Peter Pan and Modernity: a Marxist Critical Analysis of J.M. Barrie’s Greatest Work
Since its birth to the stage in 1904 J.M. Barrie’s play Peter Pan has captivated audiences of adults and children alike. Its popularity is evident in the numerous recreations of the story on stages and in theatres around the world. There are three versions of the story on film, one sequel and a recent movie on the life of J.M. Barrie himself.
The story of Peter Pan is set on the distinctive island of Neverland. The hero is a cunning and timeless child, who refuses to grow into manhood. But beneath the lighthearted story lies a sincere critique of modernity and its cultural effects on society. Through the Darling household, the precarious situation of Mr. Darling, Neverland’s strange appeal, and the curious role of Captain Hook, J.M. Barrie criticizes the capitalistic society in which he lived. Mr. Barrie subtly questions the shifting roles of gender caused by the increasing economy by giving his two central females, Mrs. Darling and Wendy, a position of utmost importance and necessity, as mothers; while Mr. Darling and Hook suffer with dubiously feminine traits. The well written story has entertained readers for over one hundred years, yet it is this ‘under the surface’ analysis of capitalism that makes the novel such a brilliant piece. Terry Eagleton once wrote, “To write well is more than a matter of ‘style’; it also means having at one’s disposal an ideological perspective which can penetrate to the realities of men’s experience in a certain situation” (8). J.M. Barrie wrote through the eyes of a man frustrated with capitalist country that was emerging from the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain.
The first sign of Mr. Darling’s precarious situation in the transforming world of capitalism comes when we realize that the Darling family lives in a typical neighborhood with one servant and a dog for a nurse instead of a person. “No nursery could possibly have been conducted more correctly, and Mr. Darling knew it, yet he sometimes wondered uneasily whether the neighbors talked. He had his position in the city to consider” (6). Mr. Darling is not settled, he must be careful of what is said about him. Ann Wilson wrote that “as industrial technologies evolve, they effect radical change, which generates anxiety, particularly for the middle class, which, located between the upper and working classes, is in a site of negotiations and inherent instability” (1). Wilson also points out that with the expansion of capitalism and the introduction of new technologies, women were introduced further into the work place, during that time they were increasingly filling clerical positions. Male clerks were no longer a vital part of the company and were easily replaced (2). This further wobbles middle class stability. Barrie captures the angst felt by middle class men in the early 1900s through the attitude and actions of Mr. Darling, whose family is part of that new creation, the middle class. Mr. Darling must calculate the expenses children bring and “for a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would be able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed… There was the same excitement over John, and Michael had even a narrower squeak” (3, 4). Mr. Darling is not part of the working class, Mrs. Darling does not work, they have a servant, yet we know that Mr. Darling must maintain his job, there is no time for him to squander in leisure. He is at the mercy of the capitalists who have hired him as a clerk, an everyday, non essential clerk. Even Barrie’s description found in the stage directions of the play for Mr. Darling at work is depressing and indistinctive:
In the city where he sits on a stool all day, fixed as a postage stamp, he is so like all
the others on stools that you recognise him not by his face but by his stool. (90)
Obviously he is not an important person; he is unknown to the capitalists who hired him, except by his stool. I believe Barrie is bringing to light the faceless society capitalism creates and his longing to return to the days when man was considered an individual, those days which, although they might not have ever existed in the grown up world, existed when we were children and believed ourselves to be unique. He creates Neverland, which “as its very name suggests, is an impossibility, an idealization of what never was” (Wilson, 3).
In Neverland we have a child’s world, and the arch enemy of our child hero is an adult, Captain James Hook. It is interesting note that in his stage directions, Barrie casts the same actor who plays Mr. Darling to play Hook. Instead of roaming about on the sea as a pirate should, Hook is first seen tracking the lost boys and out to get Peter Pan, in a sense, playing children’s games. Not only does Hook have the leisure time to play games he also has the means to dress in “the attire associated with the name of Charles II” (66). Hook is also being tracked by a crocodile that has swallowed a clock that tick-tocks behind him to eventually swallow him whole. Barrie could be insinuating several things through Hook and his croc, possibly, he is contrasting the boy, Pan, eternal and timeless, to the man, Hook, unable to distinguish himself from children and overtaken by time. This is a haunting representation of Barrie himself, forever playing with children and unable to halt their growing maturity into adulthood or death. Yet perhaps, the intended parallel is with Mr. Darling. Hook has leisure time to be playing games; he is free from the restraints of capitalism as opposed to Mr. Darling who must work daily. Hook is captain of his pirates and commands respect from each of them, “a man of indomitable courage” (66). In reality, Mr. Darling cannot command respect from anyone, definitely not at his stool as a clerk and not even from his family. Barrie tells us “Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that Mrs. Darling not only loved him but respected him” then mentions “…he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made any woman respect him” (2) as though we are not to be fooled into giving Mr. Darling any respect. When he drags Nana out of the nursery, “he was ashamed of himself, and yet he did it. It was all owing to his too affectionate nature, which craved for admiration” (25).
