Wendy Darling

Wendy Moira Angela Darling is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists of the 1904 play and 1911 novel Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie, as well as in most adaptations in other media. Her exact age is not specified in the original play or novel by Barrie, though it is implied that she is about Peter's age as she is "just Peter's size".

As a girl on the verge of adulthood, she stands in contrast to Peter Pan, a boy who refuses to grow up, the major theme of the Peter Pan stories. Wendy hesitates at first to fly off to Neverland, but she comes to enjoy her adventures. Ultimately, she chooses to go back to her parents and accepts that she has to grow up.

Background

In the novel

The first name Wendy was very uncommon in the English-speaking world before J. M. Barrie's work, and its subsequent popularity has led some to credit him with "inventing" it. Although the name Wendy was used to a limited extent as the familiar-form of the Welsh name Gwendolyn, it is thought that Barrie took the name from a phrase used by Margaret Henley, a five-year-old girl whom Barrie befriended in the 1890s, daughter of his friend William Henley.^[2] She called Barrie her "friendy-wendy", which she pronounced as "fwendy-wendy".^[3][4] She died at the age of five of meningitis and was buried, along with her family, in Cockayne Hatley.^[3][4]

In Great Britain, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, children's playhouses are commonly known as Wendy houses.

In popular culture

On stage

In the first productions of the play at the

• Peter Pan (1924 silent live-action film) – Mary Brian. The actress was 18, but publicity materials claimed she was 16.
• Hook (1991 live-action film) – Dame Maggie Smith plays an elderly Wendy, who is being honoured for her lifetime of work in finding homes for orphans. She was also a former neighbour of J. M. Barrie. Her granddaughter Moira is the wife of Peter Banning (Robin Williams), the former Peter Pan who has grown up and forgotten his life in Neverland. During a flashback to Peter's childhood, a younger Wendy is played by Gwyneth Paltrow. (Peter and Moira's daughter, Wendy's great-granddaughter, is Maggie, a common pet name for Margaret, the name of Jane's daughter, Wendy's granddaughter, in the original book by Barrie.) During the movie, it is implied that Wendy once and still does have feelings for her now-grown-up grandson-in-law, Peter.
• sword fighting. The film also develops Barrie's hint that Wendy is attracted to the more mature and virile Hook, showing that she is growing up in spite of herself. Actor Jason Isaacs, who played Captain Hook in the film, stated in a 2019 interview: "J.M. Barrie wrote a book about a little girl [Wendy] who was hitting puberty...in those days, [in the Edwardian era], that meant you'd better have sex, have children, and build a family...[so she goes to Neverland], but there's only one man in that world [Hook], and he's strangely attractive. Sexually, there's something weird about his allure, but he's also repulsive."^[6] This is in reference to the short story "Captain Hook at Eton", in which Barrie described Hook as such: "In a word, [he was] the handsomest man I have ever seen, though, at the same time, perhaps slightly disgusting."^[7]
• Mad Hatter and Captain Hook
  respectively.
• Wendy – A 2020 American fantasy drama film directed by Benh Zeitlin, from a screenplay by Zeitlin and Eliza Zeitlin. The film stars Devin France, Yashua Mack, Gage Naquin, Gavin Naquin, Ahmad Cage, Krzysztof Meyn, and Romyri Ross. It is a re-imagining of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan.^[8]
• Peter Pan & Wendy – Actress Ever Anderson, daughter of film director Paul W. S. Anderson and actress Milla Jovovich, plays Wendy in the live-action Disney film, which adapts some elements from the 1953 animated film.^[9]

Animation

• meetable character in Fantasyland
  .
• Return to Never Land (2002 animated film) – Kath Soucie. A sequel to 1953's Peter Pan, where a grown-up Wendy has married a man named Edward and has raised her children on tales of Peter Pan. Her role is minimal in this portrayal, but at the end of the film she is briefly, but happily, reunited with Peter after many years when he brings her daughter Jane home, Wendy assuring Peter that she hasn't changed where it matters and having a brief flight thanks to Tinker Bell.
• Tinker Bell (2008 animated film) – America Young. In Tinker Bell, Wendy is shown as the recipient of a long-forgotten ballerina music box that Tinker Bell has repaired. Being a prequel to 1953's Peter Pan, Wendy is much younger in appearance.

In television

Live-action

• In the first two telecasts of the 1954 Broadway musical version of the play (1955 and 1956), Wendy was portrayed by Kathleen Nolan, who had also played her onstage. In the 1960 telecast of the musical, Ms. Nolan was replaced by Maureen Bailey, whose only major television role this was. In the 2014 telecast, Peter Pan Live!, Wendy was played by Taylor Louderman.
• In the 1976 musical version in which Mia Farrow played Peter, Wendy was played by Briony McRoberts.
• In the 2011 web series Wendy, Wendy is played by Meaghan Martin.
• Wendy was a recurring character in the second and third seasons of Once Upon a Time, portrayed by Freya Tingley. In the series, she was born in the late nineteenth century in the Land Without Magic, but spent over a hundred years in Neverland as Pan's prisoner, a fate from which she was freed by the show's heroes.
• In ITV's 2015 film Peter & Wendy, Wendy is played by Hazel Doupe.^[10]

Animation

• A black-haired Wendy was portrayed by Christina Lange in Fox's
  Peter Pan and the Pirates
  without a British accent and wearing a crown of flowers in her short hair.
• The Disney version of Wendy was featured as one of the guests in House of Mouse; however, despite the fact that Kathryn Beaumont was credited as providing Wendy's voice, Wendy said nothing.
• The Disney version of Wendy is featured in a special episode in Jake and the Never Land Pirates, voiced by Maia Mitchell.
• Wendy Darling appeared as an adult in the second season of World of Winx as head of an orphanage in London. She was tracked down by the Winx Club, who told her that they needed to find Peter Pan. Although she was unaware of his whereabouts since he had left her, she gave the six fairies a letter that revealed that he had a son named Matt.

