Peter Pan – a magical, arrogant boy who will never grow up. Many parents look at their children and wish, along with Mrs. Darling: “Oh, why can’t you remain like this forever!” And many children look at their parents with anxious appraisal and wish for the same thing. Peter Pan is the wish come true. Like all abstractions, he is in equal parts wonderful and terrifying. His immortality and wildness carry him to the dazzling limits of experience, but they take him away from its center, a safe, warm, and secluded place like the nursery. Peter has no fears, so he feels no desire for safety, and he has no memory, so he doesn’t understand change or loss. And there is something else he does not have, though it is an emptiness that is more difficult to name. For convenience, J. M. Barrie calls it ‘heartlessness’, because without it there can’t be anything like love.
Wendy – The eldest Darling child, a “tidy,” practical girl with a soft spot in her heart for orphaned or abandoned creatures. From an early age, Wendy seems naturally disposed to care for others. When the lost boys tell her that they need “a nice motherly person,” Wendy replies happily, “I feel that is exactly what I am”: she is clearly delighted to complete this symmetry, to be no more and no less. But we also catch glimpses of a very different Wendy, hiding awkwardly behind the “motherly person.” This other Wendy tries over and over for the ‘kiss’ in the corner of Mrs. Darling’s mouth, the kiss she “could never get,” though Peter takes it without trying. She wants to fly and play with mermaids and say “funny things to the stars.” And when she has grown into the mother she was always becoming, the other Wendy wants desperately for the “woman” whom she now lives inside to “let go” of her. Perhaps that desire will one day turn into a hopeless, mysterious ‘kiss’ of her own, forbidden to her own daughter as her mother’s was forbidden to her.
Captain Jas. Hook – The pirates’ fearsome leader. When we first meet Hook, he is a classic storybook villain: evil, hairy, and merciless, cruel even to his own crew. He despises Peter and the other children, and dreams of killing them all. Yet from the very beginning we are made to understand that Hook is not quite an ordinary pirate. His greatest viciousness is expressed via politeness, his eyes are an intelligent, “melancholy” blue, and on close examination he looks like a distant member of the British royal family. Before Hook was a pirate, he belonged to a well-known family and attended a prestigious high school. His love for piracy and senseless violence is tempered by a nostalgia for simple ordinary propriety, for a sense of belonging in conventional society. Like the Darling children and the lost boys, he secretly longs to return to the real world, dreary as it may be.
Mrs. Darling – The children’s mother, and the narrator’s favorite, Mrs. Darling is a lovely, cheerful woman with a mysterious “kiss” in the corner of her mouth, like some leftover childhood magic. She adores her children and loves to care for them, and pines away when they leave her. To see them come home again is her greatest happiness.
Mr. Darling – A fussy, responsible family man. In the beginning of the story, Mr. Darling is always very practical, concerned primarily with money and keeping up appearances. Though he is sometimes childish and insecure, he demands respect from his wife and children, and usually they happily oblige him. But sometimes, when his feelings are hurt, he loses his temper and acts unfairly. He changes quite a lot after the children fly away: his guilt makes him re-examine his behavior and values, and he becomes more cheerful, easy-going, and sentimental, even “quixotic.” Missing his children brings him back to his own childhood.
John – The middle Darling child. John tends to be cautious and conservative, a little ill-tempered, and sometimes cowardly. Wendy tells us that he “despises” girls, and he somewhat resents Peter for his kingly manner. In some ways, he greatly resembles Mr. Darling – he is precocious in the pettier aspects of manhood.
Michael – The youngest Darling child, dreamy, sweet, sleepy, and forgetful. He takes to the magic of Neverland more easily than John, because he hasn’t been shaped as much by ordinary adult society. He adores his mother but quickly forgets her.
Tinker Bell – A tiny fairy companion to Peter Pan, a beautiful girl with a voice like a bell and a very sharp tongue. She fixes kitchenware and loves Peter jealously and intensely. She despises any girl that lays claim on Peter’s affections, especially Wendy, and can be quite violent. She loves Peter so much that she almost dies to save his life.
Nana – The Darlings’ dog, also a proud and conscientious nurse.
Tootles – The gentlest of all the lost boys, who has the misfortune of accidentally shooting Wendy.
Nibs – A light-hearted lost boy.
Slightly – A lost boy who always pretends to remember life on earth.
Curly – A lost boy who tends to get into trouble.
The Twins – Identical lost boys. Peter does not understand why they look alike, so they always feel self-conscious.
Smee and the pirates – Smee is the gentlest pirate; the rest are stupid, bloodthirsty, and generally loyal to their captain.
Princess Tiger Lily – The beautiful young queen of the lost boy tribe.