This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMUNOZ.COM
I am talking about the final chapter of Peter Pan, When Wendy Corrupt, Chapter 17, and I'm not 100% sure what to say about this chapter.
I like it. I do think it's a good ending, and there's a lot going on here, I think. And there's... hmmm... it's a little open-ended.
It's a little sad. I think it's supposed to feel hopeful, and in some ways it is hopeful, but in some ways it's kind of heartbreaking, but it's also...
I don't know, it's kind of very adult in an interesting way. And I just finished listening to it not too long ago, 15 minutes, maybe 20 at the most, and I don't know, I just...
I was kind of sitting with it. The first time I read it, I was definitely upset. Definitely, it was a bittersweet chapter, but I want to take some time to think about it now that I have a little bit more perspective, and talk about it bit by bit.
So, the first bit that we get is the children are all home, and they've been welcomed in, and the Lost Boys come up, I don't know if it's one by one or as a group, and they ask Mrs. Darling, they plead with their eyes alone, for her to let them stay with them.
And Mr. Darling is upset because he feels like the children are treating him like a nothing, and he's a cipher, a zero. And they very cutely, you know, I don't think you're a cipher, so-and-so, do you think he's a cipher? No, I don't think he's a cipher, so-and-so, do you think he's a cipher?
Which is one of their gags. And anyway, Mr. Darling is happy to keep the boys, and he's happy to find room for them, and that's kind of it, that's that first part.
Then, it sounds like Mrs. Darling gives Peter the kiss that's been in the corner of her mouth that nobody else can get to, she gives it to him, and he flies off. And I don't remember if it's at that time when she leaves, or if it's later he comes back.
I kind of think it's at that time as he's going to leave that he determines that he's going to come back every year and take Wendy to do his spring cleaning for, I think it's a week, and that that's how it'll go.
So the next year, he comes for her, and she's grown in her dress that she made for herself, which, they didn't talk about this, but she had made a dress for herself in Neverland, out of leaves and berries and things like that.
It's too short, it's a little too short, but he doesn't say anything, he doesn't notice anything because he's just focused on himself, and he takes his mother off with him to Neverland.
And then, I think she, he misses at least a year, and then I think he misses many, many years until she's grown up and has her own daughter, Jane.
And Jane grew up hearing stories of Peter Pan, it turns out that Wendy married a man who bought out the parents' house, partly because Mr. Darling didn't like the stairs anymore, and Mrs. Darling is dead at this point.
And I'm not sure why Mrs. Darling being dead bothers me so much, but I guess it's just, it's showing that things are going on, and we don't know what Mrs. Darling's story was with Peter,
but it seems like it might be kind of how Wendy's was, except maybe there wasn't as strong of a conclusion to it.
Like, there wasn't as much closure, I guess the closure came when she kissed him goodbye, even though she wanted to keep him as a son, and just innocently, openly told him,
yeah, you'll grow up and you'll look handsome in a beard and you'll get a job and you'll get married and all these things, and Peter refuses to do that.
So instead, he gets to be this eternal child who keeps going back to that nursery, who keeps going back to Wendy, then Jane, then Margaret, her daughter, and that's just how it is.
Every year that he doesn't forget, at spring, he'll go to that window and he'll take his mother, the girl, the new girl, with him, and they'll have adventures in Neverland.
Tinkerbell's dead by the time Wendy and Peter go off for the first time again, I think, and Peter doesn't remember who Captain Hook was, even though he's this arch enemy, and he killed them,
and Peter said, oh, I forget them after I killed them, and I don't know, it's just really interesting. It's really interesting. I don't quite understand what Barry's getting at, except for this, which is the last line of the book.
I'm going to read the last couple lines.
As you look at Wendy, you may see her becoming white and her figure little again. For all this happened long ago. Jane is now a common grown-up with a daughter called Margaret, and every spring cleaning time, except for when he forgets, except when he forgets, Peter comes from Margaret and takes her to the Neverland, where she tells him stories about himself, to which he listens eagerly.
