Tag Archives: James Barrie

Trump vs. Obama, Hook vs. Pan

By Robin Bates | Published: August 21, 2019

Thursday I was digging around in James Barrie’s Peter Pan the other day and came across something that caught me by surprise. Captain Hook’s relationship to Peter is a lot like Donald Trump’s relationship to Barack Obama. Both Hook and Trump feel outclassed. As many commentators have pointed out, Trump’s hatred of Obama seems deeply […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Barack Obama, Donald Trump, gentility, gentleman, good form, resentment | Comments closed

Fantasy To Cope with Adult Pressures

By Robin Bates | Published: April 27, 2016

James Barrie’s “Peter and Wendy” was forged out of the intense resentment of a boy who was forced to grow up too early.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged fantasy, Peter and Wendy | Comments closed

Fantasy as a Shield against Growing up

By Robin Bates | Published: March 13, 2016

Teaching “Peter and Wendy” has given me insights into my father and the uses of fantasy. It can be used to shield one against an intolerable reality.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Childhood, desecration of innocence, innoence, Peter and Wendy | Comments closed

Bernie Is Peter Pan, Hillary Is Wendy

By Robin Bates | Published: March 10, 2016

Bernie Sanders is the adventurous Peter Pan, Hillary Clinton is the cautious and pragmatic Wendy. Which candidate you prefer may be related to which character you like better.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Bernie Sanders, Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton, Peter Pan, politics, Presidential politics | Comments closed

Pan’s Call–The Return of the Repressed

By Robin Bates | Published: December 2, 2012

Pan became a major figure for turn-of-the-century poets and artists.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Afternoon of a Faun", Bacchae, Euripides, Finnegans Wake, Guillaume Apollinaire, Heresiarch and Company, James Joyce, Kenneth Grahame, Mallarmé (Stéphane), mythology, Paganism, Pan, Peter Pan, Peter Weir, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Puck of Pook's Hill, Rudyard Kipling, Theocritus, Ulysses, wind in the willows | Comments closed

Lit Featured in Olympic Ceremonies

By Robin Bates | Published: July 28, 2012

The opening ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics were rich in literary allusions.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Jerusalem", Children's literature, Olympics, Peter Pan, Richard II, Sports, Tempest, William Blake, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Analyzing Loughner’s Booklist

By Robin Bates | Published: January 10, 2011

Like much of America, I am still in a state of shock over Saturday’s shooting of a Congresswoman, a judge, and 16 others. Like many I wonder if this was an example of a disturbed mind encountering the inflamed political rhetoric that has come to characterize American political discourse. (Add Arizona’s permissive gun laws into […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Adolph Hitler, Aesop, Aldous Huxley, Alice through the Look Glass, Alices Adventures in Wonderland, Arizona killings, Ayn Rand, Brave New World, Charles Bukowski, Communist Manifesto, Ernest Hemingway, Fables, Fahrenheit 451, Gulliver's Travels, Harper Lee, Hermann Hesse, Homer, Jared Lee Loughner, Jonathan Swift, Karl Marx, Ken Kesey, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, Mein Kampf, Meno, nimal Farm, Norton Juster Phentom Tollbooth, Odyssey, Old Man and the Sea, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Peter Pan, Plot, Pulp, Ray Bradbury, Reading George Orwell, Republic, Siddhartha, To Kill a Mockingbird, violence, We the Living, Wizard of Oz | Comments closed

What Fictional Fantasy Means

By Robin Bates | Published: January 6, 2011

Having taught British Fantasy Literature for the first time last semester, I need to think back on it before it becomes a distant memory. By reflecting publicly, I can share some of the insights I gained from the course. Two major things I learned are that (1) fantasy is an oppositional genre—by which I […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Kubla Khan", "La Belle Dame sans Merci", "Lady of Shallot", Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alice in Wonderland Alice through the Looking Glass, Carl Jung, Charles Dickens, Christina Rossetti, fantasy, Geoffrey Chaucer, Goblin Market, Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, Hard Times, Hero with a Thousand Faces, Idylls of the King, J. R. R. Tolkien, John Keats, Joseph Campbell, Jungle Books, Kenneth Grahame, Lewis Carol, Man and His Symbols, Midsummer Night's Dream, Rider Haggard, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Rudyard Kipling, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, She, teaching, The Lord of the Rings, The Wind in the Willows, William Shakespeare | Comments closed