Peter Pan Imperialism

Although children’s literature is often written to educate children, the most interesting children’s literature is a “complex interweaving of adult and childlike concerns.” (Nodelman and Reimer, 201) these concerns are imbedded into the stories of children to help produce an understanding or acceptance of the widely shared assumptions of their society. These assumptions are what we know, more commonly, as ideologies and they are virtually invisible, and more often then not; they lie at a level of meaning deeper than ‘theme’. According to Nodelman and Reimer in …. Stories such as J.M Barrie’s Peter Pan achieves the main emphasis of children’s literature, “the didactic effort to educate children into sharing an adult view of the world and, also, of what it means to be a child” (Nodelman and Reimer, 200) This essay …show more content…
Although people believe, J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan as merely a children’s story, it also suggests countless notions of what childhood was during the Colonial Edwardian era. These notions are what the society, of Barrie’s time, deemed to be acceptable and ‘normal’ and these ideologies are imbedded throughout Barrie’s story. Peter is characterizes by the idea of a wild child, someone who is outside of the norm, isolated from civilization, and self-sufficient. Peter is someone who is free from the behavioural rules forced by society, going by his own judgment. In addition Barrie’s Peter Pan also expresses how children are quite curious and adventurous. Kids’ actions are motivated by their curiosity and their willingness to go out and explore, and they cherish their adventures, like adults