Prismatic Reflection

Never Never Land

    The definition of "Never never land" is an imaginary and wonderful place, a fantasy land. In the poem the never-Never Country by Henry Lawson {1906}

           "Called the Never-Never, the Maluka loved to say, because they who have loved in it and loved it Never-Never voluntarily leave it."

    And of course the best use is in J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan 1904.

    Wendy: where do you live?

    Peter: With the lost boys. They are the children who fall out of their prams when the nurse is looking the other way. if they are not claimed in seven days they are sent far away to the Never Land.

   "When Peter Pan was very little he ran away from the human world, and lived with the fairies in the Never Never Never Land."

    And so it appears that Number 2 of ‘Dance of the Dead’ seems very apt in her costume of Peter Pan, in this 'never-never land' of the Village. Although there seems to be nothing very wonderful about it, especially if you are a Prisoner there, left unclaimed, in what appears to be a fantasy land conjured up in the mind of one man, allegorically speaking of course.

   And Number 2, her Elfin looks complimented by her Peter Pan costume, of a boy who never grew up. Who would sooner run away to live with the fairies, perhaps that is what the Prisoner did. Preferring his fantasy village to that of the real world. Because the situation the Prisoner has found himself in seems like a dream. even though he is described as being mad by Number 2, the Prisoner still wished to hold onto his dream. His dream of the village, or the world he dreams of, the world beyond that of the village? Though many of the village's inmates would, like 'Never-Never,' voluntarily leave it.

    Yet there is beauty in the village, attractive girls as in the No.6's personal maid, and the beauty of the village itself, the decorative costumes worn by its citizens, of clowns, mannequins, historical, and figures of the theatre and fancy dress of all kinds. There is the Carnival festivity about the village, as there had previously been with the 'Mardi Gras' atmosphere during the celebrations of 'Seedlearn' of ‘The General,’ which for Number 6 turns into a nightmare trial, and the Carnival atmosphere into a malevolent setting that is the ‘Dance of the Dead.’

The village - one man's utopia, another man's - living nightmare!

 Be seeing you.