Pleasure Island (Pinocchio)

The Land of Toys (Italian: Paese dei balocchi) is a fictional location in the Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883). It is disguised as a haven of freedom and anarchy for boys and occasionally girls. In the Disney film adaptation of the novel, the land is renamed as Pleasure Island. The size and nature of such location is unclear (the Disney adaptation depicts it as a large, island-sized amusement park, whereas the novel implies it is at least as large as a township); the ambiguity in the original name (paese can mean country or land, but also town or village) adds to the confusion. To its unsuspecting visitors, it appears to be a fantastic place where boys and girls can do whatever they want with no consequences or law. However, its real use is for a slave trade.

Located in the fictional land of Cocagne, Pleasure Island serves as a haven for wayward boys and girls, allowing them to act as they please without recrimination. However, the truer and more sinister purpose of Pleasure Island is eventually revealed as it begins to physically transform the boys and girls into donkeys, apparently by means of a curse.

The original take to the Land of Toys mixes the aspects of a morality tale with those of social critique. Children (depending upon the translation of the original Italian, the novel has included both boys and girls or only boys) are lured there by the promise of never having to go to school again and being able to spend their whole time having fun. In the novel, the ages of the children that are there are defined clearly as between the years eight to fourteen. Children there play hide-and-seek, whistle, watch puppets in canvas theatres, play shuttlecock, bounce on balls, trundle hoops and ride wooden horses, dress as characters, eat candy all day, and put on plays. They never have to do any work or learn anything, and the graffiti on all the walls is proof of that. Finally, after months of reckless abandonment, the true purpose of the land is revealed. As a result of their immodest behavior, and what is treated almost as a natural consequence, they become donkeys (in Italian culture, the donkey is symbolic of ignorance and stupidity).

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