'Peter Pan' in Play and Novel Form

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer examines the differences and similarities between the play 'Peter Pan', or 'The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up' (1904) and the novel 'Peter (Pan) and Wendy' (1911), the two most famous versions of J. M. Barrie's works. A sentence by sentence comparison of them, made by the essay writer, provides the basis for the comparison. First, the forms of the play and the novel are compared. The main focus of this essay is on differences in content. This part is subdivided into modifications of characters, omissions from the original and the ending of the stories. Lastly, the consequences of these changes on the story line are considered.

Outline:
Introduction
Variation in Form
Variation in Content
Characters
Omissions from the Play
The Ending
Consequences
References

From the Paper:

"The most obvious differences between the play and the novel are due to belonging to two specific literary genres. Thus, the play consists mainly of dialogues and has a multitude of stage directions, whereas the novel does not have any stage directions and is told by a narrator. Barrie's novel still has many dialogues, probably precisely because it has its source in the play.
"The third-person narrator in Peter Pan is omniscient. For example, he points out that Peter's acorn button will eventually save Wendy's life in chapter 3. This information is not given in the play."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Barrie, J.M., 1928. Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. In The Plays of J.M. Barrie. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
• __________ 1911. The Adventures of Peter Pan (Peter Pan and Wendy). Online resource: http://www.readbookonline.net/title/6/ Accessed 12 May 2008.
• Freeman, Matt. "A century and counting for Peter Pan: the boy who wouldn't grow up first appeared on stage in 1904, and neither he nor the story have aged much since." Reading Today 22.2 (Oct-Nov 2004): 38(1). Expanded Academic ASAP. Gale. Victoria University of Wellington. Accessed 20 May 2008.
• McArthur, Tom, 1998. Roget's Thesaurus. Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. London: Oxford University Press. Online Resource:http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-ROGETSTHESAURUS.html Accessed 22 May 2008.
• Nash, Andrew. "Peter Pan (First Performance)". The Literary Encyclopedia. 30 June 2002. Accessed 20 May 2008.

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