The mermaids spend their days playing in the rock pools and ocean around Marooners’ Rock and they retire to their coral cave homes beneath the waves at night and during high tide. The are extraordinarily beautiful and have amazing singing voices, but they are vain and unfriendly. They enjoy the company of Peter Pan but are malevolent to everyone else. In the original Peter Pan story, the mermaids who inhabit Neverland all live in the lagoon. The article speculates that the ‘friend’ was in fact, young Jamie and that he was rejected by his mother as a result of the accident. David was said to have died the day before his birthday when he was accidently knocked over by a friend while skating, and fractured his skull on the ice. Barrie’s own childhood experience of losing his brother, David.Īccording to an article in The Herald, six-year old Jamie Barrie was hugely impacted by the death of his older brother, David, at the age of fourteen. This characteristic is believed to come from J.M. While the film presents the view that Peter Pan is seeking eternal youth, he is, in fact, obsessed with death. To put it bluntly, Peter Pan kills the lost boys to keep them from aging.

We know from the Disney film that Peter Pan doesn’t want to grow up, but no mention is made of the extreme lengths Peter Pan is prepared to go to fight it.Ĭonsider this extract: “ The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two.“ Barrie in 1904, but it is a far cry from the innocent tale presented by Walt Disney. I am not sure how many people have read the original play called Peter Pan or the boy who wouldn’t grow up, written by J.M.

The original book of peter pan