摘要：Aesthetics and Piracy: The Death of Masculinity and Empire J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan as both a stage play and novel coincide with the end of the Victorian period and the beginning of the Edwardian Era, with the novel’s setting and its characters being reflective of the many societal upheavals marking these periods (Edwardian Era). Peter Pan emerged into an England where “industrialism had [become] crystallized,” (Roebuck 1), and was increasingly marked by “new technologies of the workplace” (Wilson 595). When paired with the fact that the “mother country” was dwindling as a “world power” and was being simultaneously overshadowed by such countries as the United States and Germany, it comes as no surprise that countless anxieties emerged concerning threats to hegemonic society, class structure, gender roles, and most importantly the place of England amidst global change (Read 13). The decline and death of Captain Jas. Hook is highly symbolic when considering the massive transformations that took place during Britain’s Industrial Revolution, and serves as a critique of Barrie’s society, who narrates with an “anxious and nostalgic” voice (Wilson 595). Barrie’s portrayal of Hook as a powerful symbol of masculinity through both language and action is ultimately undermined by the historical placement of his anachronistic character, and through his incongruence with the modern English society that Barrie depicts.
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