In literature

• In the Peter and the Starcatchers series, Wendy Darling is the daughter of Molly Aster, whom Peter has encountered while first discovering Neverland.
• Wendy appears in Jonathan Green's gamebook Neverland: Here Be Monsters! as a playable character. This version of her is a passenger on the Titanic who is inadvertently set adrift amidst the ship's sinking, and arrives at a Neverland populated by dinosaurs.^[11]

In anime and manga

• In the
  Peter Pan no Boken (Adventures of Peter Pan), which is a part of the World Masterpiece Theater, a rather tomboyish
  , adventurous Wendy with a heart of gold has a pivotal role in the second part of the series, which depicts a completely original story where Peter Pan, the Lost Kids and the Darling siblings must save a young witch named Luna from the clutches of her evil grandmother, the witch Sinistra, and Wendy is the one who truly saves her. She is also shown directly defying Hook when he kidnaps her in the first part, yelling at him, kicking him and even impersonating his mother at some point to manipulate his fears against him.

In music

• The Wendy Trilogy, a feminist-minded retelling of the Peter Pan story as a three-song cycle, shows Wendy accepting, rather than refusing, Captain Hook's offer to make her a pirate, and subsequently becoming mistress of the Jolly Roger
  .
• Somewhere in Neverland, a song by the American rock band All Time Low where she and Peter Pan are used as metaphors for the song's narrator not wanting to grow up.
• In Taylor Swift's song "cardigan," the lyric "Tried to change the ending / Peter losing Wendy" refers to the idea of Peter Pan, the boy who never grows up, eventually losing Wendy Darling, the girl who accompanies him on his adventures in Neverland, because she decides to grow up. Wendy and Peter are used as a metaphor for the characters in Swift's album, folklore, James and Betty. This imagery is used to explain that James (who would be playing the part of Peter in this analogy) lost Betty (who would be playing the part of Wendy) because he refused to grow up and be the person she needed him to be and take accountability for his mistake.

In video games

• The Disney version of Wendy is featured in the video game Kingdom Hearts (like in the film, being also voiced by Kathryn Beaumont). In the game, Captain Hook believes she is a Princess of Heart and is displeased when it turns out she is not. She also appears in the next game, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.
• The Disney version of Wendy appears as a playable character in the video game Disney Magic Kingdoms, being unlocked during the progress of the game's main storyline.^[12]

In comic and graphic novel

• In
  Oz's Dorothy and Wonderland's Alice) recounts her sexual encounters with a local homeless boy who represents the "real" Peter Pan. The graphic novel faced disapproval from Great Ormond Street Hospital, which denied permission to publish the book in the European Union
  while their copyright was still in force (through 2007).
• In the 2005–2006 comic book series
  Alice In Wonderland, Dorothy Gale from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Susan Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia
  .

Non-fiction

• Dan Kiley's book, The Wendy Dilemma (1984), advises women romantically involved with "Peter Pans" how to improve their relationships.[13] This book is a sequel to The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up,^[14] about individuals (usually male) with underdeveloped maturity.

References

1. ^ Barrie, J.M. When Wendy Grew Up – An Afterthought, Nelson, 1957.
2. ^ Birkin, Andrew. J. M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, Yale University Press, 2003.
3. ^ ^{a b} "The History of Wendy". Retrieved 2009-07-25.
4. ^ ^{a b} Winn, Christopher. I Never Knew That About England.
5. ^ Hanson, Bruce. Peter Pan on Stage and Screen, 1904–2010. McFarland (2011)
6. ^ Schiller, Griffin (9 February 2021). "Jason Isaacs Talks 2021 Sundance Sensation 'Mass,' 'Harry Potter,' 'Peter Pan' and More". FilmSpeak. Retrieved 24 October 2023.
7. ^ Barrie, James Matthew (1938). McConnachie and J. M. B.: Speeches. London: Peter Davies.
8. ^ "Wendy (2020)". IMDb.
9. ^ Kroll, Justin (March 10, 2020). "Disney's Live-Action 'Peter Pan' Movie Finds Its Wendy and Peter (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
10. ^ Plunkett, John (14 May 2015). "Paloma Faith and Stanley Tucci to star in ITV's Peter Pan drama". The Guardian.
11. ISBN 978-1911390411
12. ^ "Update 17: Peter Pan | Livestream". YouTube. January 19, 2018.
13. ISBN 978-0-87795-625-9
    .
14. ISBN 0-380-68890-5
    .

External links