『피터 팬』에 나타난 네버랜드의 공간적 위상 = Meaning of the Space Neverland in Peter Pan

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Since James Barrie`s Peter Pan(1911) appeared, its hero, Peter Pan has been an object of love and desire to the people around the world. For children, Peter is a child never grows up; but rather, remains innocent, with a pure heart and always plays. For adults, he evokes childhood anxiety. However, Peter is an ambivalent character. He has not only a youthful and innocent image, but also a child/ he has adult qualities who seeks for power, despotism and control. Leaving home, he wants to be an eternal child. And he lives in the Neverland as a child, where he is portrayed as a boy/adult. Far from being innocent and peaceful, ironically the place is full of brutality, unmerciful retribution to enemies and despotic rules. After several years Peter returns home. But his mother has already forgotten him. His parents installed iron bars in his nursery so he is not able to return to his mother. Leaving home crying, Peter never returns home and to his mother. And he has an ambivalent emotion to his mother-longing for mothering and rejection of mothering. As a result of that Peter becomes a boy, who cannot recognize women`s emotion and love. Consequently, the figure of Peter Pan is the particular product of Barrie`s disturbed childhood. In the life time Barrie had been longing for the mother`s love. But his mother could not really see Barrie. Her eyes were befogged with the image of dead son David. Barrie`s feeling rejected from mother is represented in Peter Pan. Neverland is the place where the inner world of Barrie`s unsatisfied, repressed childhood is reproduced.