The Dark Side of Peter Pan

To preface: No, Peter Pan is not officially a fairy tale. But the story has become popular enough and many people do consider it to be a fairy tale, especially with the addition of its characters to the show Once Upon a Time. And generally, most people who have an affinity for fairy tales also tend to really like such classic fantasy stories such as Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. Also, this book has multiple references to fairy tales in it.

Neverland: J.M. Barrie, The Du Mauriers, and the Dark Side of Peter Pan by Piers Dudgeon is a fascinating read. The cover of the book promises as much. I was at first skeptical -"There might be scarier books, but it's unlikely that any will be as luridly creepy as Neverland," claims Michael Dirda of The Washington Post. On the front he promises "a history of psychological domination and submission, unnatural family relations, predatory abuse and suicide." Author Nina Auerbach "was literally captivated by this story." I was worried that the book might be full of sensationalized, wild accusations and unable to live up to such high praise.

But in my humble opinion, the book didn't disappoint. It covers in depth the history behind the writing of Peter Pan. Many of you may be familiar with Finding Neverland, which introduced the public at large to the friendship of J.M. Barrie, the play's author, with its real-live inspirations-the Llewelyn Davies boys and their mother Sylvia. Barrie got to know the family quite well and the games he played with the boys were woven into his literature. The movie portrays it as a sweet relationship, with a quasi-love story between Barrie and Sylvia.

J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan

But of course the true story runs much deeper-and in many ways much differently-than the Hollywood version. Piers Dudgeon takes us all the way back to George Du Maurier, who was not only the grandfather of the Llewelyn Davies boys, but an author and artist whose works and adventures in mysticism and hypnotism deeply affected the younger Barrie. Some of the first chapters were a little hard to get into initially, just because those characters weren't ones I was as interested in learning about at first. But give it a chance and you will be just as absorbed with learning about the bohemian lifestyle of artists in Paris in the nineteenth century and the disturbing practices of hypnotizing their models. 

I appreciated Dudgeon's writing. He begins with the history that has been handed down to us on the subject-the often romanticized version-but, in detective style, starts by uncovering holes in certain theories and going deeper and deeper into the mystery of what really happened between Barrie and the Llewelyn Davies family. He backs up all of his claims with solid evidence-letters and diaries from the family and their friends. He is careful not to claim speculations are truth, but by the time you have combed through the evidence with him you will probably also agree that his theories are very likely.

George, John, and Peter Llewelyn Davies in 1901

Given that people will jump to conclusions, especially with such dark hints, I should clarify that it is not likely at all that Barrie was sexually abusing the boys. However, there was a weird sort of psychological abuse going on that definitely had parallels to sexual abuse. It's hard to summarize without painting a wrong sort of picture and I'd really encourage anyone interested to read the book yourself, but a lot of it had to do with hypnotism, which surprised me. I had never taken hypnotism very seriously, considering it a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of thing, but it was all the rage among artists in the late 1800s and at the turn of the century. Much like drugs, it can give the people experiencing it a certain high and become very addictive, with negative long term affects that weren't discovered until, for some people, it was too late.

For a while I've had this half baked theory about Peter Pan that in my youth I gathered from the Disney version and didn't really take seriously. In one of the earliest posts on this blog I mentioned that there is no record of anything bad Captain Hook did-he is just seeking revenge against the cocky boy who cut off his hand and gave a crocodile a bloodlust for him, and that it is possibly Peter who is the villain. Turns out I was more right than I realized. One of the early titles of Peter Pan was actually "The Boy Who Hated Mothers" (Barrie had an extremely complex relationship with his domineering mother). Later, Barrie himself describes Peter as a "demon Boy" and was disappointed at the statue of his title character erected in Kensington Gardens, because it "didn't show the Devil in Peter." And really, when you think about it, the play is about a boy who steals children from their nurseries, luring them away from their parents, much like the Pied Piper (as in fact his second name, Pan, is a reference to the god who plays the flute). As Peter himself says, "I forget people after I kill them" (I believe this was from Peter and Wendy, not Peter Pan)

And, in a way, that is exactly what he did to the Llewelyn Davies boys. Both parents, Arthur and Sylvia, died tragically early. Barrie literally changed Sylvia's will so that instead of the boys' nanny and her sister raising them, he took them as his own. The boys themselves later in life either died early in tragic (sometimes suspicious) accidents, or committed suicide. Again, they are all complex situations too detailed to describe here, but it would not be untrue to say that Barrie indirectly had a hand in many of those deaths (including Sylvia's).

