Fantasy as Antifantasy: 9 Good Form and Reflection: Captain Hook’s Melancholia

9 Good Form and Reflection: Captain Hook’s Melancholia

Speaking of Hook, the mere mention of his name by Peter was enough to make the Darling children shudder. (p. 47) If so, is he, like Peter, a kind of collective unconscious that forms the basis of children’s minds, whose existence is naturally accepted in their memories without being taught as knowledge? Observing the way Hook is portrayed, as if he represents the image of vicious pirate, it seems to be so. However, in fact, it is this character named Captain Hook who has a deeper condition than that. In fact, the author has a suspicion that Hook, rather than Peter, is the real protagonist of this story. This chapter will follow this hypothesis to discuss the cleverly hidden mystery embodied by Hook, the back side protagonist in Peter and Wendy.
　One of the proofs for the claim acknowledging Hook as the protagonist, is that when Hook actually appears in the story, his description is much more elaborate than Peter’s.

In person he was cadaverous and blackavised and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singular threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up horribly. In manner, something of the grand seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and I have been told that he was a raconteur of repute.



Captain Hook, who seems to have an eerie appearance but also to be endowed with a graceful countenance, has a melancholy expression in his romantic eyes that is the color of a forget-me-not. This issue of “melancholy” speaks to the essence of Hook as a person, and at the same time, it should be a clue to the secret of Peter’s existence. This is the main theme of Peter and Wendy, which will be fully discussed in the second half of this chapter. In addition, Hook is said to be a well-known storyteller. This is in contrast to Peter. Instead of telling a story for himself, he only asked Wendy and the others to tell him one, and later he was happy to have Wendy’s daughter, Jane, and her daughter, Margaret, tell him stories about his own adventures. In the first place, Peter can’t remember things for long. On the other hand, Hook is knowledgeable and educated. The description on Hook continues.

He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction, even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one of a different caste from his crew.


Far from crude and undisciplined Peter, Hook has a good pedigree and good manners. Peter had to ask John and Michael to teach him how to pretend to be a father, but in Hook’s case, even swearing words have an elegance. Above all, the creepiness that can be seen through his politest condescension is not something that can be imitated by the upstart aristocracy. He is a man of monstrous integrity.

A man of indomitable courage, it was said of him that the only thing he shyed at was the sight of his own blood which was thick and of unusual colour. In dress he sometimes aped the attire associated with the name of Charles　II, having heard it said in some earlier period of his career that he bore a strange resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts; and in his mouth he had a holder of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once. But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw.


The only thing that frightens Hook is the color of his own blood, which is very thick, unusual color. It’s not explicitly stated what color it is, but considering that the bloodline of a venerable family is called Blue Blood, it’s implied that the color of Hook’s blood is even more extraordinary. In addition, as a prop that defines the impression of the character, while Peter is given a distinctive outfit that is depicted as “clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees” and accompanied by Tinker Bell, Hook is equipped with a hook that is attached to his right arm, and a pipe that can smoke two cigars at the same time, so that he may not be in the slightest inferior to the boy. In the frightening villain novels written by Gothic romance writers such as Ann Radcliffe, the villains who were supposed to be the antagonist were more attractive than the protagonist, but in Hook’s case, he is an important character who is afforded with an even more indispensable raison d’être in determining the theme of the story. Particularly, the author’s attitude toward Hook is an exceptional treatment. When describing Hook, the author often proceeds with an elaborate style of writing. Whenever Hook appears, it seems as if there is solemn background music. And the author even kills one of his fellow pirates to introduce the usual way Hook behaves. The description of Hook is followed in this way:

Let us now kill a pirate, to show Hook’s method. Skylights will do. As they pass, Skylights lurches clumsily against him, ruffling his lace coller; the hook shoots forth, there is a tearing sound and one screech, then the body is kicked aside, and the pirates pass on. He has not even taken the cigars from his mouth.


Hook is cruel. Resolute ruthlessness gives dignity and splendor to the owner of that attribute. Even when the pirates are asleep, they usually roll their bodies to this side and that lest Hook should claw them mechanically in passing. (p. 12) Ruthlessness that is fully approved in the work world is the highest criterion of aesthetics. Hook is extremely cool. Above all, Hook’s distinguishing good form comes from his birth and upbringing. For example, when dragging the children out of an underground hideout, Hook treats Wendy, a woman, with respect and courtesy. The gesture of raising his hat and reaching out his hand alone is so graceful that Wendy is involuntarily captivated.