While Barrie does not intend for us to dislike Mr. Darling, the feelings of contempt towards this effeminate character are unavoidable. Barrie says “Perhaps there is some excuse for him” yet never gives one and then mentions, “it is an astounding thing to have to tell, but this man, though he knew about stocks and bonds, had no real mastery of his tie” (18). He tries to make an excuse for the fatherly form, but there is no success. Mr. Darling is struggling to be master of his house, yet cannot even master his tie. Mrs. Darling must master it for him. If one reads a bit further into the text, possibly too far, you can see grounds for the argument that although Mrs. Darling is the mother, she is also in a position of power over Mr. Darling, the tie, as well as the children, answer to her, they respect and love her, and but not necessarily Mr. Darling.
Because of his shifting lines in the work place due to capitalism and expansion, Mr. Darling must have respect at home to assure him of his masculinity. Wilson says “failure is the condition of masculinity for Mr. Darling and men like him, who, under the changing terms of work in industrial capital, can never be ‘masterful’ men” (4). If he is unable to assert his masculinity at work, he must at home, and here Mr. Darling fails as well and is left to struggle with an abortive masculinity.
Barrie is concerned about the identity of men during this industrial age. Their roles at work are threatened and they are slowly being effaced to nothing, but recognition by the stool on which they sit, as still as a postage stamp. Barrie cages his frustrations through the life of Mr. Darling; he is anxious about the future and reminiscent of the past, although this past never existed apart from childhood, it is the path for his retreat into Neverland, the island that could never exist. It is on this island that Barrie allows Mr. Darling to “escape the pressures of being an adult by donning the guise of Captain Hook, a dandy – leisured and effeminate – who has the time (which is to say, financial security) to indulge in play and is free of the necessity to work” (Wilson, 5). It is also on this island, that Barrie seems to over emphasize the importance of women staying out of the work place and remaining in the home by dramatizing the role of the mother.
Neverland is a boy’s world; it holds adventures with pirates and Indians. The boys are allowed to kill and live as they please with their gallant leader, Peter Pan. Yet in spite of this uncontrolled island, the lost boys still remember their mothers. “They talked of Cinderella, and Tootles was confident that his mother must have been very like her” (68). Barrie points out that although they are free of the restraints of a mother, they still long to have one again. It was as if he wanted to encourage women to stay out of the office so he wrote of the importance of mothers. There is no subtle insinuation about this issue; it is one of the key points in the book.
Mrs. Darling is described as having a ‘kiss’ on the corner of her mouth that none can get from her, not Mr. Darling nor even Wendy, yet when we first see Peter Pan, Barrie says, “If you or I or Wendy had been there we would have seen that he was very like Mrs. Darling’s kiss” (13). Barrie is telling us that Mrs. Darling had not entirely grown up, not only does she retain apart of her childhood with the kiss in the corner of her mouth, but she also somehow recognizes Peter Pan right away when he is at the nursery window. Which is to say, she has not forgotten her childhood.
Mrs. Darling is the representation of all middle class women, remaining in the home and caring for the children, this role of mother is not downplayed or passed over, it is emphasized as entirely necessary and the exact place women of her position should be found. There are several points in the novel that Barrie uses to accentuate the importance of Mrs. Darling as mother and not as breadwinner. The last time the children are with their parents, Michael says, “Mother… I’m glad of you” (26). When the children decide to leave Neverland, it is only because they are afraid Mrs. Darling has forgotten them. At the end of the story before the children return Mr. Darling is the one who gives up hope of their ever returning and asks her to shut the window, the children’s route back into the house, yet Mrs. Darling refuses, “O George, never ask me to do that. The window must always be left open for them, always, always” (200). Wendy, though she is just a girl, is another important female figure portrayed as a mother.
It is Wendy’s maternal instincts that are the strongest image of the importance of women as mothers. Peter Pan convinces her to fly away to become the mother for the lost boys in Neverland only because they have no one to tuck them in at night and none “to darn [their] clothes and make pockets for [them]” (41). Wendy cannot resist the call the motherhood.