To bring the whole business back to traditional fairy tales, Peter Llewelyn Davies-thought to be the main namesake for Peter Pan (when in fact, both of those Peters were named for a fictional character penned by George Du Maurier, Peter Ibbetson) later in life published a collection of fairy tale-inspired short stories written by his contemporaries. I introduced the book and reviewed the collection here and here back in 2012 when the book was rereleased.

It's not the happy or idyllic picture that many of us associate, or want to associate, with one of our favorite childhood stories. But it's definitely one of those instances where the truth is stranger than fiction. Now I want to reread the play and see if I pick up on different things based on what I now know.

The Fairies Return

This year I had a blog first: I was sent a book from the publisher! The book is The Fairies Return:Or, New Tales for Old (Oddly Modern Fairy Tales), compiled by Peter Llewelyn Davies. Surlalune recently featured this book as well.

Peter Llewelyn Davies was one of the five boys that J.M. Barrie had befriended when he (Davies) was a child and therefore was thought to be the inpiration for Peter Pan; in fact it was all of the boys combined who eventually became the famous character, and Peter Davies resented the fact that for the rest of his life society thought of him as "Peter Pan." However, no doubt the rich imagination of J.M. Barrie which infiltrated his childhood helped inspire him to collect fairy tales later in his life.

Peter's life was full of hardships-from Maria Tatar's introduction: "Peter Davies' childhood reads in many ways like a fairy tale, not the "happily ever after" variety, but one more like the many chain tales recorded by the Grimms in which misfortune breeds hard luck which in turn begets misery and finally leads to tragedy."

As many of us less than casual fans of fairy tales will be quick to point out, it's really the suffering the characters initially go through in fairy tales that have made the tales so well-loved for so long-fairy tales are NOT idyllic scenes from start to finish, so that could be another part of the appeal of fairy tales to Davies.

The darker and more tragic parts of fairy tales would also have appealed to the audience at the time. England was in between major world wars (the collection was originally published in 1934), and many of the versions of fairy tales in the book reflect the sentiments of the era. In fact that's partly what makes this book such a unique collection, is its historical significance as well as the interpretations of tales.

I've only begun to read the stories and will probably share some more personal reflections as I get a chance to explore it more, which I'm very excited to do!

Peter Pan at Pittburgh Ballet Theater

Ballet and fairy tales are no strangers to each other (classifying Peter Pan as a fairy tale is rather liberal, but I include classic fantasy literature that is often thought of as a fairy tale in my personal definition). But the thought of pairing ballet, the dance form created to appear as if the dancers were defying gravity, with the flying of Peter Pan intrigues me. Showing in Pittsburgh this October.

By the way, I meant to post this a while ago and forgot, but for Midwesterners like myself, Peter Pan is showing in Chicago through August.

Chicago play-Peter Pan

For any Chicago area folk who might be interested, here's a link to the Tribune's review of Amanda Denhert's "Peter Pan (A Play)." The review itself is pretty negative, so it might discourage anyone from buying a ticket, but it's always interesting to see how people interpret classic stories in different ways.

An exerpt: "This "Peter Pan" loses almost all of the sharp contrasts in Barrie's writing, fails to hold on to the narrative thread of his storytelling and flattens everything into an overwrought and tediously theatrical landscape. More problematic yet, the piece feels weirdly clueless about parents and children, which is the very core of a book that, while strange, surely hits on some of most painful truths of our home lives.
"Peter Pan," which was born out of an unusual and now well-documented, turn-of-the-century friendship that Barrie had with a family of five boys, can be played darkly or lightly or (ideally) on twin tracks for kids and adults."

I love that last line and think it applies to most stories-"Can be played darkly or lightly or (ideally) on twin tracks for kids and adults." I believe good children's stories should also have appeal for adults and that it's totally possible to achieve that balance, as the original Barrie play itself proves.

The Mouse Under Glass

There seem to be two kinds of books about Disney: those produced by the Disney company to promote their image and sell their products, and those by outsiders who set out to "expose" Disney to be a misogynist, racist, money-making villain who carefully created a false image for the public. David Koenig is a refreshing read, because he's not affiliated with Disney but is still a fan who manages to take an honest look at the movies.

