An Analysis Of Characters In Peter Pan From The Perspective Of Mythical Archetypes

James Matthew Barrie was a Scottish novelist and playwright.He made consecutive successes during 1901 and 1902.His most renowned work,Peter Pan,was first performed on the stage in 1904 and was developed into the novel Peter and Wendy in 1911.In the story,Barrie showed his great insight and observation and portrayed two worlds in Peter Pan.One was the modern civilized world and the other was the nature oriented world which existed in the children's mind.Through the comparison of the two worlds,some profound insights were developed.So far,the story has attracted researchers to study it from natural science,psychology,translation,linguistics and literature.Based on ancient myths,the thesis intends to analyze the characters in Peter Pan from multiple angles using theories of archetypal criticism.In 1950 s and 1960 s,the school of archetypal criticism represented by Northrop Frye formed its theoretical system.In Frye's opinion,literature came from myths.In primitive ages,people began to think and explore nature,and created a series of myths.Myths were much similar to the children's literature today.Both of them contained a lot of imagination and abundant natural elements.The popularity of Peter Pan has much to do with its implicit mythological archetypes.This thesis will analyze characters from three aspects,including images,motifs and modes.The thesis consists of three parts: introduction,main body and conclusion.First is the introduction part.This part begins with a brief introduction to Barrie's life and the origin and influence of Peter Pan.Secondly,it summarizes the researches both at home and abroad.Finally,through the understanding of relevant researches,the significance of this study is put forward.Chapter One of the main body is the theoretical bases.There is an introduction about the evolution of the theory,from the origin of Plato,the proceed of Carl Jung,to the establishment of archetypal criticism by Northrop Frye.Then,it is the theoretical explanation for characters,motifs,modes.Chapter Two of the main body begins to have a character analysis in the context of archetypal images.According to Frye,symbol is the unit of any literary structure thatcan be isolated and the unit can communicate among different literary works.People also call this recurring symbol as an archetype.The unit can be a word,an image,or a character.In this chapter,we will choose three main characters in the story.They are Peter,Wendy and Tinker Bell.Since this refers to their relatively complicated personalities or the unique appearance,each of them will correspond to several archetypal characters in the myths.Chapter Three of the main body comes to characters in the context of archetypal motifs.The Motif is an inheritable factor in cultural tradition and it is the smallest narrative and meaning unit.To some extent,it is much like a classical plot which has recurred in a series of stories.First,Neverland is regarded as the garden of Eden.One is the paradise for Adam and Eve and the other is the paradise of the abandoned children.Then,the children have to be realistic and grow up.They leave Neverland and come back to the real world.Just like the motif,paradise lost,Adam and Eve finally lose their comfortable garden and make a living on their own.The last motif is maternal love which is often presented in a children's literature.Due to the similarities between children and our ancestors,our mothers' love is the same with Gaea's love to all human beings.Chapter Four of the main body discusses characters in the context of archetypal modes.According to Frye,all fiction can be divided into five modes.They are myths,romance,high mimetic,low mimetic and irony.First is the myth which refers to the stories about gods.Second is romance.The protagonists in romance own the super power like gods,but they also have the humanity side.Third is high mimetic.Though the leading characters in high mimetic have an extraordinary spirit like courage or endurance,they still can not overcome nature.Fourth,low mimetic just portrays the life as our human beings.The last mode is irony.Those characters of this category live in the lower strata of the society or their intelligence is lower than the average level.Then,there is a concrete analysis towards the two modes in the story and the significance behind these two modes.The final part is conclusion,it summarizes the whole thesis briefly and points out that myths have influenced literature all the time along the history.No matter in writing techniques,basic knowledge of literature and meaning,myths have a strong influenceon literary works from generation to generation.At the same time,myths also convey to us the most fundamental ideas of revering nature and cherishing our homeland.