Fairies, Mermaids, Mothers, and Princesses: Sexual Difference and Gender Roles in Peter Pan

Abstract

Luce Irigaray postulates a homosocial cultural order in her article “When the Goods Get Together” (1981), a cultural order of men that is threatened by the possibility of female unity or females “getting together” and disrupting the play among men. This article applies Irigaray's analysis of the homosocial order to the story of Peter Pan to expose and illuminate the ways a childhood story demonstrates the very cultural order Irigaray argues is at the heart of men's system of trade and economy. Peter Pan not only teaches children this particular male cultural order, and places an implicit fear around notions of female unity, but also as part of a larger cultural product stories like Peter Pan often reflect the reality they claim is pretend. Applying psychoanalytic critique to a cultural product, standards of gender normativity that are replicated through children's stories are laid bare.

Notes

¹Western culture is a somewhat ambiguous and ill-defined construct that I am using to discuss mainly North American implicitly accepted cultural practices. I do recognize that culture is whatever I want to define it as and therefore readily admit that it is not the best term, but I am at a loss for another one that is as wide-reaching as I would like it to be.

²The character of Peter Pan appears in Barrie's 1902 novel The Little White Bird, an adult novel that was adapted for the stage as Peter Pan in 1904. In 1911 Barrie wrote Peter and Wendy. See Chaney (2006) for in-depth biography of Barrie.

³Foucault's work spans from the 1950s to the 1980s. However, “modern” society is a relative term that not only has changed dramatically from the beginning of Foucault's career to the end but also varies in its meaning across the globe. Foucault's elaboration of what the modern period refers to is discussed later in the article.

⁴I have not read any of Luce Irigaray's work where she specifies the roles as I have here; this is my reading of Irigaray's critique with specific reference to roles of women and related here to the female characters of Peter Pan.

⁵An important point made by an anonymous reviewer is that although Irigaray states homosexuality and heterosexuality, she is referring to a social arrangement between and for men and not sexual orientation. I emphasize the homosocial aspect so as not to perpetuate the idea that Irigaray's critique is centered on sexual orientation but rather centers on relations between men and the subsequent cultural ordering that stems from these relationships.

⁶See Whitford (1991); Burke et al. (1994); and Tzelepis, Spivak, and Athanasiou (2010) for insightful analysis and exploration of Irigaray's work.

⁷Ann Wilson examines the role of anxiety and nostalgia in the play adaptation of Peter Pan (2000); Nell Boulton also analyzes the role of nostalgia, in addition to oedipal themes and Neverland as representative of a period of latency (2006); additionally, numerous sources expose racial themes within the story, whether the literature, the plays, or the film. See also Jacqueline Rose (1984) and Mary Brewer (2007), among many others, for additional levels of analytical possibilities stemming from Peter Pan.

⁸In most plays and movie adaptations of Peter Pan, the roles of Mr. George Darling and Captain Hook are played or voiced by the same actor; the role of Peter has historically been held by female actresses. These particularities are outside the scope of this article, but a Freudian analysis of the oedipal themes in this narrative could be done as well. See Ripley (2006) and Brewer (2007) as examples of other Freudian readings of Peter Pan.

⁹There are multiple ways of applying psychoanalytic theories to an analysis of Peter Pan; beyond the scope of this article is an application of Carl Jung's shadow aspect of the self. Jung (1981) describes the shadow aspect of the self as that which harbors and contains our negative attributes. It is a part of the self that is so monstrous, we cannot ever fully look into it lest we become absorbed by it. In the first scene between Peter Pan and Wendy, Peter has returned to the Darlings' nursery to reclaim his shadow, lost on a previous evening. Wendy awakens and reattaches Peter's shadow by sewing it back to him. This can be seen as extremely symbolic of a negative attribution of women and their roles. Peter would be free of this monstrous aspect of his self, if only Wendy did not reattach his shadow to him, thus binding him back to not only his shadow but also to reality and Wendy herself (see Hallman, 2006).

¹⁰An anonymous reviewer of this article suggested, and I agree, that an interesting read of these female characters would be through the lens of Irigaray's reflections on feminine divinity and suggested Penelope Deutscher's “‘The Only Diabolical Thing about Women’” (1994) for reference. Deutscher discusses the importance of divinity, beginning with Irigaray's statement that the only diabolical thing about women is lack of a god. Although it is beyond the scope of this article, an analysis of female monstrosity in Peter Pan via Irigaray, and including Jung as mentioned earlier, would provide for additional layers of complexity and nuance within the narrative and I appreciate the suggestion in providing more insightful analytical possibilities.

¹¹Thank you to the reviewer who pointed out that another interesting analysis could be done of the story of the Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, who pointed out that the little mermaid loses her voice when she gets her legs and that when the possibility of desire is given to her, she cannot speak her desire or experience.