In this lecture, given on Monday 15th December 2025, Dr Lucy Oulton (University of Chichester), Murdoch's enduring relationship with the figure of Peter Pan is discussed: her talk is titled '‘An Ousted Gabriel’: Iris Murdoch and the Enduring Allure of Peter Pan'

Wendy and Peter Pan, a stage adaptation of the J.M. Barrie novel Peter and Wendy, embraces a key detail from Barrie’s own childhood, dealing sensitively with the topic of child loss. The play foregrounds Wendy’s attempts to come to terms with the loss of a (third) brother, while her parents are overwhelmed by grief.

Iris Murdoch’s fascination with Peter Pan is well documented. Cheryl Bove and Anne Rowe observe that she ‘most heavily depends on the Peter Pan myth […] in relationships which lack warmth, connections and love’. My talk focuses on three of Murdoch’s fictional daughters who attempt to fathom their own circumstances in a shifting state of adolescence. I explore Murdoch’s ideation of the girls in relation to this cultural icon, and her incisive understanding of what it means to grow up.

Lucy is a Associate at the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester and her first monograph, Iris Murdoch’s Wild Imagination: Nature and the Environment was published earlier this year. She is an editor of the Iris Murdoch Review and has lectured intentionally on Murdoch’s life and work.