With ironical politeness Hook raised his hat to her, and, offering her his arm, escorted to the spot where the others were being gagged. He did it with such an air, he was so frightfully distingué, that she was too fascinated to cry out.


Peter’s ignorance often led him to be disgusted by Wendy and his children, but Hook has a dignity that naturally exudes. It’s not like Hook is acting out a self-indulgent and pretentious gesture. The narrator actually seems to have some solid information about Hook’s noble identity.

Hook was not his true name. To reveal who he really was would even at this date set the country in a blaze; but as those who read between the lines must already have guessed, he had been at a famous public school;...


Hook is an elite graduate of a well-known public school in Britain. The author seems to be unable to reveal his identity for some reason, but it seems to be an undeniable fact that he was once a respectable real-world person. The question is, why is he now a pirate? It can be seen that he did not become a pirate losing his original status. Rather, it is precisely in the fact that he chose to have the livelihood as a pirate that we should be able to see the correctness of his origin. This is because his birth and upbringing do not allow him to work hard to win status and fortune. If he had been just a vulgar man, he would surely have been content to become a university professor or a prime minister. But he’s not the kind of base man who can be satisfied with his social status or financial success. Hook is a man of sensibility, and at his heart he is an artist. He loves flowers, loves music, and is said to be quite skilled at the playing of the harpsichord. (note)

note:
While the children, the Indians, and the pirates are wandering around in search of nothing but bloody adventures, Hook sighs, immersed in the beauty of the landscape.

Hook heaved a heavy sigh, and I know not why it was, perhaps it was because of the soft beauty of the evening.


Hook is sensitive to the beauty of landscapes and is the only person in this story whose artistic background is narrated.

The man was not wholly evil; he loved flowers (I have been told) and sweet music (he was himself no mean performer on the harpsichord); and, let it be frankly admitted, the idyllic nature of the scene shook him profoundly.


As for the sharpness of Hook’s sensitivity, in contrast to Peter’s, the feminine sensibility is emphasized. In the lagoon, Hook is imitated by Peter and about to lose confirmation of himself, but overcomes this crisis with his “feminine intuition”. It is interesting to note that this ability is considered essential for a good pirate.

In his dark nature there was a touch of the feminine, as in all the greatest pirates, and it sometimes gave him intuitions. Suddenly he tried the guessing game.


Since Peter is a child, he naturally can’t resist the temptation of the game, and he ends up revealing his true identity by abandoning the trap he had set up, but when one comes to think of it, Hook was already in danger of losing his identity at this time. Hook, who was deprived of confirmation of himself by the strange voice that called him a cod, is depicted as “Hook felt his ego slipping away” (p. 85). Hook had always been threatened by his shadow, Peter, but this time he was able to restore his identity through the power of the feminine principle.



It was this artistic sensibility that evoked a reflective self-consciousness that could not help but rebel against the vulgar real world, and drove him to become a pirate. Pirates are the last form of an aesthete who has devoted his life to aesthetics. (note)

note:
Oscar Wilde ridiculed the hypocrisy of Victorian society as a man of irony and called himself an aesthete as a means of overcoming materialistic vulgarism, but his supermundane life as a dandy instead trapped him and led to the ruin of his life. In Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890-1), Dorian perishes with his “portrait” as his shadow.



Hook has already made a name for himself in the world of pirates and has established high rank in the trade. Through his involvement with the legendary figures of Captain Barbecue and Captain Blackbeard, Hook himself has become a sinister and fascinating legend. Hook has made a spectacular transition from the real world to the legendary figure of the fictional world. (note)

note:
This notion suggesting the reality-fictionality continuum was the philosophical idea pursued by the German Romantics. And it is now re-adopted in the author’s attempt for the apology of fictionality, in a comprehensive cosmology based on the function of consciousness.



That’s why Hook was able to gain a natural abode in the corners of the children’s unconscious memories, with Peter’s Neverland as an intermediary. Compared to the banal worldly successes of the real world, dominated by adults, his achievements are dazzling. Now, however, Hook is depicted when at the height of his prowess, which he has gained since he subjugated Captain Barbecue, he has succeeded in defeating Peter with poison after a long feud, and has taken all of Peter’s children prisoner and brought them to the ship, and about to execute them, as follows.

“Fame, fame, that glittering bauble, it is mine!” he cried.
“Is it quite good form to be distinguished at anything?” the tap-tap from his school replied.
“I am the only man whom Barbecue feared," he urged, “and Flint himself feared Barbecue.”
“Barbecue, Flint—what house?” came the cutting retort. Most disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about good form?