Peter Pan

Peter Pan is a fictional character created by Scottish author J. M. Barrie, and the name of a stage play, a children's book, and various adaptations of them. The character is a little boy who refuses to grow up, and spends his time having magical adventures.

Storyline

J. M. Barrie wrote three works involving Peter Pan:

• "Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens," which is a segment of his book The Little White Bird (1902)
• The stage play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up (1904)
• Peter and Wendy (1911), later retitled Peter Pan, a novel for children based on the play.

Several sequels, adaptations, and spinoffs have emerged since then, all with slightly modified storylines.

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

In this story, Peter Pan escapes from being a human at the tender age of seven days. He, having been a bird before he was a boy, believed he was still a bird, and so he flew out the window to the Kensington Gardens. He soon discovered that something was a bit off about him, so he flew to the island in the Serpentine where all the birds-who-become-children are born.

At the island, he asks the wise old bird Solomon what is wrong -- and Solomon explains that he is now a little boy. Peter is quite horrified, and then for a moment he doubts whether he can fly any more, and so he cannot. Perfect faith is to have wings.

Peter grows up on the island -- that is to say, he spends a very long time on the island-- but he always wishes he could go back to the Kensington Gardens and play as little girls and boys do. So one day, all the thrushes on the island build Peter a huge nest that he can use as a boat. And from then on, Peter goes to the Gardens at night to play, just as real boys do in the daytime.

Peter makes friends with the fairies in the Gardens, and he plays on his pipes for them at their dances and ceremonies. So the fairies grant him a wish of his heart -- and Peter asks to go back to his mother. So the fairies give him the ability to fly, and off he goes straight to his mother, who he finds is very sad -- and Peter knows why. But he cannot bring himself to leave behind his boat and the fairies and his fun in the Gardens, and so he flies away, planning to come back later. But Peter is having too much fun to hurry back; and when he finally does fly home, the window is barred and his mother has a new little boy to love.

Peter spends a very long time as a little boy in the Gardens, playing without ceasing but never knowing that he was doing it all wrong, that is, until he meets a little girl named Maimie, who remains in the Garden after Lock-Out. Maimie helps precipitate a fairy wedding, and so she finds favor with the fairies, who build her a little house for the night. And in the morning, she meets Peter Pan, who asks her to marry him after a touching scene in which kisses are confused with thimbles, as in the stage play. Maimie agrees, but then Peter seems to like her fur coat (for a nest) better than her, and she remembers her mother -- and the long and short of it is that she goes back to her family. But she leaves Peter a present a little while later -- an imaginary goat, which she asks the fairies to turn into a real goat. It is thus that Peter acquired the goat he rides on in the Gardens.

Every night, Peter rides around the Gardens, looking for lost children, and if he finds them, he puts them in a fairy house. Sometimes he is too late, and then he buries them (in twos, so that they should not be lonely) and carves a tombstone for them. The story ends, "I do hope Peter is not too ready with his spade. It is all rather sad."

Peter and Wendy

Later renamed to Peter Pan.

This is the portion of J. M. Barrie's mythos of Peter Pan that is best known to most readers.

In both the play and the novel, Peter invites the girl Wendy Darling to the Neverland to be a mother for his gang of Lost Boys. Her brothers John and Michael come along. Many adventures ensue, including the near-death of the fairy Tinker Bell, and a climactic confrontation with Peter's nemesis, the pirate Captain Hook of the pirate ship the Jolly Roger. In the end, Wendy decides that her place is at home, and brings all the boys back to London. Peter remains in the Neverland, and Wendy grows up.

Background

Barrie created Peter Pan in stories he told to the sons of his friend Sylvia Llewelyn-Davies, with whom he had forged a special relationship, while both were married.

The character's name comes from two sources: Peter Llewelyn-Davies, at the time the youngest of the boys, and Pan, the mischievous Greek god of the woodlands. Mrs. Llewelyn-Davies' death from cancer came within a few years of the death of her husband. Barrie was named as co-guardian of the boys and unofficially adopted them.

It has also been suggested that the inspiration for the character was Barrie's elder brother David, whose death in a skating accident at the age of thirteen deeply affected their mother. According to Andrew Birkin, author of J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, the death was "a catastrophe beyond belief, and one from which she never fully recovered . . . If Margaret Ogilvy drew a measure of comfort from the notion that David, in dying a boy, would remain a boy for ever, Barrie drew inspiration."

Peter Pan first appeared in print in a 1902 book called The Little White Bird, a fictionalised version of Barrie's relationship with the Llewelyn Davies children, and was then used in a very successful stage play, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, which premiered in London on December 27, 1904.

In 1906, the portion of The Little White Bird which featured Peter Pan was published as the book Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, with illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Barrie then adapted the play into the 1911 novel Peter and Wendy (but most often now published simply as Peter Pan).

