Sacred Kisses and Profane Thimbles: Dual Female Identity in J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan

Abstract

Victorians Journal 9 Sacred Kisses and Profane Thimbles: Dual Female Identity in J. M. Barrie’s peter Pan by Theresa J. Fitzpatrick One of the few discernible pronouncements from the character Tinker Bell in J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan is the phrase “You silly ass.” She repeatedly directs it at Peter as he fails to notice her romantic feelings for him, apparently oblivious to the threat Wendy poses to her position in his life. When first introduced to Wendy, the differences between her and the smiling, blond, curvy-cute fairy of Walt Disney fame are apparent: “It was a girl called Tinker Bell, exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could be seen to the best advantage. She was slightly inclined to embonpoint” (35). Her seductive, voluptuous physical appearance is paired later with a sassy attitude and a tendency to use less-than-ladylike language: “Tink,” said Peter amiably, “this lady says she wishes you were her fairy.” Tinker Bell answered insolently. “What does she say, Peter?” He had to translate. “She is not very polite. She says you are a great ugly girl, and that she is my fairy.” Already in this early scene, the proper Wendy and the vulgar Tink are held in contrast, yet both harbor romantic, complicated, and impossible feelings for Peter. In fact, every main character in the novel is, in some way, in love with Peter, the eternal child. However, the female characters specifically reveal a troublesome and contradictory view of womanhood as they attempt to reconcile these feelings within the gendered restrictions of the time period, a view not wholly relegated to the era in which the story takes place. When analyzed from the perspective of angel-in-the-house and Madonna-Harlot ideology, the queens of the story, Wendy and Mrs. Darling, fare much better than those who defy these characteristics, 10 Victorians Journal such as Tinker Bell and Tiger Lily. What sets them apart is a symbolic kiss, maturely displayed by the grown Mrs. Darling and still awkwardly developing in the young Wendy. Wendy’s place as wife and mother is central to the story as it crosses the boundary between England and Neverland. But the relationship also permeates generations, entirely independent of whoever the “girl” figure is to be; after Wendy, her daughter Jane and her granddaughter Margaret also fly off to Neverland for “spring cleaning,” with Peter none the wiser. The specific girl is entirely irrelevant as long as she is a child and female. The common modeling of maternal behaviors is what Peter craves, while Wendy also has to deal with the conflicting urge to both nurture him and kiss him. Wendy’s adept repair of Peter’s shadow when he ineffectually tries to stick it on with soap perfectly mirrors the scene in which Mrs. Darling ties Mr. Darling’s tie—both quietly fulfill a need, and both are quickly forgotten afterward. Emulating her mother’s attitude toward her father, Wendy takes pride in this role, even in the thanklessness of it. However, when Peter first wins her over by saying, “one girl is more use than twenty boys” (40), she offers to give him a kiss, prompting the naive Peter to hold out his hand. Though she would prefer to give him a real kiss, she hands him a thimble, and Peter playfully, thoughtlessly accepts. The thimble Peter and Wendy pass between them is symbolic in multiple ways: Wendy means it as a romantic gesture, while to Peter it is a childish gift. This, M. Joy Morse suggests, places her in a position of power imitating the “sexual influence of wife over husband”; besides Peter’s acceptance, the shape of the thimble itself, “once an open-ended sheath, not only evokes the shape of a wedding ring, but also serves as a vaginal image, recalling female sexual power” (297-98). For a pre-Oedipal boy who ceased to grow up on the “day he was bom,” Wendy’s sexual power places her in a position of maternal authority over him. She does, eventually, give him a real kiss but must give it a new name—“thimble”—as Peter...