The Menace of Innocence and Imagination: J. M. Barrie’s Rethinking of Childhood in Mary Rose
0
조회
0
다운로드
0
인용
0
참고문헌
키워드
초록
This article aims to analyze J. M. Barrie’s Mary Rose and enrich the hitherto insufficient scholarship of this play by focusing on the author’s deployment of childhood tropes within it, whose complex constellation of themes has resulted in its absolute dearth of critical attention. It argues that the play critiques the romanticized ideal of innocent imagination dislocated from the reality of human experiences and chronological time. Central to the thesis is Mary’s tragic entanglement with a Celtic fairyland, reminiscent of Peter Pan’s Neverland, leading to her transformation into a vindictive child ghost, simultaneously menacing and vulnerable. This transformation becomes a potent metaphor for the danger and fragility of the myth of perpetual childhood. However, the article also casts a sympathetic glance at Barrie’s rendition of romantic childhood by illuminating the lingering presence of childhood within the adult psyche, embodied in Harry, Mary’s middle-aged son, whose adult profile remains unrecognized by his returned ghost mother until the end. The anticipated reunion between Mary and Harry occasions a reconciliation between childhood and adulthood, revealing the unsettling fragility of adulthood as well as its secret yearning for the consolation and enchantment of childhood innocence. Ultimately, Mary Rose emerges as a poignant reflection on the complexities of growing up, challenging conventional notions of both maturity and childishness, while calling attention to the imperishable claims of childhood in one’s adult life, braced up against its temptation but constantly in need of its charm.
Abstract
This article aims to analyze J. M. Barrie’s Mary Rose and enrich the hitherto insufficient scholarship of this play by focusing on the author’s deployment of childhood tropes within it, whose complex constellation of themes has resulted in its absolute dearth of critical attention. It argues that the play critiques the romanticized ideal of innocent imagination dislocated from the reality of human experiences and chronological time. Central to the thesis is Mary’s tragic entanglement with a Celtic fairyland, reminiscent of Peter Pan’s Neverland, leading to her transformation into a vindictive child ghost, simultaneously menacing and vulnerable. This transformation becomes a potent metaphor for the danger and fragility of the myth of perpetual childhood. However, the article also casts a sympathetic glance at Barrie’s rendition of romantic childhood by illuminating the lingering presence of childhood within the adult psyche, embodied in Harry, Mary’s middle-aged son, whose adult profile remains unrecognized by his returned ghost mother until the end. The anticipated reunion between Mary and Harry occasions a reconciliation between childhood and adulthood, revealing the unsettling fragility of adulthood as well as its secret yearning for the consolation and enchantment of childhood innocence. Ultimately, Mary Rose emerges as a poignant reflection on the complexities of growing up, challenging conventional notions of both maturity and childishness, while calling attention to the imperishable claims of childhood in one’s adult life, braced up against its temptation but constantly in need of its charm.
참고문헌 (26)
- Agamben, Giorgio, "Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life" (1998), Stanford UP
- Asquith, Cynthia, "Portrait of Barrie" (1954), James Barrie
- Bachelard, Gaston, "The Poetics of Reverie" (1969), Orion
- Barrie, James M, "“Mary Rose,” Peter Pan and Other Plays" (1995), Oxford UP
- Barrie, James M, "The Collected Peter Pan" (2019), Oxford UP
- Berger, Harry, "Second World and Green World" (1988), U of California P
- Birkin, Andrew. J. M, "Barrie and the Lost Child : The Real Story Behind Peter Pan" (2003), Yale UP
- Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, "Lectures 1808-1819 On Literature, Vol. II" (1987), Routledge
- Freud, Sigmund, "The Relation of the Poet to Day-Dreaming" (1949), Hogarth P
- Gross, Kenneth, "Dangerous Children : On Seven Novels and a Story" (2022), U of Chicago P
- Hoeveler, Diane L, "The Routledge Handbook to the Ghost Story" (2017), Routledge
- Kincaid, James, "Child-Loving : The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture" (1992), Routledge
- Meeker, Joseph W, "Subtleties of the Isle : Island and the Imagination", Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 18(1), pp.197~202 (2011)
- Ormond, Leonee, "J. M. Barrie’s Mary Rose", The Yale University Library Gazette, 58(1, pp.2) (1983), 59~63
- Pishota, Hossein Fathi, "Diana Wynne Jone’s The Time of the Ghost : A Call for Childism", The Journal of English Language and Literature, 68(4), pp.871~887 (2022)
- Shakespeare, William, "Hamlet" (2001), Penguin Books
- Shaw, Bernard, "Barrie: The Man with Hell in His Soul", Shaw, 13, pp.151~153 (1993)
- Skinner, John, "James M. Barrie or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up", American Imago, 14(2), pp.111~141 (1957)
- Sky, Jeanette, "Myths of Innocence and Imagination : The Case of the Fairy Tale", Literature and Theology, 16(4), pp.363~376 (2002)
- Snow, Edward, "Inside Bruegel : The Play of Images in"Children’s Games" (1997), North Point
- Stevens, Wallace, "The Necessary Angel : Essays on Reality and the Imagination" (1965), Vintage Books
- Taylor, Charles, "A Secular Age" (2007), Harvard UP
- The Holy Bible, "Authorized King James Version" (2008), Oxford UP
- Tuan, Yi-Fu, "Topophilia : A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes and Values" (1974), Prentice-Hall
- Histoires d’enfant, histoires d’enfance (tome 1—civilization), "Stories for Children, Histories of Childhood", pp.2017, Vallone, Lynne
- Virgil, "Bernard Knox" (2008), Penguin Books