And as the important female on the island, she takes it upon herself to care for the boys and Peter. Barrie points out the necessity of women remaining in the home and in a sense not growing up, not heading to the office. When Wendy finally decides it is time for herself and her brothers to head back to England, the lost boys are devastated and declare it will be worse for them than before she got there and attempt to tie her down to keep her as their mother. Fortunately, Wendy invites the lost boys home with her. The fact that they are desperate to go to England and have a real mother is intriguing. It is as though Barrie is willing to desert his fantasy world for the better idea of a mother.
What does this desertion intend to convey? Perhaps it is the importance of mothers / girls in the home and not with the boys at work or at play in Neverland. Perhaps it is his way to accept reality and return to capitalism. Barrie of course does not blame the appearance of women in the office for the difficulties of men retaining their masculinity; it is obviously the expanding capitalism in England which is to blame for their loss of individuality and control.
What is interesting is the contrast between J.M. Barrie’s solution to this identity crisis and Karl Marx’s. The two men lives overlapped and both witnessed the results of the Industrial Revolution and what it brought to the working and middle class citizens of England. However they took two very different approaches. Barrie created a fantasy island where boys can be men and girls can be mothers, where the pressures of providing for a family and for being a true man were alleviated. Marx came to a more realistic decision, he chose to analyze why the current capitalistic system was doomed to failure and feasible ways in which to solve that problem. Both were concerned with the identity of men after that Industrial age, but failed to realize that if a man’s identity is rooted in what he does for a living, that man is already destined for failure.
Peter Pan is a Barrie’s response to a changing culture, a culture which Barrie feared would steal from a man more than his identity, but his childhood, his enjoyment of life. He foresaw men, as empty shells, working without a purpose, children raised without their mothers and a country chasing monetary gains. What is there left to say, but that Mr. Barrie’s fears have flown from his novel and entered reality? This is the world we live in.
Bibliography
Barrie, J.M. Peter Pan and Other Plays. Ed. Peter Hollindale. Oxford: 1995
Barrie, J.M. Peter Pan. Clio Press Ltd. Oxford: 1988
Eagleton, Terry. Marxism and Literary Criticism. University of California Press. Berkley and Los Angeles, California: 1976
Wilson, Ann. Hauntings: Anxiety, Technology, and Gender in Peter Pan. Modern Drama. Vol.43, Number 4. (ww.utpjournals.com/product/md/434/gender6.html)
The story of Peter Pan is set on the distinctive island of Neverland. The hero is a cunning and timeless child, who refuses to grow into manhood. But beneath the lighthearted story lies a sincere critique of modernity and its cultural effects on society. Through the Darling household, the precarious situation of Mr. Darling, Neverland’s strange appeal, and the curious role of Captain Hook, J.M. Barrie criticizes the capitalistic society in which he lived. Mr. Barrie subtly questions the shifting roles of gender caused by the increasing economy by giving his two central females, Mrs. Darling and Wendy, a position of utmost importance and necessity, as mothers; while Mr. Darling and Hook suffer with dubiously feminine traits. The well written story has entertained readers for over one hundred years, yet it is this ‘under the surface’ analysis of capitalism that makes the novel such a brilliant piece. Terry Eagleton once wrote, “To write well is more than a matter of ‘style’; it also means having at one’s disposal an ideological perspective which can penetrate to the realities of men’s experience in a certain situation” (8). J.M. Barrie wrote through the eyes of a man frustrated with capitalist country that was emerging from the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain.
