Peter Pan question

Cafe Society
1

So, as many of you may know, a new live-action movie of Peter Pan is coming out in the US on Christmas Day. According to this site, both Captain Hook and Mr. Darling are being played by the excellent Jason Isaacs.

That struck me a rather odd but intriguing decision – hmmm, what would Freud say?

And then! I’m reading David Cordingly’s new book, Under the Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates (fantastic history of piracy, btw), and he writes a bit about Captain Hook…it seems that in the very first production of the stage play, Peter Pan in 1904, Capt. Hook and Mr. Darling were also played by the same actor (Gerald du Maurier).

It’s been a while since I’ve read J.M. Barrie’s novel, but I don’t remember Mr. Darling being a bad dad or anything. What are your thoughts about this connection between the evil villain and the father? Is there anything in the novel to support it?

2

I’m not an expert on Peter Pan, but in Bruno Bettelheim’s book The Uses Of Enchantment, which is about fairy tales, the author (a Freudian psychologist) describes how in fairy tales figures such as giants and wicked stepmothers often stand as representations of the fearsome or unpleasant side of fathers and mothers.

Bettelheim says that in order for a small child to reconcile the fact that the same parent will punish them but still loves them, which appears an insurmountable contradiction to the child, the facet of the parent that punishes the child is extracted to become a separate villainous personality. This allows the child to hate their parent for punishing them (because their hatred is directed at a villain, who is ultimately defeated by the fairytale hero, who represents the child), but still to love the parent for all the good things they do.

Having Hook and Darling played by the same person seems to be a recognition of the role that villains play in a child’s mental development - something that must have occured to the original director or to Barrie long before such notions became a matter for psychological discussion.

3

A good example of the fairy tale plot I mentioned above is in Jack and the Beanstalk: Jack gives away the cow in exchange for magic beans, and his parents scold him over his stupidity, so he climbs up a beanstalk and defeats the giant, whose height and strength makes him a father figure.

Thus Jack is able to get revenge on his father, and (according to Bettelheim) the story shows the child that even though they are small, they needn’t be afraid of their father, and allows the child the pleasure of watching the father be defeated. I’m not sure how closely this relates to Peter Pan.

4

I believe it’s traditional for the same actor to play both roles, since the first production. The same thing was done in the Broadway musical. IIRC, the part of Mr. Darling is a small one, so it is also more economical that way.

5

Hook and the father are usually played by the same actor. There’s an old Peter Pan play from the 50’s or 60’s that I’ve seen on tv and they did it that way too…plus in elementary school I remember doing Peter Pan as our 1st grade play and we also had the father be played by the same boy as Capt. Hook.

The father is viewed as being kind of mean and heartless by the kids because he banishes Wendy from the nursery. So since he is sort of pro-growing up, he could be viewed as an enemy of what Peter Pan stands for, which is why I believe they correlate the two. And like refusal said, it kind of empowers kids over their parents without pitting the child against the parent directly.

6

refusal may have it right as regards fairy tale parents – I think the connection between parents and ogres and giants is pretty much common wisdom. At any rate, I’ll give him the argument as I don’t want to bother researching it – frankly, Bruno Bettleheim, although he is supposed to be the authority, gives me the willies.

That said, I think in this case the more important tradition is the one h.sapiens sites – that in productions of Peter Pan, the same actor always plays both Mr. Darling and Captain Hook. Probably this originated because it was cheaper to have one actor play both roles, Mr. Darling being a very small role and Captain Hook being so showily costumed that the audience won’t even notice (unless they read the program) the duel casting. Then, over time, it became traditional – even in the Disney cartoon, when the two characters were drawn to look nothing alike, the voices were done by the same actor (IIRC).

Looking at the link I notice that this should be a very good-looking film. Seems to have gone back to earlier editions of the book. It looked a lot more Arthur-Rackham-ey than Maud-Adams-ish, if you follow me. And, whatever they did with Mr. Darling and Captain Hook, they abandoned the other old theater-Peter-Pan tradition of having a woman portray Peter.

7

It also traditional for the same actor to play Nana the dog, and the crocodile. Makes sense when you think about it – only need to hire one person who doesn’t mind stuffy costumes.

It sounds like an urban legend to me, but I have heard that for the first few weeks after the play first opened, it said you only needed to believe enough to fly. After a few kids launched themselves off of the tops of bureaus, that part was altered a bit: All you need is to believe hard enough, and a pinch of fairy dust.

DD

8

Interestingly, for comparison, watch Jumanji, where the same actor (the excellent Jonathan Hyde) plays both Robin William’s father and the merciless hunter Van Pelt. It’s definitely a Freudian thing there, as the boy clearly has issues with his father before he gets sucked into the game.

What this has to do with Peter Pan, I don’t know, but I sure thought it was a nice parallel, there. :smiley:

9

I should say up front that I personally find Peter Pan to be an odd work on a number of fronts. Mr. Darling is almost completely ineffectual, he’s generally seen as clueless and inept, and Mrs. Darling is his caretaker almost as if he’s another child. At the same time, he is very fond of announcing that he is the man of the house, that he makes decisions, and calls the shots. This results in either Mrs. Darling making decisions and pretending that they are actually Mr. Darling’s ideas, or in terrible results when Mr. Darling does insist on having his own way.

