J.M. Barrie: Life & Legacy of "Peter Pan"

“All children, except one, grow up.”

-- J.M. Barrie, opening sentence of "Peter Pan"

J.M. Barrie, as portrayed by Johnny Depp in "Finding Neverland"

“If you have it [love], you don't need to have anything else, and if you don't have it, it doesn't matter much what else you have.”

(J.M. Barrie)

J.M. Barrie has become known by some investigators today as a queer, conflicting genius.

As a child, he was dealt a tragic blow when his older brother David drowned, leaving his mother shocked by grief. During his adult life, he and his wife were unable to have any children. However, he later became the guardian of five orphaned boys when their parents both died of cancer, the Llewelyn-Davies brothers. They were his main inspiration in writing Peter Pan, modeling Peter after one of the youngest boys, Michael.

When his novel, "Peter Pan", became a success, Barrie gave the copyright ownership to the nation's most prominent children's hospital, the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

Barrie died on June 19, 1937, still a boy at heart and known for his fondness for children. Peter Pan, and the invention of the world of Neverland, I believe, was his classic achievement. In Neverland, a light shines into the window of childhood and remains, making us believe anything is possible and we truly can fly. And I admit, like Wendy, Peter Pan actually was my first crush while growing up, thanks to Disney.

But on another note, Barrie tells us that Peter Pan is known as "the boy who never grew up". While he experiences the freedom of eternal childhood and independence, there is a cost: he cannot love. In reference to his own life, Barrie made this statement:,
"..if you don't have love, it doesn't matter much what else you have."

“There could not have been a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a little boy who was staring in at the window. He had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred.”

 

“Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A tremour ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea; but on the sea one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and Peter felt just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, "To die will be an awfully big adventure.” 

“For long the two enemies looked at one another, Hook shuddering slightly, and Peter with the strange smile upon his face.
"So, Pan," said Hook at last, "this is all your doing."
"Ay, James Hook," came the stern answer, "it is all my doing."
"Proud and insolent youth," said Hook, "prepare to meet thy doom."
"Dark and sinister man," Peter answered, "have at thee.” 

“She [Tinker Bell] liked his [Peter's] tears so much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it.

Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies. ” 

 “But where do you live mostly now?"
""With the lost boys."
Who are they?"
"They are the children who fall out of their perambulators when the nurse is looking the other way. If they are not claimed in seven days they are sent far away to the Neverland to defray expanses. I'm captain."
"What fun it must be!"
"Yes," said cunning Peter, "but we are rather lonely. You see we have no female companionship."
"Are none of the others girls?"
"Oh no; girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out of their prams.” 

“On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.”

~~~

  “If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness; then if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire.”

 “If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing.”
~~~

“You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.” (Barrie )

 “Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke into life."

  “Wendy, Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be flying about with me saying funny things to the stars.” 
~~~
“Peter,' she asked, trying to speak firmly, 'what are your exact feelings for me?'
'Those of a devoted son, Wendy.'
'I thought so,' she said, and went and sat by herself at the extreme end of the room.
'You are so queer,' he said, frankly puzzled, 'and Tiger Lily is just the same. There is something she wants to be to me, but she says it is not my mother.'
'No, indeed, it is not,' Wendy replied with frightful emphasis.” 
~~~
Wendy: "Sir, you are both ungallant and deficient!"
Peter: "How am I deficient?"
Wendy: (sadly) "You're just a boy.” 

 “The last thing he ever said to me was, 'Just always be waiting for me, and then some night you will hear me crowing.”   (Peter to Wendy)

Leah A.