Fantasy as Antifantasy: 3 Neverland -- Lost Faith -- concluded

Thus, another key word is obtained. It’s called make-believe, which means “to daydream, to pretend.” In fact, the story seems to revolve around the idea of make-believe. Make -believe is a game of wanton ideas that one plays fluttering the wings of fantasy as depicted over and over again in the story, but it is also a complex psychological mechanism that functions as a deliberate and sometimes unconscious substitute for belief. (note)

note:
After the publication of Peter and Wendy, a new trend of consciousness study has developed involving phenomenological reinterpretation of mental function and re-examination of the cosmological structure centered on the existence of primordial phase, called Fundamental Awareness. Neverland and make-believe were Barrie’s innovative key subjects anticipating those speculative movements in the field of philosophy, that involved the newest research results of physics. They are centered on the relationship between observation, acknowledgement and event generation. Those are to be discussed as the cosmological relationship between consciousness and fictionality, in the further development of the author’s argument.



The relationship between make-believe and belief is actually quite complicated. This is because it is known that there is no safe way to distinguish between one entity and the other fiction. Following Attebery’s point, we can recall one of the problems of modern thought. One of the Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems seems to apply. “As long as an axiom system is consistent, it cannot prove its own consistency.” To use this analogy, as long as we believe in that faith, we can’t prove (or don’t notice) that it’s make-believe. The idea of the make-believe is both hopeless and mysterious. Peter is the genius of this make-believe playing. He behaves like a tyrannical wielder of this game rule, leading the Lost Boys kidnapped from the real world in Neverland to pretend to be at war and pretending to eat treats. And when Tinker Bell is about to die, Peter appeals to the children in the real world as well, saying that it takes children’s “belief” in the existence of fairies to bring her back to life.

Peter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was night time; but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland, and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees.


At this point, our real world has already been incorporated into this story. No one can be allowed to sit idly by and watch the story unfold safely outside the realm of the story. Through Neverland, dreaming in their hearts, all the children hear Peter’s words, “If you believe me, clap your hands, don’t let Tink die.” (p. 117) Children must respond to this request in some way. And the frightening thing is that the children’s actions have already been foreseen in the work. (note)

Many clapped.
Some didn’t.
A few little beasts hissed.


note:
This mechanism of incorporating the reader's existence beyond the framework of the fictional world has become a common tactic used in postmodernist novels, but it was actually a strategy founded by the German Romantics in an attempt to involve the audience in the fictional world of the stage in the theatrical space. In the case of Barrie, it is interesting to note that he was ideologically involved with the flow of the zeitgeist as a pioneer of modernism, which flourished in the early 20th century, overcoming a mental state that tended to favor the natural religion of the Romantics. What kind of substance did postmodernism, which is now showing signs of corruption, really have? Also, what were the characteristics of “modernism” that postmodernism should have posited as a contrast? Having acknowledged both postmodernist seizure of power and its corruption, it seems necessary to re-examine the meaning of modernism again.
In the play Peter Pan at the premiere, (Duke of York’s, December 27, 1904), Barrie did not expect the audience to enter the drama space and clap hands for Tink, and had managed that the orchestra musicians put their instruments down to the floor and clap their hands instead. Unexpectedly, however, the audience responded to Peter’s request with a thunderous round of applause. Thus, this outlandish work became one of the most popular stories in the world, and many digest versions and anime film versions were created by Disney and others, and the original virulent substance was destined to be forgotten under its fame.
However, did the audience who responded with applause really believe in the existence of fairies? There is something frightening about the attitude of the audience to express their belief as implied by this applause. Nineteenth-century British fantasies, represented by MacDonald’s, arose as a religion substitute after the death of God, but by the time Peter Pan premiered, had people already chosen to worship a god they did not believe in? Or has the god of modern man who has forgotten his virtues and ethics fallen into a toy-like idol whose existence is ridiculed and tolerated by people who live only in fleeting pleasures and desires?


But for Peter, the children’s beliefs he demanded were just one of the many diverting make-believe games he enjoyed. Only Peter can exercise the privilege of abruptly ending the make-believe he has been playing and starting another. The children have no idea when Peter will change his mind and move on to a new game. Just when you think Peter has been playing “Peter” and fighting against Hook, he even starts playing “Hook” and pretending to be a pirate fighting against children. The children, and those of us who have been reminded of Peter and Neverland through this story, will have to play aimlessly between the worlds of make-believe, as Peter chooses. The core of our thoughts has already been caught by Peter through the Neverland in our minds. Neverland is something that we are still new to, and therefore has a mysterious power to seize us. If we remember of Neverland, we can’t even tell if the “faith” and “conviction” that we have accepted over time in order to live in the present reality are actually no other than one of the make-believes that Peter demands.