I think there is a relationship to Captain Hook (aside from the practical matter of casting one actor to play both) in that Mr. Darling sees himself as the master of his domain, the ultimate authority even though he is obviously (even to the child reader/viewer) a bumbling idiot. The joke, or the creepy thing if you are like me and find Peter Pan to be a little sinister, is that Captain Hook can be seen as Mr. Darling’s fantasy version of himself … ruthless, feared, all-powerful.

I’m sure there’s some armchair Freud in here somewhere – the children scoff at their father for being cowardly (I’m thinking particularly of the scene where he won’t take the medicine) and this leads to their frustration that someone who is so obviously wimpy and unfair can still exercise control over their lives. Going back to what refusal posted about children’s desires to “defeat” the parent in some way, the kids can take out these frustrations by battling Captain Hook.

10

Odd aside: Lord Baden-Powell, British war hero (Mafeking) and founder of the Boy Scouts and such a fanatic for the Peter Pan story that he named his only son Peter and called one of his daughters Wendy (not her real name), mentioned that he saw Hook as something of a father figure. (His own father, who was approaching 70 when Baden-Powell was born, died when he was a child; in an odd repetition BP himself didn’t become a father until he was in his late 50s/early 60s*).

*He married late and refused to share a room with his wife, sleeping instead on her balcony (even in snowy weather), though they did have three children so apparently he sometimes came in from the cold.

11

delphica what does that say about Mr. Smee? He clearly fills the same role as Mrs. Darling in how he takes care of Captain Hook.

12

Peter Pan, the lost boys, and the Darling family were all based on a family that Barrie had a kind of weird relationship with, the Llewellyn Davies. Barrie was intensely in love in a platonic way (platonic was all he did) with the very beautiful mother, Sylvia, and with the children, and therefore his relationship with the father (who was brilliant, intelligent, strong-minded, and I forget his name) was somewhat awkward. They were outwardly friendly, but the father didn’t like the way Barrie wormed his way into the family, and Barrie was jealous of the marriage. I’ve always thought that by making Mr. Darling such an ineffectual, silly, babyish man, and an outsider in his own family, Barrie was getting back at Mr. Llewellyn Davies. Hook, even though he’s a deadly pirate, is ineffectual and clueless in much the same way. (Later, both parents died, and Barrie became the boys’ guardian.)

The story about the fairy dust being added so children wouldn’t hurt themselves is true. It’s also true that Peter’s line “To die will be an awfully big adventure” was cut during World War I, because it suddenly seemed like a terrible thing to say.

There’s a wonderful book, J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys that covers Barrie’s relationship with the Llewellyn Davies in great deal and is very enlightening about the Hook/Mr. Darling relationship.

13

In Disney’s animated version, Hans Konreid does the voices for both Hook & Mr. Darling, as well.

14

Great thread so far. I’m really enjoying that.

I always thought that Mr. Darling was a pretty bad father. Ineffectual, definitely, although maybe not outright cruel. In the Disney version, he seems more like a normal father, who is put in the unpleasant task of disciplining the children (the mother just seems too…nice to ever raise her voice), but who does regret having to do so.

But in the book, that scene where Mr. Darling won’t take the medicine and Michael does makes him seem at best a hypocrite, and at worst a plain coward–probably the most horrible thing for one’s parent to be. Mr. Darling just looks all the more like an idiot, especially when a small child like Michael will go through with the agreement of taking his medicine.

When I first found out that Mr. Darling and Captain Hook were often played by the same actor, I did have a few Freudian fantasies. But it does make sense…casting the father in the role of villain, they’ve essentially gotten rid of anything masculine in NeverLand. The male adults are cruel, cast off into the safe role of an enemy who can be slaughtered, whereas in real life, they have to be dealt with. And Wendy takes on the mother role, and is idealized. I’m not sure what that makes the Indians–perhaps they symbolize the disorder and chaos that children crave? Seen this way, the book looks like, not only an embracing of childhood, but more of a rejection of all things traditionally masculine.

One thing I also noted when reading the book, how adult and how childlike it is at the same time. At the end, Barrie says something about the children being “heartless,” because, after all, their parents have no idea where they’ve gone. In the movie, however, they come back, and the parents don’t even know anything has happened. And Peter Pan himself, the ultimate child, is incredibly selfish. He drops a sleeping Michael in the air when they’re on their way to NeverLand, and only retrieves him when Wendy begs him to do so. So…perhaps the moral, childhood is fun, but children aren’t so innocent. A look at their fantasy life tells you that in an instant.

15

Thanks for the information and discussion, guys! I’m going to add Barrie’s novel and J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys to my library now.

16

It does fit the topic, actually, since Robin Williams played the grown up Peter pan in the movie Hook. : )