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Existentialism aside, it's impossible for a modern viewpoint to make sense of "Peter and Wendy" without knowing that at the turn of the 19th/20th century in the
by cstross 5y ago
Existentialism aside, it's impossible for a modern viewpoint to make sense of "Peter and Wendy" without knowing that at the turn of the 19th/20th century in the UK, infant mortality before age 5 was around 20%, and this was down considerably from infant mortality in previous centuries, as the germ theory of disease and safety consciousness made in-roads against a number of scourges, from whooping cough and mumps (there's a reason we have childhood vaccines!) to formaldehyde-contaminated butter and arsenical clothing dyes.
Hence the need for a childrens tale to explain to the little ones why their infant brothers or sisters weren't coming home from the hospital: it was something most families grappled with, and "they've gone off with Peter Pan to have adventures beyond the rainbow" is easier on a toddler than confronting them with the enormity of death.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> infant mortality before age 5 was around 20%, and this was down considerably from infant mortality in previous centuries > Hence the need for a childrens tale to explain to the little ones why their infant brothers or sisters weren't coming home from the hospital This makes no sense; if the problem was worse before, why would you suddenly need a new story for it? If the need was real, the relevant stories would have originated long before the 20th century. The approaches that worked for the past 100,000 years also worked in 1904 and still work now. (Also, the book is explicit that the children of Neverland found their way there by falling out of their perambulators (strollers); they did not fail to come home from a hospital.)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- fennecfoxen 5y agothis is because it is not a cause and effect thing like you’re trying to read it as here; the author simply wrote the book when those were contemporary circumstances, even if they had been worse before meanwhile the book’s words about what happened to those children are a fiction hinting at the truth of the loss of a child and are more symbolic than literal documentary words
- smorgusofborg 5y agoThe fertility rate in the UK cut in half from 1880 to 1920. During this time the general approach to children rearing began to correspond to a much higher level of parental investment in individual children.
- thaumasiotes 5y agoSo what? How is that connected to what you tell your surviving children when one of their siblings dies?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 8bitsrule 5y agoIt might be asserted that science-fiction plays much the same role as the Pan story - for adults as well. It imagines impossible things (beyond the reach of current science models at least) to deliver potential wonders that might be encountered. I appreciated the Campbell quote in the article ... "I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive ... so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive." Campbell embraced Star Wars for this reason. Life is a rare and brief thing - and to an extent, It (if not the universe) needs an audience to appreciate It. Woes and the rat-race and buying meaning from vending-machines are a cheezy substitute for 'Drinking life to the lees' as Omar so sagely puts it. More wing-suits please.