Lost in translation : a postcolonial reading of Janice Honeyman’s Peter Pan

Abstract

This dissertation explores the ways in which Janice Honeyman’s 2007 Swashbuckling Adventure, Peter Pan, The Pantomime represents notions of nation and identity in post-apartheid South Africa. In order to accomplish this, this study argues that despite the carnivalesque elements of the genre of pantomime and its potential to subvert the status quo, Honeyman’s translation of Peter Pan reinforces the imperialist ideology embedded in the source texts of Barrie’s 1904 and Disney’s 1953 Peter Pan. Through an exploration of colonialism and imperialism, and postcolonial studies with specific reference to the works of Bhabha (1990, 1994), Anderson (1991) and Said (1979, 1994), this discussion follows an examination of white Victorian British masculinity and imperialist ideology as it applies to Peter Pan to support the argument that through a process of translation, achieved through the techniques of Disneyfication and double localisation, the Barrie and Disney texts have been translated from their original contexts into the South African postcolonial and post-apartheid context. The argument concludes that in doing so, Honeyman has neglected to provide counter-discourses to the imperialist ideologies in the source texts and has reinforced the racial and gender stereotypes found therein, supporting the colonial power axis of the original text and colonial re-presentations of identity and nation.