Because I’ve been thinking a lot about George Darling lately, one of the parallels with Hook that I don’t often see discussed is the role of medicine/poison in the book (and some musical versions). Part of George’s introduction involves him pretending to take his medicine to encourage Michael to take his. This deception is followed up by his tricking Nana into drinking a bit of the medicine in her bowl, thinking it’s milk. Then we get to Hook, who tries more than once to make use of poison to kill the kids. The first time (which the book does not specify as being poison but which musical versions often do) is via trying to trick the kids into eating a cake left by the lagoon, paralleling George’s tricking Nana. The second time, Hook tries to poison Peter via his “medicine” that Wendy leaves out for him, knowing that like a good little boy, Peter will obey his mother and take the medicine…this paralleling George’s incident with the medicine with Michael in which George knows Michael will actually take his meds even if he—the adult—doesn’t.
I’m not sure exactly what is being conveyed with this particular parallel but it’s intriguing. There is likely something there about poison typically being considered a coward’s weapon (not personal, very sneaky) and George not being brave enough to take his medicine even though he expects his son to. I don’t like pointing this out, admittedly, because I love Hook and have a soft spot for George but that may have been Barrie’s intent.