There are seven statues of Peter Pan playing a set of pipes, cast from a mold by sculptor George Frampton, following an original commission by Barrie. The statues are in Kensington Gardens in London, in Liverpool, in Brussels, in Camden, New Jersey, in Perth, in Toronto, and in Bowring Park in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Wendy

Barrie is sometimes said to have "invented" the name Wendy with this story. Barrie's friend poet William Henley called Barrie "Friend" but Henley's daughter Margaret aged 4 could only pronounce that as "My Fweiendy" or "Fwendy-Wendy".

In fact, the name was already in use in both the United States and Britain, but was extremely rare. The Peter Pan stories popularized the name, at first in Britain. Wendy is related to the Welsh name Gwendolyn, and was used by Barrie at a time when Welsh names were making a resurgence in England.

Themes

The most apparent thematic thread in the story concerns growing up (or not), with the character of Peter wanting to remain a child forever in order to avoid the responsibilities of adulthood. "Peter Pan syndrome" has become a psychiatric term named by Dr. Dan Kiley to describe an adult who is afraid of commitment and/or refuses to act his age. It is also sometimes used to positively describe an innocent, childlike approach to life.

Along with the theme of "growing up" is the theme of death and innocence. Barrie's tale is intricately tied to the real Davies boys and the deaths of both mother and father.

Mr. Darling is constantly troubling himself with 'adult' matters. He is constantly fussing over money and respect, yet he never even attempts to hide his immaturity, because he is simply unaware of it. Peter too is like this. He is the leader of the Lost Boys because he is the bravest and the 'smartest.' But whenever anything is brought up that he does not understand he dismisses it and makes it seem inferior. Barrie is making a point: being egotistical will bring you down, not up. There is a reason why there are only lost boys and not lost girls. Girls have more sense then to be arrogant; they see the significance in growing up and maturity. Barrie is making another point: there is nothing wrong with being childish, being egotistical is the problem. If Mr. Darling represents the negative aspects of being childish, Mrs. Darling personifies when acting like a child is acceptable. she has nothing against childish acts, only immature acts. Her own personality is one of a child's, yet it is made up of the positive traits of a child. Wendy is also like her mother. She chooses to grow up, rather than staying in Neverland. Mr. Darling, along with Peter, are both immature, arrogant, and selfish. They have made their decision not to grow up.

Peter and Wendy form a contrast between childhood and maturity. Peter Pan remains a child in mind because he cannot feel pain because of death affecting him or those around him. Peter has one emotion only: gladness, and occasionally he adds to that childish fury. He forgets anything that is not happy and lighthearted soon after the fact: "I always forget them after I kill them."

Most of the movie adaptations of Peter Pan add a romantic aspect to the story that is not present in the novel. Wendy's flirtatious (by contemporaneous standards) desire to kiss Peter, his desire for a mother figure, his conflicting feelings for Wendy, Tiger Lily and Tinker Bell (each representing different female archetypes), and the symbolism of his fight with Captain Hook (traditionally played by the same actor as Wendy's father), all could possibly hint at a Freudian interpretation (see Oedipus Complex).

Adaptations

Peter Pan has been adapted for stage and screen many times. Following the example of Barrie's original stage version, and for practical reasons (and perhaps tradition), Peter usually - but not always - has been played by an adult woman.

Paramount Pictures released the first film version of Peter Pan in 1924, a silent movie starring Betty Bronson as Peter and Ernest Torrence as Hook.

Several musical versions of the play have been produced, of which the best known are Jerome Kern's 1924 version, Leonard Bernstein's 1950 version, and the 1954 version mounted by Jerome Robbins (originally to have only a few incidental songs with music by Mark Charlap and lyrics by Carolyn Leigh, but evolved into a musical with additional music by Jule Styne and lyrics by the team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green). The 1954 version became widely known as a vehicle for Mary Martin and later for a series of female gymnasts, including Cathy Rigby. The 1954 version was restaged for television by NBC and broadcast in 1955 as a historic, live color television event. The television version survives, as it was put to videotape in 1960.

On February 5, 1953, Disney released its animated film version of Peter Pan with music by Sammy Cahn, Frank Churchill, Sammy Fain, and Ted Sears. 15-year-old film actor Bobby Driscoll supplied the voice of Peter. In the film, a visual reference is made to Peter's ties to the Pan of Greek mythology by showing him absentmindedly playing the Pan pipes (also called panflute), which the nature spirit was famous for playing.

The 1979 stage version starred Broadway and television actress Sandy Duncan.

