This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work
at MJMunoz.com Join me for another chapter by chapter discussion of Peter Pan episode,
or rather chapter 16. In this chapter we learn that Jan Berry understands children very well.
What do I mean by that? I talked about this a bit in my short, but I ran out of time,
so I'm going to expand upon it here right away. Peter, instead of sailing everybody
back to the island, he keeps them on the ship, and instead of having Tinkerbell fly the darling
children back home, and the lost boys, he and Tinkerbell leave them all behind, and
I guess they're still on the ship, I don't know, and he ends up going to their house,
and he tries to lock the door and stop them from being able to go back home. He wants
them to see that the window is locked, like his was locked, and go back to Neverland,
like he went back to Neverland, and for Wendy to be his mother always, and you know, Michael
and John will be there, and they'll be part of the lost boys, and that'll be fine for
him. He doesn't want to lose that. He's so desperate to hold onto that. The reason that's
so interesting, and the reason that works so well, is because, well, we understand that
he's a child, and he's flawed, and he's failing in this test, so to speak, but we also get
to see the pain and the heartache that Mrs. Darling feels, and that Mr. Darling feels.
Mr. Darling is now, or Darling is now sleeping in a kennel, and being in a kennel most of
the time, he even goes to work in a kennel, and gets invited to dinner parties in a kennel,
but he really is suffering for it, which I believe because he's kind of a silly guy.
Mrs. Darling, however, her hope that her children will return is eternal, and even George says
that the window is too cold, or it's too cold, so she should close the window, and she chides
him and says, no, I will not close the window, and he apologizes to her, realizing what a
faux pas he made, and realizing that she won't close the window because she doesn't want
to let go of her children, and she doesn't want them to think that she's not there waiting
for them, because she is there waiting for them, because she loves them so dearly.
Barry very much chides the children for their lack of concern for their mother.
I don't think he calls them little beasts in this chapter, but he's pretty close to
it.
He says they're heartless, and that they just go to her assuming that everything will be
fine, and the level of her heartbrokenness is such that when they are there, because
their darling children do come home that night, and they lay in their beds, and she goes to
look upon them, to look upon the empty beds, she sees them there, but she doesn't realize
it's really them, because she's been having visions of them being there in their beds,
because that's how much she wants them to return.
That's how much she loves her children, how much she's hoping that they'll return, and
knows they'll return, to the point where she's, I believe, sitting down, and they call to
her in turn, and she still doesn't believe it's them, because she's experienced that
too.
So, in a very interesting way, Barry spends this chapter talking about how much he likes
her, and how he prefers Mrs. Darling to all the other characters in the story, and how
he wants to save her from the pain that her children are causing her, and to relieve her
from the pain that they're causing her.
And it's interesting, because he really expresses this concern for her, almost to the exclusion
of her children.
But, of course, if you're going to care greatly for a mother, you also have to care for her
children, because it doesn't work that way, but he is just the narrator, supposedly.
So, I don't know, it's a really interesting way things are handled.
It would be anticlimactic, and it would be a wasted chapter if it didn't hit on all these
emotional notes, and kind of pay off things that had been set up earlier.
And I don't know, it adds to the tragedy of Peter, because he ends up leaving.
He ends up being defeated by...
See, he can defeat Captain Hook, but he can't defeat a sad mom, and he ends up, I guess,
hanging outside the window or something, when the Darling children are back, and he sees
that he's on the outside looking in, and he's never going to be able to have that.
And that's a good ending for Mrs. Darling, and for Mr. Darling, and for the children,
but it's not quite a good ending for Peter yet.
Except, well, if he were to grow up, this would be a big part of his growing up, but
he's the boy who refuses to grow up, so this isn't going to be the end for him.
But it is a really interesting examination of children, and this book has become a classic,
this story has become a classic, it's been retold many times, and people still like it,
and I think it's children who like it, not adults looking at it.
Not that adults can't like it, I do very much enjoy this story.
But I almost wonder if maybe people think too little of children as far as their capacity
to accept criticism or to be attacked by the media they enjoy, because this book spends
a lot of time having fun and being absurd, but it also spends time here very much attacking
these children and not demonizing them, but definitely not angelizing them, and it makes
it clear that a woman, a mother is deluded by her love for her children to the point
where she will accept so much from them, and literally take things that she shouldn't have
to take from them because of her love for them, and that she'll just continue to indulge
them.
And I don't know if it's that indulgence that children find enjoyable, the fact that their
imaginations are being indulged and that they're being reassured that their mothers will always
love them and care for them in this type of way, in this very profound way, or is it the
magic and the spectacle that keeps children interested in this story?
I don't quite know, and I'm curious to know what you say about it.
So leave me a comment here.
If you enjoyed this, please like, share, subscribe, help me grow, help me get more people paying
attention to these book chats, these chapter by chapter discussions of books.
I'm even open to, at some point, opening it up and having people suggest books they'd
like me to read chapter by chapter.
I already have my list of what's to read next.
I don't remember what's to read next because I've been very much in Peter Pan mode and
focused on this.
But yeah, I'd be curious to see what other people have to say about this and what other
books people would like to see me talk about and join in the conversation in at least comments,
going chapter by chapter, telling me what you think about things before I talk about
them.
That'd be great.
So until next time, folks, take care, be well, and keep reading.
I hope you enjoyed that.
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