Peter Pan Symbol Analysis

J. M. Barrie’s novel Peter Pan is a constant through line throughout the novel, and it represents the idea that the novel’s characters are innocent children just playing at war. Early on in her account, Julie likens herself to Peter Pan himself and her captor, von Linden, to Captain Hook. She suggests that like Peter, she’s (possibly foolishly) trusting von Linden to keep his word and allow her to write her account. This gives the sense that Julie is, like a child, trusting the people around her to play fairly—but in the adult world, and the war she’s caught up in, there’s no telling whether Julie can actually trust people.

Later in Julie’s account, as she describes the days and hours before she, Maddie, Jamie, and the other pilots left England for France, she notes that the pilots’ code names all come from Peter Pan. There’s a pilot named Michael, Jamie flies with the code name John, and Maddie, the only female pilot, becomes Wendy. This creates the impression that the pilots and Julie are children heading for Neverland—but the Neverland they’re heading for, Nazi-occupied France, is far darker and more dangerous than the Neverland of Peter Pan. The group’s radio code, which gives them the all-clear to head out, also foreshadows Julie’s eventual death in France. The code message is the first line of Peter Pan—“All children, except one, grow up”—and Julie becomes the only one of the group who doesn’t get to grow up, as she dies before she gets the chance.

However, the Peter Pan symbolism isn’t all dark; at various points, it suggests that its young protagonists will always have a place to return to when they come home from Neverland. Jamie refers to his and Julie’s mother on several occasions as Mrs. Darling (the mother in Peter Pan) because she leaves her children’s windows open at night just in case her children “fly home.” And the novel ends with a letter from Julie’s mother to Maddie, in which Julie’s mother likens herself to Mrs. Darling and invites Maddie to “fly home” any time. For those children who do grow up, this suggests, they’ll have the love and support they need to recover from the trauma of their trips to France.