P. J. Hogan's 2003 live-action film version Peter Pan is notable for being the first film to cast a young teenage boy (Jeremy Sumpter) to portray Peter. Wendy was played by Rachel Hurd-Wood and Hook by Jason Isaacs, who also plays the role of the Darling children's father.

Sequels

There have been several additions to Peter Pan's story created, both authorised and not.

Gilbert Adair's novel Peter Pan and the Only Children was published in 1987. It has Peter living with a new gang of Lost Boys under the ocean, recruiting children who fall from passing ships as new members.

In 1989, Nippon Studios released an anime version, Peeta Pan no Bouken, as part of its World Masterpiece Theater series. The first 23 episodes are a loose adaptation of Barrie's story, while the latter half of the series introduces a completely original arc with new supporting characters. Takashi Nakamura, chief animator of Akira, did the character design for this project.

In 1990, Fox Studios released the short-lived cartoon series Peter Pan and the Pirates, about the daily adventures of Peter, Wendy, and the Lost Boys. Voice talents in the cast included Jason Marsden as Peter and Tim Curry as Captain Hook. Curry won an Emmy for his performance. The series is notable for drawing much of its characterization from the original book and play, particularly Captain Hook and his henchman Smee, so that they are not one-dimensional villains but complex, even ambiguous figures.

In 1990, French artist Regis Loisel began a series of comic books titled Peter Pan, which constitute a bawdy, violent prequel to Barrie's work, and give Peter Pan's backstory a distinctly Dickensian flavor. The series consists of six volumes.

Steven Spielberg's 1991 film Hook has a grown-up Peter (played by Robin Williams) lured back to Neverland by Tinker Bell (Julia Roberts) to fight the returned Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman).

J.E. Somma published After the Rain: A New Adventure for Peter Pan in 2001. It is set in modern times, and tells of Peter's reaction to a world that has grown to neglect him, and his rescue by three children who teach him that it's OK to grow up.

In 2002, Disney released Return to Neverland, a sequel to the 1953 Disney adaptation, in which Wendy's daughter Jane becomes involved with Peter Pan. This sequel is set during the Blitz, and deals with the issue of children being forced to grow up too fast.

Hyperion Books (a subsidiary of Disney) published the 2004 book Peter and the Starcatchers by humorist Dave Barry and suspense writer Ridley Pearson. It is an unofficial prequel to the story of Peter and Wendy, set on a ship called Never Land. In 2005, the publisher announced plans by Disney to adapt the book as a digitally animated movie, and to publish a sequel to it entitled Peter and the Shadow Thieves and a series of five chapter books titled The Never Land Adventures, the first two of which—Escape from the Carnivale and Cave of the Dark Wind—are planned to be released in Fall 2006.

Also in 2004, Karen Wallace's Wendy hit the stands. Supposedly a prequel to the events in Peter Pan, it is an attempt to justify the Darling children's willingness to fly away with Peter on the grounds that their home life, up to shortly before Peter appeared, had been filled with abuse and tragedy: a cruel nanny, a criminally irresponsible father, a suggestion of insanity in the family.

In 2005, James V. Hart published the book Capt. Hook by arrangement with Great Ormond Street Hospital. The book details the history of 15-year old James Matthew, young Oppidian Scholar and future Captain Hook. The book portrays the villainous youth in a sympathetic light.

Also in 2005, Great Ormond Street Hospital announced that Geraldine McCaughrean had been chosen to write a hospital-authorised sequel to Barrie's novel. Her book has the provisional title Captain Pan.

Other references in entertainment

Kate Bush's 1978 album Lionheart includes the song "In Search of Peter Pan".

In 1980, Petula Clark starred in Never Never Land as a woman whose niece, captivated by Barrie's tale, runs away and takes refuge with a group of "lost boys" squatting in a deserted London townhouse.

The 1987 Joel Schumacher film The Lost Boys featured several teen actors as ageless vampires, loosely styled after the lost boys of Peter Pan.

The 1997 comic book mini-series The Lost by Marc Andreyko and Jay Geldhof starred a vampiric boy hustler named Peter who leads a small group of vampire boys, and lures a girl named Wendy to join them.

The 1990s animated series The Mask included a character named "Skillet", who didn't age, dressed in green, could fly, and had a detatchable shadow. However, he was a villian, and sent his shadow out to absorb the youth of other people. Skillet's name was presumably based on "pan" as a cooking utensil.

Finding Neverland, a 2004 film starring Johnny Depp as Barrie and Kate Winslet as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, was a somewhat fictionalized account of their relationship and how it led to the development of Peter Pan. It was based on the 1998 play The Man Who Was Peter Pan by Allan Knee.

The Disney version of Peter Pan also appeared in the 2002 video game Kingdom Hearts.

