Second Star to the Right Quotes

“Combine all of these frustrated expectations with the fact that Captain Hook is Mr. Darling, and you might well consider clawing your way out of this plot. To say that James Barrie acutely depicted the suffocating, limited opportunities for expression available to bourgeois men of his period is like saying that Peter Pan can fly. Mr. Darling demonstrates the multitude of ways in which sending men to offices where they judge their success through the respect and fear they engender in underlings and are rewarded for speaking languages that their wives and children cannot understand is a remarkably bad idea. Is it any surprise that this man who cannot fix his tie and tricks his younger son into taking medicine winds up living in a doghouse? Absolutely not. But how different is Mr. Darling from Hook? Both men steal for a living, one through the august institution of a bank and the other more honestly as a pirate. Both men are disturbed by the wanton lighthearted disregard that children show for their accomplishments. Both men are terrified by what other people think of them and change their behavior accordingly. Both men want children to love them. Both men are locked in a struggle to the death with time and responsibility. Suddenly, the banker and the pirate, though clad very differently, seem to have a lot in common, and those similarities serve as a commentary on the stringent boundaries placed on men by the cultural expectations of the early twentieth century.”
― Allison B. Kavey, Second Star to the Right: Peter Pan in the Popular Imagination

“imagine endlessly waiting for your foe to return from hearing bedtime stories so that you can resume your life of piracy and plans for revenge.”
― Allison B. Kavey, Second Star to the Right: Peter Pan in the Popular Imagination