The first sign of Mr. Darling’s precarious situation in the transforming world of capitalism comes when we realize that the Darling family lives in a typical neighborhood with one servant and a dog for a nurse instead of a person. “No nursery could possibly have been conducted more correctly, and Mr. Darling knew it, yet he sometimes wondered uneasily whether the neighbors talked. He had his position in the city to consider” (6). Mr. Darling is not settled, he must be careful of what is said about him. Ann Wilson wrote that “as industrial technologies evolve, they effect radical change, which generates anxiety, particularly for the middle class, which, located between the upper and working classes, is in a site of negotiations and inherent instability” (1). Wilson also points out that with the expansion of capitalism and the introduction of new technologies, women were introduced further into the work place, during that time they were increasingly filling clerical positions. Male clerks were no longer a vital part of the company and were easily replaced (2). This further wobbles middle class stability. Barrie captures the angst felt by middle class men in the early 1900s through the attitude and actions of Mr. Darling, whose family is part of that new creation, the middle class. Mr. Darling must calculate the expenses children bring and “for a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would be able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed… There was the same excitement over John, and Michael had even a narrower squeak” (3, 4). Mr. Darling is not part of the working class, Mrs. Darling does not work, they have a servant, yet we know that Mr. Darling must maintain his job, there is no time for him to squander in leisure. He is at the mercy of the capitalists who have hired him as a clerk, an everyday, non essential clerk. Even Barrie’s description found in the stage directions of the play for Mr. Darling at work is depressing and indistinctive:
In the city where he sits on a stool all day, fixed as a postage stamp, he is so like all
the others on stools that you recognise him not by his face but by his stool. (90)
Obviously he is not an important person; he is unknown to the capitalists who hired him, except by his stool. I believe Barrie is bringing to light the faceless society capitalism creates and his longing to return to the days when man was considered an individual, those days which, although they might not have ever existed in the grown up world, existed when we were children and believed ourselves to be unique. He creates Neverland, which “as its very name suggests, is an impossibility, an idealization of what never was” (Wilson, 3).
In Neverland we have a child’s world, and the arch enemy of our child hero is an adult, Captain James Hook. It is interesting note that in his stage directions, Barrie casts the same actor who plays Mr. Darling to play Hook. Instead of roaming about on the sea as a pirate should, Hook is first seen tracking the lost boys and out to get Peter Pan, in a sense, playing children’s games. Not only does Hook have the leisure time to play games he also has the means to dress in “the attire associated with the name of Charles II” (66). Hook is also being tracked by a crocodile that has swallowed a clock that tick-tocks behind him to eventually swallow him whole. Barrie could be insinuating several things through Hook and his croc, possibly, he is contrasting the boy, Pan, eternal and timeless, to the man, Hook, unable to distinguish himself from children and overtaken by time. This is a haunting representation of Barrie himself, forever playing with children and unable to halt their growing maturity into adulthood or death. Yet perhaps, the intended parallel is with Mr. Darling. Hook has leisure time to be playing games; he is free from the restraints of capitalism as opposed to Mr. Darling who must work daily. Hook is captain of his pirates and commands respect from each of them, “a man of indomitable courage” (66). In reality, Mr. Darling cannot command respect from anyone, definitely not at his stool as a clerk and not even from his family. Barrie tells us “Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that Mrs. Darling not only loved him but respected him” then mentions “…he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have made any woman respect him” (2) as though we are not to be fooled into giving Mr. Darling any respect. When he drags Nana out of the nursery, “he was ashamed of himself, and yet he did it. It was all owing to his too affectionate nature, which craved for admiration” (25).
While Barrie does not intend for us to dislike Mr. Darling, the feelings of contempt towards this effeminate character are unavoidable. Barrie says “Perhaps there is some excuse for him” yet never gives one and then mentions, “it is an astounding thing to have to tell, but this man, though he knew about stocks and bonds, had no real mastery of his tie” (18). He tries to make an excuse for the fatherly form, but there is no success. Mr. Darling is struggling to be master of his house, yet cannot even master his tie. Mrs. Darling must master it for him. If one reads a bit further into the text, possibly too far, you can see grounds for the argument that although Mrs. Darling is the mother, she is also in a position of power over Mr. Darling, the tie, as well as the children, answer to her, they respect and love her, and but not necessarily Mr. Darling.
Because of his shifting lines in the work place due to capitalism and expansion, Mr. Darling must have respect at home to assure him of his masculinity. Wilson says “failure is the condition of masculinity for Mr. Darling and men like him, who, under the changing terms of work in industrial capital, can never be ‘masterful’ men” (4). If he is unable to assert his masculinity at work, he must at home, and here Mr. Darling fails as well and is left to struggle with an abortive masculinity.
Barrie is concerned about the identity of men during this industrial age. Their roles at work are threatened and they are slowly being effaced to nothing, but recognition by the stool on which they sit, as still as a postage stamp. Barrie cages his frustrations through the life of Mr. Darling; he is anxious about the future and reminiscent of the past, although this past never existed apart from childhood, it is the path for his retreat into Neverland, the island that could never exist. It is on this island that Barrie allows Mr. Darling to “escape the pressures of being an adult by donning the guise of Captain Hook, a dandy – leisured and effeminate – who has the time (which is to say, financial security) to indulge in play and is free of the necessity to work” (Wilson, 5). It is also on this island, that Barrie seems to over emphasize the importance of women staying out of the work place and remaining in the home by dramatizing the role of the mother.
