Peter Pan: Sociopath

I love Peter Pan. The idea of flying on pixie dust to a carefree land of never ending fun is enticing at any age. We all wish, at some point in our lives, that we could return to that simpler time when we were children. Those of us who had happy, contended childhoods, anyway.

Have you ever actually read the book by JM Barrie? Or have you just seen the Disney cartoon, the musical, or the more recent live action film? Peter Pan, like most fairy tales, has been pruned, preened, altered and simplified as it was taken to stage and screen. The dark tones and adult themes are glossed over. Hints of them remain, lurking in the background, but the original essence of the tale is lost.

Peter Pan is a creepy book. The main character is carefree, true, but that’s not a good thing. He doesn’t care who lives and who dies, and death is as real in Neverland as it is anywhere else. He forgets entirely about Wendy and her brothers. Peter exists only in the moment; nothing else is real. He has no heart, and no real ability to love.

I found a modern version of Peter Pan at the library which drew out and amplified the dark tones of the original tale. In The Child Thief, the author Brom shows us the creepiness in Barrie’s work, the lack of compassion in Peter, the gruesome reality of being a child in a grown-up’s world. Brom sees, Peter Pan as the equivalent of a modern gang leader, a sociopath who mesmerizes followers and discards the loyal as soon as they become useless. It’s a creepy book, and I don’t actually recommend you read it, but the concept gave me pause.

It makes me wonder why more people can’t see the creepy side of Peter Pan, and all of the other fairy tales for that matter. How did our culture manage to erase everything unpleasant in our folklore, to modify it to a G rating? It scares me to think how much we gloss over the unpleasant, candy-coating reality so that we can no longer see the darkness lurking under the surface.

Where in our lives have we done the same thing? If it happens so easily on stage and screen, it is just as easy to do in our own minds, our own selves. If we don't acknowledge the darkness, it we remain entirely unaware of it, someday it may overwhelm us without our ever knowing.


Why are we so blind to what’s wrong with the world, so unwilling to see things the way they are? One day, we’ll have to square up and face facts. Neverland won’t actually exist forever. The lost boys all leave the same way the pirates do; dead.