Peter Pan
The figure of Peter Pan as the boy who refuses to grow up - invoked as an image of emotional or developmental arrest. In Taylor's writing, the Peter Pan figure stands for the partner who cannot or will not mature, whose shadow (growth, self-reflection) has escaped him, and whose inability to grow up dooms the relationship.
Developmental arrest and the refusal to mature: the partner who remains adolescent while the speaker grows up. The shadow's escape carries the additional weight of lost self-reflection and stunted growth. Connected to the Wendy figure who must eventually close the window and move on.
Appears in 1 song
“Peter losing Wendy, I”
James as Peter Pan, the partner who refuses or cannot grow up. The line is the poem's clearest argument about why the relationship cannot work: Peter stays a boy, Wendy grows up, and Wendy must eventually close the window. The Peter Pan figure carries the doubled charge of the partner's developmental arrest and the speaker's recognition that maturation is something she has done and he has not.