class that students make their own story based on any fairytale that they know well. I think that it could be interesting and also motivating for them to create their own story and then tell to their partners. The best story could be the winner and could be published in the corridor of the school or in their class.
Thank you for your post, I really enjoy it.
Regards
Hi Luis! !
Thanks for commenting on my post!
Yes, as you say it is a bit surprising to know the story behind the tales we know, also is interesting to know something about the author.
I totally agree with you. I think it is a good activity to do with our students, so another good activity will be maybe to create a new end or the story that follow the tale we know. On the other hand, as I do in this post , other good activity will be to investigate about the author.
The idea of a winner or a competition is great for their motivation!
As I say before, thank you for commenting.