Pinocchio et Peter Pan : la tragédie de l’enfance

Pinocchio was written by Carlo Collodi in 1882-83. Peter Pan was created by James Matthew Barrie in 1904. This article proposes a reading of the adventures of the two heroes that goes beyond the usual moral and pedagogical analyses of these stories. The aim of this text is to show how these two characters embody the return to the mythical dimension of childhood, that is opposed to the loss of meaning in the industrial and bourgeois world, an opposition, unfortunately doomed to failure and that illustrates the tragedy of childhood.