Sexuality, the Hard Fact of Peter Pan

Sexuality, the Hard Fact of Peter Pan

  The ideal of childish innocence established in the eighteenth century brought with it a new demand that decency and modesty should be instilled in children through strict discipline and by the provision of suitable pedagogic literature for children. The innocence of childhood had to be safeguarded against any pollution by adult experience, especially by adult sexuality. As revealed in the Grimms" collection, which is far more tolerant of violence than of direct reference to sexual relations, direct references to sexuality had to be eliminated from children"s literature, and yet children"s literature was nevertheless required to prepare children for their adult roles. Literature addressed to girls met this requirement by inviting its reader to aspire towards maternity rather than towards femininity. J. M. Barrie"s Peter Pan is discussed as an example of a text that inducts its female readers into the sexual politics of the Victorian age.