the hidden kiss.....

[CiaranHaggerty]

what are your thoughts on what is the meaning of the hidden kiss?

[andrew]

the special kiss that is reserved for one person only... sounds very schmalzy when spelled out, but I believe in such things.

[shibbydm]

I felt it was an attack on 'mothers' or an example of a mother witholding something as she isnt portrayed very nicely in the book - we all know Barrie had issues with mothers etc

I felt it was slightly odd that Peter looks like her kiss - that she wont give her kiss to her husband or children and that its a 'sweet mocking mouth' etc and that the kiss stopped her saying anything bad about Peter

I could - of course - be very wrong, would love to know what other people think

I have just done Peter Pan at University on Children's Literature and based an essay on the book - so forgive me for knowing each line of it hahah i had to close read it very carefully and was very surprised at the morbid themes surrounding Peter but it was very entertaining and i loved it!

[Peter@heart]

I see it as being the bit of youth, or something in one's deepest being, that we never want to let go. Some people allow themselves to outgrow it, but to Mrs. Darling it was the secret special part of who she was at the core-that part of her that most people either loose or never reveal.

[Hannah High]

Interesting, i like those thoughts. Attack of mums...makes me wonder, as Mrs. Darling is truly Hook in Barrie's pov (though Barrie is Hook too, then again, Sir James kind of wanted to be a mom rather than a dad). All mothers fear him, because he draws children away, and yet I somehow can't explain why Barrie makes perfect sense to me about Mrs. Darling/the kiss/Peter...maybe a mother would understand the ghost child...

i'd agree more with Andrew, and I too believe in such things. Others here must have experienced that. When I was kid, first reading this book, I didn't quite understand it either, and thought a number of things...until my late teens when I believed that my own kiss belonged to one certain person as well. It still does in my childhood...where Barrie and Peter know, and a lot of me will always dwell even if my body no longer does. What the hidden kiss is for an adult (Mrs. Darling), and who it belongs to, I can't give a good response as others do to this topic, as I've yet to find out what that's like...ah, I can already hear Napoleon slamming the door!

[Hannah High]

Well, Peter could be that childhood love that no one else can take even after you grow up (after all, Mrs. Darling was a child once, and she knew Peter Pan, and thus the same will happen to Wendy, and then to Jane...etc)

Or if you want to go outside of the pages and into Barrie's life...sometimes I remember that Peter was once Wendy's brother in early versions of the stories...maybe the kiss is for Mrs. Darling's dead child...

ala Margaret and David
or Barrie and Timothy

[TheWendybird]

I'm not sure about Mrs. Darling...but this Wendy has one kiss and it's only for Peter (my boyfriend lol..no his names not really Peter it's just our nicknames).  I think everyone just loved Peter lol I mean seriously...what is it in the book about him flying back to the Darlings on their trip to Neverland with mermaid scales stuck to him? What were those mermaids up to hahaha

[piaeps]

The hidden kiss is something she couldn't give her own family and yet she gave it to Peter. I think it symbolizes how attractive youth is to us, and since Peter was the only truly young one, he got the kiss.

[andrew]

By far the most perceptive and moving review I ever read for Peter Pan appeared, ironically, in the French newspaper Le Figaro, following the Paris production of Peter Pan in 1909 (which was performed in English!). Who ever wrote it surely sensed the hidden kiss...

"That little girl [Wendy] who wanted to live normally, and who nevertheless tried to break through her own limitations – that little girl is our soul. All of us, at one time or another, have seen a dazzling sprite come in at a window that opens to the sky. Were there any among us who did not cry, when we saw him: "I know who you are: you are my happiness!"

If we look deep down in our memories, we will find Peter Pan: he is our fine hopes as we start forth, our certainty that we shall triumph, our complete confidence in ourselves, which for a moment lifted us on high, only to throw us to the ground later on. It was that prodigious hour when destiny hovered above an immense joy, before crushing it. We placed all that we love in life in Peter's hands. He didn’t understand, and went back to fairyland. Peter Pan is what cannot be. He stands for our earliest memories and dreams that do not grow old along with our selves."

(Le Figaro, June 19th, 1909)

[Hannah High]

God, wish I could respond to that article, but thankfully, i find myself only breathing...it really speaks of this world, and I think such understanding would have touched many chords in Barrie's heart as well as the Davis family. Thank you so much for sharing that, Andrew.