The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up: But Did

THE BOY WHO WOULD NOT GROW UP – BUT DID

The story of Sir J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan

by

Lise Lyng Falkenberg

*****

Copyright 2013 Lise Lyng Falkenberg

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Table of contents

Preface

Sir J. M. Barrie

The Pan myth

The Little White Bird

Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

Peter Pan

Peter and Wendy

Peter Pan vs. Peter and Wendy

Analyses

Peter in Kensington Gardens vs. Peter in Neverland

Scenario for a proposed Film of Peter Pan

What happened next

Chronology

Research sources

Preface

This book was first published in Danish in 1998. It is based on my Ph.D. thesis from 1991 and the censors back then hailed it as being thorough, informative and entertaining. The book caught the eye of film director Michael Caleb Hansen who went on to use it as the basis for his intended documentary In Search of Peter Pan, for which I have acted as script consultant. This is, however, the first time that the book has been published in English.

I've always been fascinated by Peter Pan, even as a little girl, or more rightly: I've been fascinated by Neverland and its population, not just Peter, but the fairies and the mermaids and the pirates, too. Maybe because I myself am a descendant of a pirate. Oh yes, I am. My great-great-great-grandfather was the infamous army captain, delinquent and pirate Captain Conrad Wilhelm Ahlefeldt von Falkenberg who - according to German legend - is the Captain of the Flying Dutchman.

It can't come as a surprise that Neverland and its characters fascinated me as a little girl as Peter Pan & Co. are seen to belong to the world of childhood. This is, however, not quite true. When the Scots author Sir J. M. Barrie invented his stories about Peter Pan, they were just as ambiguous as for instance Lewis Carroll's stories about Alice, Pamela L. Travers' about Mary Poppins and the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen. Like these authors, Barrie provided his stories with two layers; one for children and one for adults. Furthermore - and this is probably the most interesting - when Peter Pan appeared for the first time, it was not in a children's book but in a novel for grown-ups. Peter Pan's origin is therefore not to be found in children's literature, but in fiction for adults.

Barrie wrote his story about Peter Pan no less than five times. Two of the stories, the novel The Little White Bird from1902 and the illustrated storybook Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens from 1906, make up one universe with one particular interpretation of Peter. Here he is a week old baby who lives alone in Kensington Gardens in London, England, far away from pirates and Indians and mermaids, a character who - although he is able to speak to the birds - is not able to fly on his own.

Two other stories, the play Peter Pan from 1904, which wasn't printed until 1928, and the children's book Peter and Wendy from 1911, show a different universe with a different interpretation of Peter. Here he is a much older boy living with other boys in Neverland that is inhabited by pirates, Indians and mermaids. In these stories it is difficult for Peter to talk to birds and animals, but instead he is able to fly.

Finally there's the last story, the final story if you please, namely Barrie's scenario for a silent film. The scenario was written in 1920 and thanks to Roger Lancelyn Green we are able to read it today as it was first printed in his book Fifty Years of Peter Pan from 1954. In this film scenario we find a new Peter Pan universe, a universe that combines the former stories and even adds new information and insights that we have been denied in former stories.

In this book I am going to analyse all five stories and compare them in order to show that both the literary story about Peter Pan as well as Peter's life story undergo developments. Because although Barrie assures us that Peter Pan is a boy who doesn't want to grow up, he does develop and grow older. It is this development that I wish to show as well as the development in other characters in the stories, such as Wendy and Captain Hook. Finally I wish to illustrate how Peter's universe gets more and more obsessed with death and sexuality, the more Peter develops.

I ought to mention that I haven't updated chapter 11,3 - The commercialised Peter Pan - since I first wrote it for my thesis in 1991, as there have been so many new takes on Peter Pan that it would be impossible to come up with a complete list. I mean, even Tinker Bell has become a celebrity in her own right through the huge franchise that Disney has built around her in latter years!

As for Peter Pan himself, I only feel the need to point out a few of the new takes on him. One is Peter Hollindale's book A Hundred Years of Peter Pan (2005) as it covers very much the same territory as I did fourteen years before him. Another is the Australian film Peter Pan (2003) by P. J. Hogan. The plot of the film has very little to do with the plot of Barrie's stories, but it doesn't matter as it has captured the atmosphere. Furthermore Jason Isaacs is brilliant in the double role as Captain Hook/Mr. Darling and young Jeremy Sumpter is in my opinion the only male actor who has ever succeeded in capturing the essence of Peter. He IS Peter Pan. Full stop. Marc Foster's acclaimed film Finding Neverland (2004) is no match at all as it messes up the story of Barrie's life despite the fine effort from Johnny Depp to portray him.

