Peter Pan as a free spirit entices the children to a land of play and adventure. The battle between Peter Pan and Captain Hook suggests a battle between childhood and adulthood, personified by the ever-ticking clock. Peter has ‘no sense of time’. On his parting from Wendy, the children grow up, forgetting Peter. When reminded, Peter does not remember his nemesis, Captain Hook or his companion, Tinkerbell. It seems the battle was only a game, soon forgotten. Much like the adopted trope, ‘it was all a dream’. Neverland never was, only Peter Pan remains. The idea of Peter Pan flying reminds the reader of the prevalence of dreams in which we can fly, that seems part of childhood for many, yet diminish in frequency as we reach adulthood. Peter is innocent and heartless and flies away, because ‘It is only the gay, innocent and heartless that can fly’. Adulthood grounds us.

Peter Pan is driven by the notion of self, meeting his own needs and being in the moment, a physical manifestation of freedom, hailing from a none reality of an unobtainable ‘Neverland.’ Ultimately rather than the boy who would not grow up, Peter cannot grow up. When adopted, his lost boys grow into adults, with all the responsibilities of adulthood. Wendy grows up, leaving Peter perpetually locked in childhood. J.M. Barrie created the ultimate child, unable to tame his creation, Barrie sets free the lost boys, bringing them out of Neverland and into the physical world, while locking his wild and free Peter away in eternal childhood.

I argue that Peter Pan is the authors’ personification of childhood but not an idealised child. The child who desires the maternal figure, in Wendy, yearns for the stories, the need for a mother. The boy leader rejecting the patriarchy, is wilful and self-directed, only wanting to fill his days with games of pirates and Indians. Ultimately Peter’s destiny is to remain in the Neverland of childhood, a prisoner, looking through the barred window of the Darling’s home but never being part of it. For that moment, we see the sadness of being an eternal child as we a