is peter pan a satire?

wow, didn't think there'd be so many threads about this book. my question probably has been answered in one of the threads, but there's no indication of it in any of the thread's title. :p

so yeah, i started laughing at this book since the beginning just because of the stupid and ridiculous things there, but after a while, what with my personal experience of telling stories with inside jokes here and there, i got a feeling that barrie is having some fun as well while ostensibly telling a story to the children.

i'm politically ignorant and i'm unaware of the situation barrie was living in, but there are some things in the books that i just notice. perhaps someone else could elaborate?
- the red skins (obviously a reference to the indians) speak broken english. was barrie a sort of a racist or he was criticizing people with a superiority complex?
- captain james hook is said to have a different real name and people are supposed to know who he actually is (a teacher, it says). the only person i can think of whose name resembles hook is cook, but was cook a school teacher? (i'm also historically ignorant.)
- those two are the only ones i really notice. i've also glanced at a couple threads and saw that nana is supposed to be a newfoundland? what's that all about?

The redskins is probably IMO a steryotype you know like arabs wearing gutras ( the head things , or as a friend of my said recently a dish cloth.)

Acxtually Ive always wondered about Hooks other name too and if anyone has any insights Id love to know too.

:D

Im not sure what Hooks real name is in the book when it says people are supposed to Know who he realy is. But what i thought was odd was that he named Hook, Captain James Hook after himself.......but why?

There is a lot of social commentary and maybe satire in the book and play, but not really political satire, and not things you commented on.

I don't think Barrie was racist, he like most of the English at the time were facinated by romatic images of America with their "cowboys and Indians", his use of "redskins", broken English, and even the term squaw (actually a contravrial term now) was a reflection of the ignorance of the culture. Even his name for the Indian tribe the "Pickaninnies", a very racist term by todays standards didn't have the same meaning back then, it is believed the Barrie probably found it to be a funny sounding word. (for the record it is an African term for children).

Hook as former school teacher was an in joke, but not with the public at large, but was just for the Davies boys, mocking a teacher they had in boarding school. The play was full of private jokes for them, and he changed the play over the years as the boys grew up. Barrie couldn't care less if the rest of the world got the jokes or not.

As for Hook's name being Hook and his having a hook, well to me that is pure Barrie humor, as if it were an amazing coiencidence. But it is also possible that he was following tradition of pirates changing their names, for example the famous pirate "Blackbeard" was not born with that name.

Nana as Newfoundland dog, is a breed of dog, which Barrie had a couple of durring his life, and whom Nana was based on.

But what i thought was odd was that he named Hook, Captain James Hook after himself.......but why?[/QUOTE]
Barrie is Hook in many ways - he is surrounded by youth and joy, which he seemed to e grasping at but seemed to lose hold of. Barrie himself was tainted by death early in life when his beloved brother David dies at ge 12 - Barrie is hte lost boy now become a man who is in a way jelous of the ignorance youth. He is also Peter - the boy who refuses to grow up.

I never made the connection that Barrie and Hook were both James. Everyone else is named after someone so you must be right. I always saw that Barrie was Pan unable to emotionally grow up and desperately wanting a mother. But he is Hook a man or at least a man's body stuck in a boy's world. Hook wants a mother also as he plans to capture Wendy just for that purpose. When playing with the Davies children Barrie often assumed the role of bad guy so the boys could be the hero, it also may reflect some self hatred for what he had become.

Barrie may be a mixture of Hook and Pan and thus the characters' literal conflict is a representation of his own conflicting personality (it's pretty common for writers to identify with more than one character)