Identity and Individuality of Derivative Fictions -- continued

　The images of these pirates that Wendy tells her brothers about in her children’s room at home were described in the original story as a description of the scene where the pirates led by Hook actually appeared, in the middle of the story. There, the author himself appeared as a first-person narrator, claiming particular presence beyond the characters narrated in the story. The most important piece of information that the author was telling was the fact that Peter’s arch enemy, Hook, was himself an excellent storyteller. This information is probably deliberately withheld in the film, but rather emphasizes Wendy’s role as a narrator in her own interests and character traits even more impressively than in the original Wendy. 　Just to make it sure, let’s revisit the author’s own narration in the original story about Captain Hook. 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. (p. 54) note: As the text of the original Peter and Wendy, Annotated Peter and Wendy (Kindai Bungeisha, 2006), which the author created, will be employed. The following quotations from the original text are referred to by page numbers in this book. Many of the important pieces of information about the setting of the original novel that was told through its narration was replaced in the film as phrases in the story actually told by Wendy in the film. In the movie, the narrator, Barrie, has completely disappeared, and the story is developed by the voice of an unknown woman who has assimilated with Wendy without any particular characterization of her personality. And Wendy vividly narrates the pirates’ bizarre appearances, with a variety of background knowledge about them, which might be quite educationally problematic for a girl of a respectable good family to be acquainted with. As a boyish girl endowed with adventurous and combative spirit similar to that possessed by Peter and the lost boys, Wendy in the film exhibits a unique presence trait from the beginning. She is going to show an aggressive side that was not seen in the original Wendy, who had a girlish, homely personality, in many scenes after this. In the film, the voice of the female narrator is in charge of the progression of the fictional world, carrying over the words of the original Peter and Wendy narrator, just as they were. The night on which the extraordinary adventures of these children may be said to have begun, was the night Nana barked at the window. However, in the writing of the original novel, the character traits of the author as a narrator who sees the whole picture of the story are exuded even in this scene. But Wendy had not been dreaming, as the very next night showed, the night on which the extraordinary adventures of these children may be said to have begun. On the night we speak of all the children were once more in bed. It happened to be Nana’s evening off, and Mrs. Darling had bathed them and sung to them till one by one they had let go her hand and slid away into the land of sleep. (p. 13) It is discerned that the events that are supposed to happen are accepted as known facts by the narrator, who is sharing the information with the reader through his narration of the story. This is a metafictional strategy that draws on the retelling mechanism that was prominent in the original novel, convoluting the fact that many readers already knew the contents of the play Peter Pan in detail. Furthermore, looking back at the background knowledge of the establishment of Peter and Wendy, and considering also the fact that usual fairy tales are told with an emphasis on ideational elements as a reversal of causality and in mixture of past and future time axes, in order to connect the original existential information that is predicted to be at the root of the meaning of things in both the real world and the fictional world; it seems this may be a description suggesting the existentiality of archetypal qualitative continuum behind the background regions of time and space. Metafiction is a descriptive technique that was often employed as a method of presenting the world of experimental novels in the postmodernist trend, and it was also an index for identifying new literary theories that introduced the world formula of quantum mechanics with the intention of innovating the method of referencing the real world. In fact, however, this writing method is rather a traditional philosophical subject that seems to constitute a generative cause in literature, which aims to explore the contemplative opportunity to reflexively grasp the relationship between discourse and referent, which existed at the source of traditional narratives. The film’s narration, voiced by a woman, introduces the parents of Darling family to the audience. There never was a happier, simpler family. Mr. Darling was a banker who knew the cost of everything, even a hug. Mrs. Darling was the loveliest lady in Bloomsbury, with a sweet, mocking mouth that had one kiss on it, that Wendy could never get. Though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner. Along with a witty introduction to Mr. Darling’s profession that is reminiscent of the original, it is the part where we are told of Mrs. Darling, who occupies the most important place in the story of Peter Pan, and the mysterious kiss that is the embodiment of her outstanding trait. If you check the narrator’s description in the original work, you will find that some important parts have been omitted here as well. Of course they lived at 14, and until Wendy came her mother was the chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner. (p. 7) The phrase “of course” at the beginning of the original story description is an adaptation of the traditional fairytale method, in which the readers are expected to join the storytelling as if they already understand the plot of the story being told. At the same time, it also reflects the circumstances under which the novel version of Peter and Wendy was published sometime after the performance of the play Peter Pan. Most readers who picked up Peter and Wendy would have actually known the plot of the story. After this, the phrase “of course” is used repeatedly in the novel. These provide an interesting metafictional structure as a method of narration that is conscious of the existence of information outside the work (extra literary) that is not explicitly stated within the work. In the film, the character traits of Mrs. Darling and the narrator are attenuated, and the story progresses around Wendy, but the reflexivity to the metafictional theme of the original story is certainly retained. However, the reference to the “inner boxes” within the heart of Mrs. Darling, spoken of as a mystical element of this lady is omitted. This idea was compared to Neverland in the original work, and implied a metaphysical theme for constructing a holographic world formula as an innovative cosmology that overturned the traditional sense of topology and coordinate concepts. note: As for the analysis of the speculative space concept introduced in Peter and Wendy, please refer to the argument, “Kiss and Riddle” included in the author’s study, Fantasy as Antifantasy, where the relationship between transcendental cosmology and Romanticism philosophy is discussed.