Snakes and Snails and Games of Murder Larissa Carscadden 12th Grade

“Grown up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do. It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.”(Fitzgerald) In Peter and Wendy, the child characters do not portray romanticized, heroic behaviors, but instead the realistic traits found in everyday children. Thus, the absence of moral thinking due to parental absences causes the children to challenge the nature of good and evil throughout the novel. By bringing to light the fundamental aspects of Peter Pan’s personality, ambitions and behavior, and by analyzing the savage mentality of the Lost Boys, it becomes clear that much like the fantastical island of Neverland, the surface is much prettier than what lies underneath.

The first and foremost culprit of such duplicity is Peter Pan. From beginning to end and beyond, Pan is known as the boy who won’t grow up. As such, he exhibits anti-heroic, more childish behavioral traits. Time and time again, he stoops to narcissism, arrogance, and the irresponsible pursuit for pleasure. This is seen when the Darling children are following Peter through the skies of Kensington Gardens for the first time.Eventually Peter would dive through the air, and catch Michael just before he could strike the sea, and it was lovely...