Neverland - Nature of Neverland

Nature of Neverland

The novel explains that the Neverlands are found in the minds of children, and that although each is "always more or less an island", and they have a family resemblance, they are not the same from one child to the next. For example, John Darling's had "a lagoon with flamingos flying over it" while his little brother Michael's had "a flamingo with lagoons flying over it". The novel further explains that the Neverlands are compact enough that adventures are never far between. It says that a map of a child's mind would resemble a map of Neverland, with no boundaries at all.

The exact situation of Neverland is ambiguous. In Barrie's original tale, the name for the real world is the "Mainland", which suggests Neverland is a small physical island offshore of Britain, and its tropical depiction suggests far offshore. It is reached by flight, and Peter gives its location as being "second to the right, and straight on till morning". In the novel, it is stated that Peter made up these directions to impress Wendy and that they found the island only because it was "out looking for them". Barrie also writes that it is near the "stars of the milky way" and it is reached "always at the time of sunrise", so it could be in the sky or in space. Walt Disney's 1953 version Peter Pan presents this possibility, adding "star" to Peter's directions: "second star to the right, and straight on till morning" and from afar, these stars depict Neverland in the distance. The 2003 film version echoes this representation, as the Darling children are flown through the solar system to reach Neverland.

In Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens a proto-version of Neverland called the Bird's island is reached by flight, paper boat, or a thrush's nest, and it is connected to the Kensington Gardens by the Serpentine river. Therefore, Neverland could be a physical island, or a heavenly world above the earth or in outer space, and the "Mainland" could represent either Britain, or it could represent reality and the real world, or possibly both. In Peter Pan in Scarlet (not by Barrie), the children get to the Neverland world by flying on a road called the High Way, and the island is located in a sea known as the Sea of One Thousand Islands.

The passage of time in Neverland is also ambiguous. The novel Peter Pan mentions that there are many more suns and moons there than in our world, making time difficult to track, and that the way to find the time is to find the crocodile, as there is a clock inside it. Although widely thought of as a place where children don't grow up, Barrie wrote that the Lost Boys eventually grew up and have to leave, and fairies there lived typically short lifespans. According to Peter Pan in Scarlet, time froze to the children as soon as they got into Neverland.