What is Neverland?

[Kitney]

This question i feel is something that no one will ever know, I don't even think Barrie knew what it was, but isn't that part of the fascinating mystery of Peter Pan.
My idea is that every child has a Neverland in their dreams and that every child designs their neverland to their own specifics. Neverland is a blank canvas before you are born, when you are and you are free to dream, neverland is in your image.

Thats it really

[SingsWithRavens]

That's pretty much what I imagine Neverland is meant to be; a blank canvas that becomes covered in paint as a child dreams.
I also believe it is meant to represent the ideal reality from a child's point of view. Neverland, filled with exciting dangers and overflowing with adventure, is just what a child wishes the real world to be - little order and discipline, adventures (real or imaginary...whichever one chooses), few adults to spoil the fun, but just enough to invoke challenge.
However, in regards to -Peter Pan- as the novel and play, Barrie's personal Neverland seems to be more of an arena. It is a well known theory that Barrie is Peter, but it is also known that Barrie based Hook off of himself (see the Dedication to the Five essay). The way I read and understand the play is that Barrie's story is conveying an internal battle that was occurring within himself in real life. Peter represents eternal youth and joy, a trait Barrie most certainly admired and wished for. Barrie, the way I see it, split his personality in two - into Peter and Hook - and turned Neverland (his ideal reality) into an arena in which the more desired personality (the fun-loving, free youth that is Pan) could overcome the strict, harsh, unwanted character (Hook). Hook is a confused character, chasing always after his youth, running aways from his inevitable mortality and Barrie, in fleshing out his Neverland, created an arena in which he could throw out, as it were, these unwanted traits, and become youthful and free again.

[TheWendybird]

That's pretty much what I imagine Neverland is meant to be; a blank canvas that becomes covered in paint as a child dreams.
I also believe it is meant to represent the ideal reality from a child's point of view. Neverland, filled with exciting dangers and overflowing with adventure, is just what a child wishes the real world to be - little order and discipline, adventures (real or imaginary...whichever one chooses), few adults to spoil the fun, but just enough to invoke challenge.
However, in regards to -Peter Pan- as the novel and play, Barrie's personal Neverland seems to be more of an arena. It is a well known theory that Barrie is Peter, but it is also known that Barrie based Hook off of himself (see the Dedication to the Five essay). The way I read and understand the play is that Barrie's story is conveying an internal battle that was occurring within himself in real life. Peter represents eternal youth and joy, a trait Barrie most certainly admired and wished for. Barrie, the way I see it, split his personality in two - into Peter and Hook - and turned Neverland (his ideal reality) into an arena in which the more desired personality (the fun-loving, free youth that is Pan) could overcome the strict, harsh, unwanted character (Hook). Hook is a confused character, chasing always after his youth, running aways from his inevitable mortality and Barrie, in fleshing out his Neverland, created an arena in which he could throw out, as it were, these unwanted traits, and become youthful and free again.

Loving these thoughts! Very well put!

[Kitney]

Thanks guy's.. It's great to know all of these thoughts as I am doing the original Play with a bit of the book thrown in very soon.
Disecting this piece has been a long and hard process but very enjoyable!

[andrew]

I'd say you were spot on!

[SingsWithRavens]

Dissecting this play and novel is amazing. It opens up soooo many possibilities, it's insane.
I really like when authors are 'in' their books, but in a rather discrete way; it makes for such an interesting read, and the characters seems so much more rich.

[MichelSwan11]

Neverland is fictional world....and I like Sings thought that it is black canvas painted with child dreams. Barrie create it for children...I like Tinker bell and Lost boy also.
It's dreamworld that every child imagine.

[megan23]

I just watched Peter Pan and really love the real movie. It came into my mind if there's really a neverland. Maybe we its a tourist spot now. I hope I can get to neverland, full of happiness and reality. Great posts guys, keep it up.

[Forrest99]

Hello there,

I'd also share my thoughts on Neverland. I think that Barrie explained it quite clearly what is Neverland. It can be found right in the first chapter, and it goes like this:

"I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island, for the Neverland is always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there (...). It would be an easy map if that were all, but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needle-work, murders, hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth yourself, and so on, and either these are part of the island or they are another map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still."

So, based on this description, I think that Neverland is nothing else but the allegory of the minds of the children with all of their fantasies, their dream world, and with the real world's phenomena as well but they are modified by the children's unique and "strange" perception and world view. At least, grown ups consider them to be strange but for the children everything seem to be perfectly logical. :-)

This unique mind and world view will be lost by the time when we are already grown ups. As Barrie wrote: "On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles [simple boat]. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more."

/This is so sad, I think.... :-(/

OH, here's an online version of the text: http://www.literatureproject.com/peter-pan/peter-pan_1.htm

[SingsWithRavens]

Though Barrie explicitly tells us (the readers) what Neverland is, he hints at other, implicit, meanings and definitions.
Barrie himself seems to stand on unstable ground on the topic of the Neverland: "it is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still." There are multiple theories out there (it just goes to prove how persistent adults are at over-thinking things C: ), one of which suggests that Neverland is the afterlife/heaven.
One of my close friends and I actually had a discussion on Neverland and whether or not it is a "shared space" (if it were real) in the minds of all children. We discussed how if we were to both visit Neverland, would the trees be the same? Would the landscape appear differently to each of us? What if I see two mountains and she sees only one? If the Neverland is a dreamscape representing a child's ideal reality, no doubt one child's paradise would differ from another's - contrary to the idea that the Neverland, in being a 'shared space', does not change; there is no variation from child to child.
In short, is Barrie's Neverland a preexisting place that does not change (a "shared space"), or does it appear differently from child to child? These two arguments both appear in the novel, but obviously contradict one another, bringing up the notion that this was Barrie's intent; a child projects his or her reality unto the real world, filling it with the mundane as well as the fantastical. The world, in a sense, does not change, but a child's imagination does, filling his reality with that which suits his concept of paradise. The world becomes the Neverland to a child, and though the landscape of the world does not change (as it is a shared space), the child colors it vibrantly with his mind (making it an ideal reality).

~~On a less scholarly note: I think I managed to type "reality" and "child" about 50 times. Just goes to show you what happens to one's vocabulary at 11:30 PM. C: (goodnight!)

[JAQ]

Barrie seems to be rather definite about Neverland varying from one child to the next, with John's having a lagoon with flamingos flying overhead, and Michael's having a flamingo with lagoons flying overhead.   Which doesn't mean that it cannot be shared; the real world differs from one perspective to another (just ask supporters of different political parties), and yet we obviously share it.

[yohei306]

I agree with the comments so far. I think that was was what Barrie intended. I also think the idea of a Neverland was also suggested by folklore, especially the "Celtic Otherworld."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Otherworld

Peter Pan is a story where fairies play a prominent role.  Children are abducted etc. I guess what really brings this all to mind is Mary Rose. Mary disappears into some other realm which is never really explained. 

[Barriesaxxy]

I always interpreted Neverland as the imagination, making it a sort of a combination shared space and individual space. Everyone has an individual Neverland, but they overlap, and this overlap creates a shared space that evolves depending on who is there.

[SingsWithRavens]

I like that concept! C:

[tcarroll]

I wonder if Neverland can really be a fantasy world of children when such awful things also happend there, like people dying. Death is reality.  To me Neverland is the world I occupied when I was a child at my home, I always knew Mom and Dad would take care of everything, and had not one care in the world.  Everyone I loved was still alive, and in fact in the house with me. Literally my whole world existed in that little house and that yard, and I've never been so happy.  I don't think any of us will ever feel that way again after we are adults until we get to Heaven. May seem simple, but those are my thoughts.