Neverland is a boy’s world; it holds adventures with pirates and Indians. The boys are allowed to kill and live as they please with their gallant leader, Peter Pan. Yet in spite of this uncontrolled island, the lost boys still remember their mothers. “They talked of Cinderella, and Tootles was confident that his mother must have been very like her” (68). Barrie points out that although they are free of the restraints of a mother, they still long to have one again. It was as if he wanted to encourage women to stay out of the office so he wrote of the importance of mothers. There is no subtle insinuation about this issue; it is one of the key points in the book.
Mrs. Darling is described as having a ‘kiss’ on the corner of her mouth that none can get from her, not Mr. Darling nor even Wendy, yet when we first see Peter Pan, Barrie says, “If you or I or Wendy had been there we would have seen that he was very like Mrs. Darling’s kiss” (13). Barrie is telling us that Mrs. Darling had not entirely grown up, not only does she retain apart of her childhood with the kiss in the corner of her mouth, but she also somehow recognizes Peter Pan right away when he is at the nursery window. Which is to say, she has not forgotten her childhood.
Mrs. Darling is the representation of all middle class women, remaining in the home and caring for the children, this role of mother is not downplayed or passed over, it is emphasized as entirely necessary and the exact place women of her position should be found. There are several points in the novel that Barrie uses to accentuate the importance of Mrs. Darling as mother and not as breadwinner. The last time the children are with their parents, Michael says, “Mother… I’m glad of you” (26). When the children decide to leave Neverland, it is only because they are afraid Mrs. Darling has forgotten them. At the end of the story before the children return Mr. Darling is the one who gives up hope of their ever returning and asks her to shut the window, the children’s route back into the house, yet Mrs. Darling refuses, “O George, never ask me to do that. The window must always be left open for them, always, always” (200). Wendy, though she is just a girl, is another important female figure portrayed as a mother.
It is Wendy’s maternal instincts that are the strongest image of the importance of women as mothers. Peter Pan convinces her to fly away to become the mother for the lost boys in Neverland only because they have no one to tuck them in at night and none “to darn [their] clothes and make pockets for [them]” (41). Wendy cannot resist the call the motherhood.
And as the important female on the island, she takes it upon herself to care for the boys and Peter. Barrie points out the necessity of women remaining in the home and in a sense not growing up, not heading to the office. When Wendy finally decides it is time for herself and her brothers to head back to England, the lost boys are devastated and declare it will be worse for them than before she got there and attempt to tie her down to keep her as their mother. Fortunately, Wendy invites the lost boys home with her. The fact that they are desperate to go to England and have a real mother is intriguing. It is as though Barrie is willing to desert his fantasy world for the better idea of a mother.
What does this desertion intend to convey? Perhaps it is the importance of mothers / girls in the home and not with the boys at work or at play in Neverland. Perhaps it is his way to accept reality and return to capitalism. Barrie of course does not blame the appearance of women in the office for the difficulties of men retaining their masculinity; it is obviously the expanding capitalism in England which is to blame for their loss of individuality and control.
What is interesting is the contrast between J.M. Barrie’s solution to this identity crisis and Karl Marx’s. The two men lives overlapped and both witnessed the results of the Industrial Revolution and what it brought to the working and middle class citizens of England. However they took two very different approaches. Barrie created a fantasy island where boys can be men and girls can be mothers, where the pressures of providing for a family and for being a true man were alleviated. Marx came to a more realistic decision, he chose to analyze why the current capitalistic system was doomed to failure and feasible ways in which to solve that problem. Both were concerned with the identity of men after that Industrial age, but failed to realize that if a man’s identity is rooted in what he does for a living, that man is already destined for failure.
Peter Pan is a Barrie’s response to a changing culture, a culture which Barrie feared would steal from a man more than his identity, but his childhood, his enjoyment of life. He foresaw men, as empty shells, working without a purpose, children raised without their mothers and a country chasing monetary gains. What is there left to say, but that Mr. Barrie’s fears have flown from his novel and entered reality? This is the world we live in.
Bibliography
Barrie, J.M. Peter Pan and Other Plays. Ed. Peter Hollindale. Oxford: 1995
Barrie, J.M. Peter Pan. Clio Press Ltd. Oxford: 1988
Eagleton, Terry. Marxism and Literary Criticism. University of California Press. Berkley and Los Angeles, California: 1976
Wilson, Ann. Hauntings: Anxiety, Technology, and Gender in Peter Pan. Modern Drama. Vol.43, Number 4. (ww.utpjournals.com/product/md/434/gender6.html)
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