The opening scene of Peter Pan continues to offer a glimpse of the middle class, particularly in terms of the negotiation of gender. The action of the play begins with the Darling children pretending to be their parents. Says John to his mother, "We are doing an act; we are playing at being you and father- (89), as if gender roles are performed. John and Wendy's rehearsal of their parents seems like a recurring part of the dynamic of the family, so that Mr Darling's entrance and his petulant demand that his wife fix his tie read like an extension of the role playing: as the children play their parents, so the father plays his child. Says Mr Darling to his wife, "I warn you, Mary, that unless this tie is round my neck we don't go out to dinner to-night, and if I don't go out to dinner to-night I never go to the office again, and if I don't go to the office again you and I starve, and our children will be thrown into the streets- (91). Given that the audience does not have access to the stage directions while they watch the play, and given that Mr Darling does later self-consciously play his son, the audience might be forgiven for seeing Mr Darling as entering the spirit of the domestic scene by "playing along."" The stage directions suggest that it would be a misreading to see Mr Darling as naturally given to the sulks and resentful of others being the centre of attention:.
Mr Darling arrives, in no mood unfortunately to gloat over this domestic scene. He is really a good man as breadwinners go, and it is hard luck for him to be propelled into the room now, when if we had brought him in a few minutes earlier or later he might have made a fairer impression. In the city where he sits on a stool all day, as fixed as a postage stamp, he is so like all the others on stools that you recognise him not by his face but by his stool, but at home the way to gratify him is to say that he has a distinct personality.
