Opinion Question #3

[Prof. Gustavo Flores]

Remember that this option can give you up to 10 points of Assignment or Extra Credit. From the Class Website, please answer the following:

Neverland is considered the place of eternal childhood. If you enter and decide to stay then you won’t grow up and everything will be fun and games, and you can forget about any kind of responsibilities! Sounds tempting right? Now, taking into account what we just discussed, please answer:

If you had the opportunity to travel to Neverland, would you decide to stay and refuse to grow up? Or would you be like Wendy and visit the land for a little while but then come back home?

There is no right or wrong answer, just please explain your reasoning and theory. At least 100 words for full marks.

[Gail Allen]

I think I would choose like Wendy and eventually return home. Abdication of responsibility is lovely and truly tempting at times, but I also think there is an argument to be made for actually growing up at some point. I'd probably draw out childhood longer than it is in the real world, but I would eventually wish to become an adult. Because with it also comes a much deeper understanding of things and a joy in that, that I wouldn't want to miss. So while it would be nice being able to lay down responsibility at times, I also enjoy my adult life too much to want to give up on it.

[Siobhan Sullivan]

If I had the opportunity to travel to Neverland, I don’t think I would stay. As Gail mentioned, it’s nice to think about leaving all your responsibilities behind and not having any worries, but in the end, I would choose to come back to Mainland. Neverland is full of fun and interesting places and there is the somewhat thrilling possibility of “danger” from either the pirates or some jealous fairy or mermaid, but I also believe that there are some fun and interesting places here on Mainland as well. Growing into an adult is a natural process, and I would choose to enjoy it and take the experiences of my life with me, bills, worries, and all. I especially enjoy traveling and want to see as much as I possibly can for as long as I can. So, though there are places to see in Neverland, there are also places to see here and I’d rather have the chance at both.

[Prof. Kendra Givens]

I feel like I would love to have Neverland as an escape, but would not like to stay there. Given the high stress of adult life, I think the escapism would be lovely after a bad day. "'Hey, I'm going to take a weekend in Neverland to hang out with the mermaids and pirates" sounds like an AMAZING vacation, but then there can be drama there too that would get old after being there for a long time. Even though childhood is seen as "carefree", I do enjoy adulthood for the wisdom, growth, and freedom I have now. I enjoy having things I know I'm responsible for and have a role in developing, and I think I'd be bored of spinning my wheels in Neverland after enough time there.

[Niamh Cassidy]

I would follow Wendy's example and visit Neverland for a while before returning home. It's nice to have no responsibilities for a little while, but before too long I think that would start to get old for me. If you do nothing but have fun all day every day, sooner or later even the most fun things might start to feel boring. And eventually even someplace like Neverland is bound to have a crisis of some sort, which would force all those eternal children to grow up anyway, at least for a little while. Once you've had any kind of responsibility (as Wendy would have, as the oldest child who was expected to help look after her siblings) then you can't truly go back to childhood anyway.

[Prof. Alexander Brighton]

It's very tempting. If I had the opportunity to travel to Neverland, i think I would stay or at least stay for as long as I could. Growing up is hard, so It would be awesome to be able to run through Neverland and not have to worry about becoming an adult, be a kid forever. Of course, if I was going to stay, then I would take my animals with me. I can't imagine staying without them by my side, they're my friends. But I know I would miss my family so I would see if a fairy could help me fly so I could go visit them. Being in Neverland, I wouldn't have to worry about bullies in my school or the adult bullies in work places after becoming an adult. All of that is why I would stay. I would see if my whole family could move to Neverland, then I won't miss them and they can see what it's like then they might like not having to worry about adult stuff. If my family couldn't move there, I may eventually move home, we'll see.

[Prof. Sky Alton]

I definitely wouldn’t want to stay in Neverland forever. While the adventurer and creative in me would have loved the chance to roam around it for a while (maybe a long while), I think the lack of consequences would probably have driven even the child me to distraction. I love to spend my time in fantasy worlds but I also love the freedom to leave them, put them away and experience something simpler. I had the type of childhood that people reckon ‘makes you grow up fast’. I’m not sure whether it’s true or not but it probably would have compromised my joy in a place like Neverland after a while. I like things to be real and to progress, rather than to hide from the sadness and loss in life. After all, there was always a deep melancholia at the heart of the original book that made the adventures ring slightly false for me: as though you were constantly running from something far worse than the pirates. So, while I’d love to charge around Neverland for a bit, indulging in all sorts of quests and fun, I’d definitely need to come back. After all, ‘It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live’.