Explore Peter Hollindale's claim that Peter Pan 'retains its magical Essay

Explore Peter Hollindale's claim that Peter Pan 'retains its magical elasticity and its ongoing modernity' (Reader 2, p. 1 - Essay Example This fantasy world is well suited to the need which parents and children have for storytelling and imagination. Another reason for the success of the play when it first came out was the depiction of characters who could fly: a technical feat that added to the entertainment value of the play, and inspired stagecraft like the use of a lightbulb to depict Tinkerbell. Because of the limitations of the stage quite a lot was left to the audience’s imagination. By all accounts J.M. Barrie himself was unsure about the play when it was being written and rehearsed, and he frequently changed the text, including names of characters, and details of the plot. (Carpenter and Prichard, p. 405) Some of the characters were drawn from real people, or indeed animals, in the author’s own life, for example his older brother who died in a skating accident and his pet dog who was the inspiration for Nana. The persona of Peter Pan, however, made Barrie immediately famous and captured the imagin ation of the literary world. Just as Barrie had reworked elements from his own life history the play, so he later reworked elements of the play into a novel, and others created films, cartoons, and even ballets and musicals out of this initial play. Peter Hollindale remarks that the play â€Å"retains its magical elasticity and its on-going modernity (Reader 2, p. 159) and describes how the character of Peter Pan himself contains endless sources of fascination. There are elements of innocence and childishness, like the fairy dust that makes people fly, and a lot of childish boasting but also some deeper psychological undercurrents that suggest more serious messages for an adult audience: â€Å"this is a play about the boundaries between childhood and adulthood.† (Reader 2, p. 161) There is something tragic about a boy fighting against his destiny to grow up and become an adult, a point not lost on Michael Jackson who named his home â€Å"Neverland† after the Peter Pan ’s fantasy world. In the play Peter Pan steadfastly resists any hint of growing older, the human children all gradually give in to their fate, even to the point where Wendy no longer has any need for Peter and his childish world. The story operates on two levels: the childish insistence on unrealistic and impossible things, and the adult realisation that there is no way to stop the passage of time and the loss of innocence. As Hollindale says: â€Å"The play provides a shared arena for children and grown-ups, playfully living forward and living back.† (Reader 2, p. 161.) The children get a taste of what lies ahead for them, while adults can indulge in some nostalgia for their childhood. There is a dark side to the play, and this can be seen in some of the far-fetched explanations that Peter Pan gives regarding the world he inhabits: â€Å"Wendy Where do you live now? Peter With the lost boys. Wendy Who are they? Peter They are the children who fall out of their prams when the nurse is looking the other way. If they are not claimed in seven days they are sent far away to Never Land. I’m captain.† (Peter Pan: 1:1, lines 441-443) This is an indication, perhaps, that death is the ultimate way of resisting adulthood, and that Peter Pan in some respects represents the author’s way of working through the loss of his dead older brother,