Troy Terwilliger’s Reviews > Peter Pan > Status Update

That is the beautiful, aching heart of the whole story. J.M. Barrie constructs this incredible trap: to grow up means losing the magic, but to stay with Peter means losing your humanity.

To Wendy, John, and Michael, Captain Hook is the ultimate projection of their father's worst traits. Mr. Darling represents the suffocating, insecure authority of the real world—the man who chains up their protector and demands they grow up. When the children fly away to escape that authority, their subconscious transforms him into a literal pirate king holding a weapon, trying to destroy their childhood.

“Oh, Tink! Did you drink it to save me?”
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“You silly ass!”

“It’s poisoned!”

“Everytime you breathe, a grown up dies!”

"Children know such a lot now, they soon don't believe in fairies, and every time a child says, 'I don't believe in fairies,' there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead."

Kensington Gardens… fairies….

That melancholy Barrie writes about—the tragedy of loving someone who is completely unmoored from time and reality.

What she thought was a shooting star…

Nana is a dog that Nannie’s the children because they can’t afford a real one.