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Copywork
About This Passage
This passage holds one of the chapter's central conceits: that every mother, nightly, 'tidies up' her sleeping children's minds the way one tidies a drawer, repacking the day's scattered thoughts. Barrie states this impossible idea in calm, matter-of-fact prose and even invites the reader to picture watching it happen, which is exactly how he makes the magical feel ordinary. Copying the long opening sentence trains attention to how a single, carefully balanced sentence can carry a strange and beautiful idea.
It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles tha...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize this chapter, then explain what you think Barrie most wanted the reader to notice or feel as he introduces the Darlings, Nana, and the first signs of Peter. What techniques, his narrator's voice, his comparisons, his choice of details, did he use to achieve that effect?
Discussion Questions
- Barrie's narrator constantly intrudes: he addresses the reader directly, confesses his own uncertainty about Mrs. Darling, and even imagines that 'Napoleon could have got' the kiss before picturing him fail. What does this intrusive, self-aware narrator add to the story, and why might Barrie choose it over a plain, invisible storyteller? Use the chapter's details about the narrator to explain.
- Mr. Darling 'knows about stocks and shares' and has 'a passion for being exactly like his neighbours,' yet he is also 'frightfully proud' of Wendy and cuts his own coffee to afford her. Is Mr. Darling best understood as a loving father, an anxious conformist, or both at once, and why? Use the chapter's details about how he behaves to explain.
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Vocabulary
Item 1
Easily seen and impossible to miss; standing out clearly.
Item 2
Correct, proper behavior that follows accepted social rules.
Item 3
Holding a fixed opinion for or against something, formed without fair reason.
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Critical Thinking
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