Just look at the table of contents and tell me you don't love this guy:

I. The Disney Cookbook (Introduction)
II. Disney Developed (Salad Days)
1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
2. Pinocchio
3. Fantasia
4. Dumbo
5. Bambi
III. Disney Discouraged (Potluck)
6. Song of the South
IV. Disney Delighted (Classic Cuisine)
7. Cinderella
8. Alice in Wonderland
9. Peter Pan
10. Lady and the Tramp
11. Sleeping Beauty
V. Disney Distracted (Microwave Magic)
12. 101 Dalmations
13. The Sword in the Stone
14. Mary Poppins
15. The Jungle Book
VI. Disney Duplicated (Reheated Leftovers)
16. The Aristocats
17. Bedknobs and Broomsticks
18. Robin Hood
19. The Rescuers
20. Pete's Dragon
21. The Fox and the Hound
VII. Disney Disassembled (Cleansing the Palette)
22. The Great Mouse Detective
23. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
24. Oliver & Co.
VIII. Disney Distinguished (Icing on the Cake)
25. The Little Mermaid
26. Beauty and the Beast
27. Aladdin
28. The Lion King
IX. Disney Diluted (Chef's Surprise)
29. Pocahontas
30. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
X. Disney's Destiny (Conclusion)

For each movie, Koenig gives the "recipe" that went into making the movie: The Original Tale, then the Disney Version. He describes the different phases the script went through-why certain elements were altered from the original version. He also describes Plot Holes he sees that don't quite make sense, and the Bloopers. The scenes the animators planned but got left out of the movie are in the Cutting Room Floor section. Hidden Images describe secret little jokes (some of them not-so-secret) the animators put in frames of the movies, from hidden Mickeys to phallic images in a tower of Triton's castle.
This is it, btw.


In Strange Reactions, Koenig reports how the audience responded to the movie when it came out. You'd be surprised at how powerful cencorship boards were, back in the day (especially in Europe). Lastly, Koenig traces those movies that inspired Attraction Offspring at one of the Disney theme parks, and why or why not they succeeded.

There was too much fascinating trivia to share here, other than telling you to go read the book yourself. But one thing that I found interesting that relates to issues previously discussed on the blog: some of Disney's harshest criticisms are against the passive female heroines of the earliest Princess movies. Also pretty damning is the racism in Song of the South. Aware of the racial controversy surrounding Song of the South, Disney hired Maurice Rapf to work with writer Dalton Reymond because of his progressive views. Rapf's version of the script would have appeased many a modern fan, as he made the African Americans more independant. However, Reymond and Rapf didn't get along, and Reymond was assigned a new partner. Rapf's positive story changes went out the window.

Rapf was then assigned to Cinderella. He didn't like the idea of Cinderella being passively bossed around all day, either. He suggested a scene in which one day, "they're ordering her around and she throws the stuff back at them. She revolts, so they lock her up in the attic. I don't think anyone took (my idea) very seriously." Ahead of his time.

One more thing-remember how I secretly think Peter Pan is the villain and Captain Hook a victim of circumstances? Well Rapf didn't like Peter Pan either! He says, "I made Peter Pan a villain. He doesn't want anybody to grow up and that's dangerous, the temptation not to grow up. So I had Wendy tell him off." I like this Rapf guy, too bad he had so little influence.

Dark Chest of Wonders

"Dark Chest Of Wonders", opening song for the album Once, by Nightwish

This song always makes me think of Peter Pan, especially the lyrics "One night the clock struck twelve, the window opened wide...the age I learned to fly and took a step outside...faith brought me here it's time to cut the rope and fly to a dream..." Given Tuomas Holopainen's love of Disney, I'd be surprised if he weren't influenced by Peter Pan. But overall I love this song because of the celebration of wonder and childhood fantasies.

"Once I had a dream/And this is it

Once there was a child's dream/One night the clock struck twelve/The window opened wide
Once there was a child's heart/The age I learned to fly and took a step outside

Once I knew all the tales/It's time to turn back time, follow the pale moonlight
Once I wished for this night/Faith brought me here, it's time to cut the rope and fly

Fly to a dream/Far across the sea/All the burdens gone/Open the chest once more/Dark chest of wonders/Seen through the eyes/Of the one with pure heart/Once so long ago

The one in the big blue is what the world stole from me/This night will bring him back to me

Fly to a dream..."

Peter Pan collars

Images by Carrie of Wishwishwish

My introduction into the blogging world was through style and fashion blogs, not fairy tale blogs. I (stupidly) had never even looked for or read any fairy tale blogs before I started this on a whim one day.

