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

“Is it quite good form to be distinguished at anything?” he has to ask himself, because Hook feels the noblesse oblige, a fateful obligation that comes with honor and the fate of being born and raised with it. He never loses his introspective mind, which always looks at himself from a noble altitude severely. Wielding absolute power as a pirate captain, Hook always has a sober self-awareness that does not allow him rest on his own. “Isn’t it a bad form to think about the good form?” This paradox, which forces a conflict between reason, which always promotes accurate self-awareness as objective judgment, and a naïve sense of ethics, haunts Hook’s mind. And then he thinks, “None of the little children love me.” Hook compares himself to Smee, who is supposed to be an insignificant minion to him. Speaking of which, Smee selfishly assumes that the children are scared of him, and he is sewing on the sewing machine leisurely. Smee said savage things to the children and even hit them with the palm of his hand. But that’s because he couldn’t hit them with his fist. The more Smee tried to scare the children, the more they would draw near him, and Michael had even tried wearing Smee’s glasses. Why is the lovable Smee, who is adored by children, so liked? Hook thinks about this issue obsessively.

...he revolved this mystery in his mind; why do they find Smee lovable? He pursued the problem like the sleuth-hound that he was. If Smee was lovable, what was it that made him so? A terrible answer suddenly presented itself: “Good form?” Had the bo’sun good form without knowing it, which is the best form of all?


The absolute norm that governs Hook’s behavior is this good form, but good form is a really troublesome thing that as soon as you try to observe it consciously, it becomes a vain illusion and disappears from your eyes. For Hook, who despises upstarts, the measure of his own integrity rests on the reflection on good form, but the concept of good form unfolds solemnly beyond the self-sufficient illusion of fair play. There is a gap that cannot be bridged by the power of logic between the nobility of the intellect, which compels him to grasp the correct objective situation, and the vulgarity of reason, which must be conscious of his own superiority. This dilemma about the gap between knowledge and virtue proves that Hook is an educated man provided with a strong grasp of modern scientific thinking. This is an all-too-formidable paradox brought about by the struggle between ethics and reason that Westerners have come to experience in modern times. As soon as they became aware of the significance of returning to Nature, it became a foreign object that was discovered in the outside world as a goal to be obtained. Modern self-consciousness has achieved self-independence by killing God, and as a result, it has let go of the peace of selflessness who can become one with the world, and has found itself as a shadow of the world’s outcast under the pedestal of God, which has been overturned. It is the true nature of Smee’s good form, being able to live outside such a labyrinth of consciousness without concern.

There was little sound, and none agreeable save the whir of the ship’s sewing machine at which Smee sat, ever industrious and obliging, the essence of the commonplace, pathetic Smee. I know not why he was so infinitely pathetic, unless it were because he was so pathetically unaware of it; but even strong men had to turn hastily from looking at him, and more than once on summer evenings he had touched the fount of Hook’s tears and made it flow.


In contrast to distinguished Hook, Smee is a picture of mediocrity, but when he looks at Smee, he feels that he is “pathetic”. But it’s not Smee who is really pathetic. It’s Hook who can’t help but shed tears seeing Smee. Further, the author’s voice speaks on behalf of Hook’s painful feeling sensing Smee’s nature, which is so indifferent to the pathos he embodies: “I know not why he was so infinitely pathetic…” The author’s sympathy is clearly on the side of Hook, against the children, represented by the ruthless and heartless Peter. Representing our estranged minds, the author looks into Hook’s heart.

...and knowing as we do how vain a tabernacle is man, could we be surprised had he now paced the deck unsteadily, bellied out by the wind of his success? But there was no elation in his gait, which kept pace with the action of his sombre mind, Hook was profoundly dejected.



Hook is melancholy. The worldly status that belonged to him made him depressed, the ultra-worldly success he won made him depressed, and the sight of himself ruminating and worrying about such things made him depressed more than anything else. Melancholy is a fatal pathology of the educated man with introspection. (note)

note:
Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) is perhaps the most supportive evidence for this diagnosis.



Hook is helplessly harboring the weakness of “reflection” that he acquired during his public school days. It is still lingering in his mind as one of the propositions of logic.

He remembered that you have to prove you don’t know you have it before you are eligible for pop.


