The theme of fear fascinated a lot of authors
in the past, in the present and it will fascinate so many in the future.
Stories about ghosts, monsters, murderers, massacres… Stories that
when you read them, you have your heart in your mouth, stories where fear
is always associated whit something negative which leads to death, to
damnation…
But there is an exception to all these stories. It is a story which deals
whit fear but it is a new kind of fear. It is a fear which has something
magic: fear to grow up. The story is that one written by J.M. Barrie,
an English author of the late Nineteenth century: Peter Pan. We all know
his story: Peter Pan is a boy who lives in Never Land, an island which
doesn’t have any geographical and space coordinates. People, things
will always be the same. Peter Pan will lead there two brothers and their
sister to make them enjoy the magic of this wonderland. They will have
fantastic adventures, they will meet pirates, Indians, sirens. At the
end the children will decide to come back home to live their lives, to
grow up and become adults. In Never Land they would have never got old.
Peter Pan will come back Never Land…
Once in his life, who doesn’t recognise himself in Peter Pan? Fear
to grow up, to tackle first problems, not to manage to overcome them.
In front of the vast expanse of the ocean of opportunities we have in
front of us, how many times do we have the instinct to withdraw?
Perhaps fear to grow up is the one which has united all men and women
once in their life. This fear disappears when they acquire the maturity,
the strength to overcome what seems insurmountable. Someone experiences
this fear before, someone after, someone else will always experience it.
This fear becomes in that case a real mental illness which is called "Peter
Pan syndrome
Peter Pan is the “puer aeternus”; he symbolizes the wish to
remain a child..
It deals with the postponement of the taking on responsibilities. The
subject has playful attitudes, he uses childish codes and behaviours.
A precious physiological growth is often followed by fear to grow up.
In this situation a conflict can be born, a conflict that can lead to
regressive attitudes. Fear as factor of involution.
On the contrary, all the fears have to be factors of growth, something
that puts us to the test…. To the test of life!
Benedetta Caracciolo CC/78