Understanding Peter Pan’s characters through their Relationship with Animals Claudia Excaret Santos Campusano College

In Peter Pan, the play by James M. Barrie, the human characters in the city of London consider animals as soulless and inferior. However, in the Never Land, the relation towards animals shifts constantly and it becomes more complex: characters vary between considering themselves superior to animals, wanting the other to be animal, imitating animal behavior, feeling threatened by them, and aspiring to be like them. Grownup characters in London present a fixed position towards animals while characters in the Never Land construct particular ones depending of their age. Animals in Peter Pan, as part of the nature that surrounds humans, show human’s true nature.

The Darling family lives in London and has a dog as a nurse, Nana. The adults in the text consider her inferior, and Nana is not the children’s nurse because they wanted her to be but because “the Darlings could not afford to have a [human] nurse” (Barrie 10). Thus, even if “Nana has been trained by Mrs. Darling … [and] she was born to it” (Barrie 10), Mr. Darling states that she belongs in the yard, the less human-habited space of the house: “the proper place for [her] is the yard” (Barrie 17). Therefore, all of the Darling’s problems and adventures derive from the idea...