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James M. Barrie invented PETER PAN, a modern fairy tale, for five boys whom he loved although he humorously repudiated his creation, as though he wished to disinherit the child of his unconscious. When PETER PAN was published, Barrie included his “confession” in the introduction: “I have no recollection of writing it. … I remember writing the story of Peter and Wendy many years after the production of the play. … Notwithstanding other possibilities, I think I wrote Peter, and if so, it must have been in the usual inky way.”
Humor and denial were a stalwart armor for James Barrie who used these devices to conceal deeper, unrealized motives. The play MARY ROSE was an enigma to the public and to the author for Barrie once remarked to his secretary: “I wish you could tell me what it means and settle the matter once for all.” The play is the story of a ghostly young girl who is ageless and lives forever. The theme of ghosts had been used earlier in THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD, in which Barrie said: “The only ghosts, I believe, who creep into this world, are dead young mothers, returned to see how their children fare. There is no other inducement great enough to bring the dead back.” In one speech Mary Rose expresses a theme which becomes repetitious in the writing of James M. Barrie: the reunion of a mother and child.: “The loveliest time of all will be when he is a man and takes me on his knee instead of my taking him on mine.”