‘My father told me a nest with eggs in it was one of the most beautiful things in the world’
Gender Construction and Parent-Child Relationships in Roald Dahl’s Danny Champion of the World and J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan or the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up
Keywords:
English Children's Literature, Gender Construction, Sexual Difference, Gender Performativity, Peter Pan, Danny Champion of the World, J.M Barrie, Roald DahlAbstract
In this essay, I compare Roald Dahl’s 1975 novel, Danny Champion of the World, and J.M Barrie’s 1904 play text of Peter Pan or the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up. I argue that, despite appearing to subvert patriarchal familial structures at first reading, neither text ultimately achieves this subversion. Both texts romanticise the role of the mother, to the extent that the concept of ‘childhood’ is defined in relation to maternity. This prevents either text from subverting hegemonic gender constructions.
References
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