Symbols in Peter Pan

Wendy dreams of seeing a mermaid, and Peter uses this to try to lure her to Neverland. In the story, Neverland symbolizes children’s ideal reality, a place where dreams become reality.

Fairies are symbolic of children’s imaginations, so when a child proclaims that they no longer believe in fairies and a fairy dies, their sense of wonder and imagination have also gone. Peter never wants to lose his imagination and never will because he is constantly interacting with fairies.

Tinker Bell is a small fairy, often described as a ball of light, who always follows Peter. Fairies are born when babies are born, and they die any time a child claims that fairies do not exist. In this way, fairies are symbols of children’s imaginations.

These directions to Neverland don’t really have any literal significance, meaning there is no way to actually follow this to any location. Since Neverland is a place where children do not grow old and never gain any responsibility, these impossible directions symbolize how growing old is out of people’s control.

Peter emphasizes the theme of the importance of motherhood by protecting the nesting mother bird. Mothers are symbols of strength and comfort in the story, something all children, even Peter and the Lost Boys crave.

Again the mother bird protecting her eggs builds on the theme of motherhood in the story. This symbol also parallels Wendy’s choice to brace herself for the pirates as she let the children sleep. Sleep is important for children (in the story) because it is the time when their imaginations can birth a sort of wondrous reality.

This metaphor shows how Hook wants the children to lose their imaginations before they die. Recall earlier when Peter teaches the Darling children to fly, telling them to fly they just need to believe. Keeping them in chains and preventing them from flying is symbolic of ruining their ability to believe.

Peter does not stab Hook for two reasons. First, the image of Peter stabbing Hook would not have been appropriate for children. Second (and more importantly), this symbolizes that Hook’s time is up and once again Peter has been able to evade the ticking of time.

Peter symbolizes eternal youth, so his ability to forget Wendy parallels her ability to forget her adventurous, young self. In Neverland, dreams become reality, but back home dreams vanish and reality takes hold. Once Wendy became fully immersed into the real world where she was to grow up, her imagination and memories of Peter fade.