Anyway, the style blogs I prefer are usually girls who love vintage. Peter Pan collars are a favorite among some of my favorite bloggers, though not really "in" right now. I wondered what relation the collars had with the character Peter Pan and found this information on Retroland:

"When Disney got a hold of Peter Pan in 1953, they made some distinct wardrobe changes - notably, a jagged V-neck replaced the delicate, rounded collar that had come to be known for decades as the Peter Pan collar. But up until that time, this simple and sweet collar named in the honor of the boy who never grew up found its way around the neck of many a boy and girl who wanted to grow up to be just like their hero.

"The Peter Pan collar wasn’t always called such. In the late 1800s, it was referred to as the Little Lord Fauntleroy suit collar, and was designed out of either plain white cotton or frilly lace. When J. M. Barrie’s famous play hit the stage in 1904, however, the collar would be renamed forever in Peter’s honor. Little boys everywhere, who wanted to emulate their flying friend, embraced the fashion. In the 40s, it was incorporated into the Eton suits worn by angelic tykes, and a decade later, little girls had taken to the style as well, carefully folding the collars over their cardigans. For the older girl, a string of pearls completed the look. While not exactly on the fashion forefront these days, an occasional Peter Pan collar can still be seen from time to time, harkening back to flying adventures to faraway lands and representing all that is innocent and good in the world. Jagged V-necks, not so much."

Image of Emily on Some Girls Wander

Peter Pan: From Disney to J.M. Barrie

The title of that post is, obviously, chronologically incorrect as far as the history of the story of Peter Pan goes. But, as far as my own knowledge went, and I think most people had the same experience--we grew up watching the Disney films. Later on, I became interested in the history of fairy tales before Disney and reading what I thought were the "authentic" tales found in the Grimm collection-or, in this case, the J.M. Barrie play (which really is the authentic version).
I used to have(/still do) a conspiracy theory about the Disney version. Captain Hook is the supposed villain, but what did he ever do? We have no record of evil deeds he did to Peter Pan before Pan a) sliced off his hand, and b) fed Hook's hand to the crocodile, who now has an insatiable craving for Hook. If I were Hook, I would certainly want revenge on the cheeky little boy who can fly and imitate voices and therefore has the advantage in everything. What good does Peter do? All he does is flirt (Wendy, Tinker Bell, Tiger Lily, the mermaids).

Just to clarify, I don't really have a vendetta against Peter Pan. I love the movie, and especially the ride at Disneyland. I love the part where you fly over London!
The Disney movie was based on the play I mentioned earlier, written by J.M. Barrie. The little of the history of the play I know, I know from the movie Finding Neverland, which, of course, isn't entirely historically accurate, but makes a nice movie. According to IMDB:

"After the death of two of Barrie's close friends, Arthur and Sylvia Llewelyn-Davies, he adopted their five sons: Peter, Jack, George, Michael and Nicholas. Barrie was very close to all the boys, and was heartbroken when Michael drowned in 1921 and George was killed in action in 1915. Their brother, Peter Llewelyn-Davies, also committed suicide on April 5th, 1960.

"From 1928 onwards, all royalties from the sales of Peter Pan were donated to the Great Ormond Street Hospital. In 1987 (50 years after Barrie's death), when normally royalty rights would have expired, by a special act of Parliament, royalties were allowed to continue going to the hospital in perpetuity."

Recognize any of those boys' names? Peter should be obvious. The boys who go to Neverland are Michael and John--Jack's real name could be John. And Mr. Darling's first name was George. Looks like poor Nicholas got the shaft. (By the way, that's really cool about the royalties going to the hospital).

Anyway, the play is very funny. Though written as a play and performed as a play, half of the funny parts are in little sidenotes given in the stage directions, so it's really meant to be read.
Also, reading the play made me appreciate the different versions better-Disney, the musical, the P.J. Hogan movie from 2003. Though all different, they all stayed pretty true to the original script. Even the movie Hook, though supposedly a sequel, has a part where the boys are eating imaginary food, which is what they eat in the play.
Fun fact: In the dedication, Barrie describes how it came about that one needed pixie dust to fly. Apparantly, lots of children were playing Peter Pan and injuring themselves trying to fly. Parents requested that pixie dust be added as a prerequisite to flying. This was a good idea, and would probably decrease Peter Pan related injuries due to the fact that pixie dust is scarce, so he put it in his play.