The only other film to reach the standard of Hogan's Peter Pan is Mike Newell's amazing An Awfully Big Adventure (1995). Based on Beryl Bainbridge's 1990 novel by the same name, it tells the story of a British theatre company that stages the Peter Pan play during the Second World War. With Hugh Grant as Peter Pan, Alan Rickman as Captain Hook and Georgina Cates as a sort of Wendy, the film transforms the Peter Pan story into a modern day tragedy.

Finally I have to mention, although reluctantly, that an official sequel has been written to Peter and Wendy, namely Geraldine McCaughrean's Peter Pan in Scarlet (2006) which in my opinion should never have been written. It is not true to the stories of Peter and the magic simply isn't there. The novel is just a red, barren echo of a once great tale and it leaves the reader numb or even worse, turns them off Peter Pan. How anyone thought they could write a Peter Pan sequel is beyond me. Only Barrie could have done that.

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy what you are about to read in The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up - But Did in the same way as Danish readers have done before you. You're in for an awfully big adventure!

Lise Lyng Falkenberg, March, 2013

Sir J. M. Barrie

1. David’s death

Peter Pan is a creation of the Scots journalist and author Sir James Matthew Barrie, born in 1860 in Kirriemuir, Forfarshire. J. M. Barrie was a strange and unique person, probably the only one, who could have thought up the character of Peter Pan as he himself was a child who couldn’t grow up.

Barrie’s aversion to or maybe even lacking the ability of growing up as well as his creation of Peter Pan originate from two events in his life. The first was the death of his brother in 1867, the other his encounter with the Llewelyn Davies family in 1898. Without these two events, Peter Pan would probably never have come to life.

J. M. Barrie, or Jamie as his family called him, was only six years old when his brother David died in a skating accident on his fourteenth birthday. After that, the life of little Jamie revolved around making his heartbroken mother happy again. Barrie’s mother, Margaret Ogilvy, adored the lost David, who had been a clever and diligent boy, destined to become a vicar. In her grief over the loss of her son, Margaret Ogilvy seemed to forget her love for her other children (Barrie was one of ten siblings, but two sisters had died in infancy), at least her adoration of David was disproportionate. Because of that, little Jamie tried to win his mother's love by substituting his departed brother. He dressed like David, walked like David, whistled like David; he did everything that David would have done in the hope of taking his place in his mother's heart. He didn't quite succeed as Margaret Ogilvy never recovered from the loss of her bright son, and Barrie spent most of his life worshipping his grieving mother and trying to replace his dead brother who was his worst enemy in the fight for his mother's love.

Both Margaret Ogilvy and David Barrie became recurring characters in James Barrie's literary universe and they are to be found in his stories about Peter Pan as well. Margaret Ogilvy as Wendy, because as Barrie wrote in his mother's biography (Margaret Ogilvy, p. 19:) I soon grow tired of writing tales unless I can see a little girl, of whom my mother has told me, wandering confidently through the pages, and David Barrie as Peter Pan, as David - because of his death - truly was a boy who wouldn't grow up.

2. The Llewelyn Davies family

David Barrie's death and Margaret Ogilvy's grief were of great importance to Barrie's life and work and so was the Llewelyn Davies family. Barrie had encountered the family in 1898 when in Kensington Gardens he had come upon three little boys; George, John (called Jack) and Peter, sons of Arthur and Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. The family later increased by another two sons, Michael and Nicholas.

Barrie had always thrived in the company of children so he took to the five brothers immediately. He invaded the privacy of the Llewelyn Davies family and almost forced his company and love on them. Not everyone was happy about it, especially the father, Arthur Llewelyn Davies, who felt that Barrie stepped out of line and in years to come both Jack and Peter felt so as well. But when Arthur Llewelyn Davies died an early death from a malignant tumour in his face, Barrie helped out Sylvia and the boys financially and helped them cope with their loss, taking them on trips and entertaining them.

In 1910 when Sylvia died just as early and meaningless as her husband, she from cancer too, Barrie adopted the five boys and raised them like his own. Barrie's friendship and later kinship with the five boys were of the utmost importance for his creation of Peter Pan, as Pan first came to life through stories that Barrie told the boys.

When Barrie adopted the Llewlyn Davies brothers, people started wondering about the moral nature of this family consisting of a middle-aged bachelor and five young boys, especially as Barrie obviously adored George and Michael. The speculations about immorality within the family were vehemently dismissed by Nicholas, the survivor of the five brothers. He wrote in a letter to Andrew Birkin who quoted it on p. 130 in his book J. M. Barrie and the lost boys: "All I can say for certain is that I never heard one word or saw one glimmer of anything approaching homosexuality or paedophilia: had he had either of these leanings in however slight a symptom I would have been aware. He was an innocent - which is why he could write Peter Pan".

3. The boy who wouldn't grow up

Sir J. M. Barrie was an innocent, a man who liked the world