Copyright status

The copyright status of Peter Pan varies from one jurisdiction to another, and is disputed in at least one of them. The question is complicated somewhat by the various versions in which the story has been published. For example, elements introduced in the earliest versions of the story by Barrie may be in public domain in a given jurisdiction, but elements introduced in later editions or adaptations might not. For example, Disney holds the copyright for the character designs, songs, etc. introduced in the 1953 animated film, but not for the characters themselves.

European Union

Great Ormond Street Hospital (to which Barrie assigned the copyright as a gift before his death) claims full copyright in the European Union until the end of 2007. In the 1990s, the term of copyrights was standardised throughout the EU (see Directive on harmonising the term of copyright protection) to extend 70 years after the creator's death. Although Peter Pan was considered public domain in some jurisdictions at that time, this provision placed it back under copyright protection.

United Kingdom

The U.K. copyright for Peter Pan originally expired at the end of 1987 (50 years after Barrie's death), but was reestablished through 2007 by the European Union directive. Additionally, in 1988 the government had enacted a perpetual extension of some of the rights to the work, entitling the hospital to royalties for any performance or publication of the work. This is not a true perpetual copyright, however, as it does not grant the hospital creative control nor the right to refuse permission. Nor does it cover the Peter Pan sections of The Little White Bird, which pre-dates the play. The exact phrasing is in section 301 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988:

301. The provisions of Schedule 6 have effect for conferring on trustees for the benefit of the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London, a right to a royalty in respect of the public performance, commercial publication, broadcasting or inclusion in a cable programme service of the play 'Peter Pan' by Sir James Matthew Barrie, or of any adaptation of that work, notwithstanding that copyright in the work expired on 31 December 1987. ([1])

United States

The conversion of U.S. copyright terms from a fixed number of years following publication, to an extending number of years following the creator's death, has introduced confusion over Peter Pan's copyright status. Great Ormond Street Hospital claims that U.S. legislation effective in 1978 and again in 1998 extended their copyright until 2023. Their claim is based on the copyright for the play script for Peter Pan, which was not published until 1928. By then, the character of Peter Pan had appeared in three previously published books, the copyrights of which have since expired.

GOSH's claim is contested by various parties, including Disney, who had cooperated with the hospital previously, but in 2004 published Dave Barry's and Ridley Pearson's Peter and the Starcatchers without permission or royalty payments. The Library of Congress catalog states that the original edition of Peter and Wendy was published in 1911, and Disney asserts that that material, like any other work published before 1923, was already in the public domain at the time of these extensions, and was therefore ineligible to be extended.

A dispute between the hospital and writer J.E. Somma over the U.S. publication of her sequel After the Rain, was settled out of court in March 2005. GOSH and Somma issued a joint statement which characterized her novel as "fair use" of the hospital's "U.S. intellectual property rights". Their confidential settlement does not set any legal precedent, however. [2]

Other jurisdictions

The original versions of Peter Pan are in the public domain in Australia and in Canada (where Somma's book was first published without incident).

Controversy

Like many other works of fiction from the era (such as the works of Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain), the Peter Pan canon contains much material which is likely to be construed as offensive to modern audiences. Specifically, the books have been accused of both racism and sexism. The former charge primarily concerns the portrayal of Native Americans in Peter and Wendy--the portrayal is highly stereotypical, with Native Americans being shown as warlike primitives who speak in guttural tones. Barrie's treatment of female characters has also been criticized by modern readers--most of the female characters in Peter and Wendy (Wendy, Tinker Bell, Tiger Lily, and the mermaids) fawn after Peter Pan (and Tinker Bell makes several attempts on Wendy's life out of jealousy), yet Peter ignores all of their affections.

This criticism is also levelled against several more recent adaptations of the story; most notably the 1953 Disney film. The film contains a song often criticized as offensive, namely What Makes The Red Man Red?, a catalog of Native American stereotypes. Until the 2002 release of the DVD version of this film (which included all of the allegedly offensive content, uncensored), it was widely speculated that Disney's Peter Pan would meet the same fate as the film version of Song of the South, which has heretofore been withheld (by Disney) from the United States market on the grounds that it is racist.

Many authors of recent adaptations of Peter Pan (as well as virtually all of the modern "sequels") have chosen to soften (or eliminate altogether) the harsh portrayal of Native Americans. The 2003 film version directed by P. J. Hogan has been noted for going to the opposite extreme; several reviewers have criticized it for being excessively politically correct. The Disney sequel, Return to Neverland, features a heroine (Wendy's daughter Jane) who, rather than being a passive "damsel in distress", is fully capable of defending herself (and saving Peter from the clutches of Captain Hook). It should also be noted that in this sequel, no actual Native Americans are actually seen, only alluded to in a scene where flying over Neverland, Jane sees a tee-pee with smoke rising out of it.