Inquiry of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan

All children, except one, grow up.

PETER PAN

The edition read for this inquiry

Summary
A young girl, Wendy, lives with her mother, father, younger brothers and dog (nanny), in London.
The children, in the real word, live an eccentric life, having a dog for a nanny, and parents who are unfamiliar with caring for youth. Wendy begins to dream of knowing a boy, Peter Pan, who comes form a place called Neverland. One night when the children's parents are out, Peter comes to their nursery and asks the children to come fly with him, off to Neverland. In Neverland, Wendy cares for Peter Pan and his comrades, the lost boys, acting as their mother. The children experience fantastical creatures (such as seeing mermaids who play with bubbles or a crocodile with a clock in him, signaling when he is near). Furthermore they become allies with the Redskins, and enemies with the pirates, of whom they prevail against in the end. Over time Wendy's younger brothers forget that Neverland was not their own home, Wendy knows they must return, and so eventually they do. Neverland is a metaphor for the enchantment of childhood and the escapement of reality. They children struggle with the understanding that childhood enchantment cannot happen forever. Peter Pan, who has only ever known Neverland, does not understand. After the children return to London Peter still visits annually. Eventually he is less frequent, Wendy is older, Neverland is only a fading memory. Barrie grapples with the forgetfulness adults experience as they lose the knowledge of childhood magic.


Text Features
This novel is 200 pages. Reading of the novel is quite easy. There are 16 chapters. Pages have about 1 inch margins and 1.5 spaced text. Furthermore there is an abundance of dialogue and italicized poetry/songs that create extra white space on the pages. The edition I read also had full page color illustrations.

Illustrations were labeled with an exact quote from the book to explain what they depict. The only issue with these illustrations is that they sometimes occur a few pages before or after the part of the novel they correspond with. Otherwise the novel is an fair read, even for younger children. While the text has metaphors within it, it is much more straightforward Alice and Oz.

Black and White Illustration
Occurrence: about every 5 pages.

Timelessness
Due to it's Disney adaptation, Barrie's Peter Pan is a widely known children's classic. It explicitly examines the divide between childhood and adulthood, as hinted in Alice, and it details the importance of a home, despite an unconventional family, as also seen in Oz. Young children could examine themes across the texts of Oz and Alice more easily if encountering this text first as it examines these concepts in an exposed manner. In the past couple decades several adaptations have been made of the novel, but more often times the idea of "Neverland" and "never growing up" is alluded to or referenced in television, movies and books. The language of the text was very comprehendible. Well written but yet not too overzealous. While Pirates of the Caribbean is not considered an adaptation of Peter Pan, Pirate history and understandings spend this novel as well as the Pirates movies. References include "pieces of eight" and "Davy Jones." An average child would normally not be aware of these references, but from the recent releases of Pirates films, these ideas of Piracy are better known in society.