When Barrie was almost seven, his thirteen-year-old brother David died suddenly. The mother never completely accepted that loss during the remaining twenty-nine years of her life, and James Barrie devoted a prodigious amount of energy and ingenuity throughout his childhood in an attempt to comfort his mother and replace the invincible dead rival, older and superior to him in every way. In the creation of Peter Pan, he achieved the victory by combining the figures of David, the dead boy (flying through the night in his nightgown) who never grew up; the mother (for the part of Peter is written for and has always been played by a woman); and the image of himself. Barrie's attitude toward his parents is revealed in various ways, among them his constant reference to his mother by her maiden name, and his portrayal of Captain Hook as a murderous monster, castrated, hating and sly: it was stipulated that the same actor play the parts of Mr. Darling and Captain Hook. The tremendous success of the play rests largely on its theme of eternal youth and immortality.