When Margaret grows up, she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter's mother in turn, and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.
So, for sure the heartlessness of children has been brought up before, and I think the gay-ty of children as well.
And it's interesting that gay and innocent and heartless are all linked together here, and I suppose because it's 2024, I must make the caveat that this is saying gay isn't happy, and nothing else.
And innocent and heartless, happy and innocent and heartless. That's an interesting combination of things to put together.
It's an accurate description of children, I think.
It's an odd way to end the book. This will go on. Peter Pan will live on. Peter Pan will continue having a mother. Peter Pan will continue taking this young girl off into flights of fancy, as long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.
What does that mean? Is that a metatextual comment? Is that saying that Peter Pan, or the spirit of Peter Pan, will persist as long as children are like this?
And what does it mean that children are gay and innocent and heartless? Why innocent and heartless together?
They're heartless, meaning that they ignore the feelings of other people, but it isn't out of malice. It's out of innocence. It's out of ignorance. It's out of lack of something.
I don't really know. I don't really know. And it's...
It's strange to me. We get this little anecdote in here, too, about the Lost Boys learning how to fly. And I believe Michael knew how to fly longest of all, but I would assume because he's the youngest and he held onto those happy thoughts.
But as they all grew up, they all forgot how to fly.
I don't know. It's interesting because it's not framed as a tragedy that people have to grow up.
It's almost framed as a tragedy that Peter won't grow up, that he refuses to grow up, that he stays a child forever.
Because by seeing a child, he is missing out on something very important and very big in life. And by being this runaway child, this cast-off child, whatever, he is missing a mother, but he finds that mother in Wendy and Jane and Margaret.
And... I'm really not sure what to do with that. I can see that Peter is gay and innocent and heartless.
There's something likable about that. There's something likable about that in him, and I would say in all children.
I don't know. I almost feel as if this is more of an address to the parents and the people reading this book, that we should be okay with that and we should accept it.
And we should know that it's just part of life and it's something that children grow out of.
And almost like it's something not to be disturbed for now. Let it be. It's going to be okay.
They will be as easily joyful at some point. They will lose their innocence and at that point, they won't be heartless anymore. They'll be heartful.
They'll know pain and they'll know loss and they'll know sorrow. And it'll make the times of joy all the more rich for that, I think.
But the cost is that constant joy, the easy joy, and it's the cost of innocence too, perhaps. I'm not sure. I'm really not sure.
And I don't think I'm making a molehill or a mountain out of a molehill here. I think there is something here. There's something deeply resonant, but I can't quite identify what it is.
I wonder if you can. I wonder if you can see what I'm not seeing or if you have an insight on this that you'd like to share because I would like to hear.
I will be talking about Peter Pan one more time at least in the Fortress Fiction episode coming up, which will be releasing soon.
After that, I do have in front of me my list of books to listen to. The next book will be Maniac McGee by Jerry Spinelli, which came out in 1990.
It says it's the legendary orphan, or it says, this is the quick synopsis of it. Legendary orphan runs away and shares his athletic gifts with a racially divided town.
Sounds like a different pace from Peter Pan, but we do have an orphan here as well, which is interesting because I would definitely call Peter an orphan.
And I hope you look forward to checking out that book with me. I will be going through it chapter by chapter. I'll tell you where you can get it, where you can listen to it for free.
Preferably, and if not, where you could purchase it. So yeah, that for now concludes my chapter by chapter discussion review of Peter Pan Chapter 17, When Wendy Grew Up.
And I'm really curious to see what other people say, what other people see, what other people think about this.
And if you want to send in your ideas or your thoughts on the book as a whole, I'd be happy to incorporate some of those if you don't ask me not to in the episode where I talked about the book as a whole.
So for now, I'm going to go ahead and leave you. Thank you for your time and attention.
Be well and keep reading.
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