“Pop” refers to Eton’s traditional social and oratory club. In order to be elected a member of the club, he had to prove that he was not aware that he was eligible. Hook has to worry about his qualifications to live his life in this way. Just looking at Smee, who knows nothing, Hook’s heart is so hurt that he can’t help but bring up the paradox of “knowing” in his heart.

This inscrutable man never felt more alone than when surrounded by his dogs. They were socially inferior to him.


This man, who treats his minions like dogs and wields absolute power, becomes even more lonely because of his overwhelming superiority. Hook, with his inscrutable mysteries, could be seen as a mirror of Peter’s existence, but I’d rather change this perspective. Isn’t the character of Peter Pan, who appears at first glance as a spectacular protagonist, really a secret key that has been carefully calculated as a tool to illuminate the existence of Hook, which is familiar to our hearts and also is inexplicable? This is how Hook is depicted when he wandered on the ship, sinking in deep thought.

Hook trod the deck in thought. O man unfathomable.


The reason why Hook is unfathomable is, of course, because every one of us is Hook. It is a mystery to every one of us that one lives an inexplicable life without knowing where one came from or where one is going, and that one continues to be shaken by an inner sense of ethics that cannot be explained by logic. Those who have thus attained the perspective of one’s self as an objective personality will always be given bitter skepticism instead of the simple joy of life. Come to think of it, when he destroyed the Picaninny tribe through a clever tactics, Hook still had a sad look on his face.

Elation must have been in his heart, but his face did not reflect it: ever a dark and solitary enigma, he stood aloof from his followers in spirit as in substance.


The riddle implied in Peter was actually the antithesis of this riddle embodied by Hook. In this part of the enigma, Hook and Peter are closely related. For Hook, Peter is an inexcusable shadow of himself. Around the term “good form” the final battle between Peter and Hook is described. The disadvantage to Hook is that he is an educated modern individual. On top of that, Hook is born with classy taste. That’s why Hook feels Wendy’s gaze on him and is painfully ashamed of the disheveled clothes he wore in battle.

Fine gentleman though he was, the intensity of his communings had soiled his ruff, and suddenly he knew that she was gazing at it.


Even during his final battle against Peter, Hook is always concerned about good form. Shocked by the color of his own blood flowing from the wound given by Peter, Hook involuntarily drops the sword he was holding. Hook was by no means frightened by the fact that he had been hurt. The blow that Hook received when he saw the color of his own blood is nothing less than the manifestation of Hook’s self-consciousness.

At sight of his own blood, whose peculiar colour, you remember, was offensive to him, the sword fell from Hook’s hand, and he was at Peter’s mercy.


Hook is unable to defend himself with his sword gone. But Peter does not take advantage of this golden opportunity. On the contrary, he encourages Hook to pick up his sword generously, rather than attacking him. But it’s this cheeky act that inflicts a fatal wound on Hook’s broken heart. Hook quickly picks up his sword, but can’t help feeling keenly that his enemy, Peter, is the embodiment of good form.

Hook did so instantly, but with a tragic feeling that Peter was showing good form.


Peter had been Hook’s long-standing feud and an enemy he could not stand in a row. This inexplicable disturbing presence was monstrous and formidable to him, but now Hook is subject to even more terrifying suspicions.

Hitherto he had thought it was some fiend fighting him, but darker suspicions assailed him now.


Hook then asks Peter, “Who art thou?” But Peter’s answer, as usual, is nothing more than guesswork. Hook has even lost the opportunity to call Peter by his name as his shadow and try to regain his identity. (note)

note:
If Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, is a fantasy work for children because of its optimism in the perception of the world, in which the protagonist was able to restore the balance of the world by calling and accepting the “shadow” that his own arrogance had summoned by his own name, Peter and Wendy is truly a fantasy for adults in its severity of reality perception, that depicts Hook who struggles in vain in his battle against his shadow, like a one-man play, and is defeated. The motif of the alter ego is not only introduced by Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Grey, but also by Adelbert von Chamisso in “Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschite”(1814) , and by Hans Christian Andersen, in “The Shadow” (1847), and a similar theme can be found in Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson” (1839). The motif of shadow as a threat to modern intelligence was quite universal in the 19th century. In the case of Barrie, the mechanism of this ego-destroying alter ego is turned inside out, and the shadow existence Peter is set as the main character, and the fact that it is depicted in the form of a fantasy that seemingly looks like a fun adventure story is very like 20th-century product, and it can be said that Barrie’s ironic sense is overwhelming compared to others.