Original artwork, not a still
Every time a child says, I don't believe in fairies, there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Barrie turns disbelief into a small crime with a victim, and a child reading the line feels it. It is the novel's version of an old idea, that magic survives only while people believe, and it sets up the clapping scene near the end. The sentence still turns up in debates about imagination and in countless stage and screen versions.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for Peter PanShow the scene
In Chapter 3, on the night Peter comes back to the Darling nursery for his shadow, Wendy has been quizzing him and he tells her where fairies come from: the first baby's laugh broke into a thousand pieces that skipped away and became fairies. There ought to be one for every child, Peter says, but children now know too much and stop believing, and each time one says so, a fairy somewhere falls down dead. Then he notices that Tinker Bell has gone quiet. She turns out to be shut in the chest of drawers, where he forgot her when he recovered his shadow.
Sources (1)
- Project Gutenberg, Peter Pan by J. M. BarrieChapter III, Come Away, Come Away!, the fairy conversationReference checked
Context reviewed
