Mary Poppins

“And with that, she took from the empty bag a starched white apron and tied it round her waist.”

Mary Poppins, the new nanny, is unpacking her bag, but the bag is seemingly empty. This contradiction is only the first of many that characterize Mary Poppins and her interactions with the world around her. That Mary Poppins’s bag can be empty and full at the same time is indicative of the magic she possesses.

“Mary Poppins thought of the raspberry-jam cakes they always had on her Day Out, and she was just going to sigh, when she saw the Match-Man’s face.”

The author capitalizes the first letters of words contained in phrases that are meaningful to various characters in the book but ordinary to everyone else. Here, she capitalizes the words “day” and “out” as if they are proper nouns, because Mary Poppins’s Day Out is much more interesting than it initially seems; a day off from work is often a pedestrian event, full of errands and appointments, but for Mary Poppins, a day away from the children is full of excitement and magic.

‘“Don’t you know,’ she said pityingly, ‘that everybody’s got a Fairyland of their own?”’

Mary Poppins rarely speaks pityingly, and her tone, in fact, is often sharp and biting when she speaks to Jane and Michael. In this situation, Mary Poppins has just told Jane and Michael that she spent her day away from them in Fairyland; in many situations, an adult would talk about Fairyland as a topic with which to indulge a child’s interest, but in this situation, Mary Poppins is serious about her own visit to her own version of a magical place.

‘“How do you do,’ said Mr. Wigg, heartily shaking Michael by the hand. ‘I call this really friendly of you—bless my soul, I do! To come up to me since I couldn’t come down to you—eh?’”

During the fantastical visit to Mr. Wigg, the children learn that they can levitate by laughing, just like Mr. Wigg. Mr. Wigg, though he is ostensibly an adult, behaves and speaks in a completely un-adult manner, and his appreciative comment to Michael is evidence of Mr. Wigg’s child-like sensibility. Mr. Wigg’s gracious politeness heightens the absurdity of the situation.

“To this day Jane and Michael cannot be sure of what happened then. All they know for certain is that, as soon as Mr. Wigg had appealed to Mary Poppins, the table below began to wriggle on its legs.”

Jane and Michael aren’t sure exactly Mary Poppins causes the table to levitate. Travers cultivates this disorienting feeling in the narrative to allow her audience an opportunity to experience the situation as a child might, without rational explanation nor understanding.

“They said nothing, for they had learnt that it was better not to argue with Mary Poppins, no matter how odd anything seemed.”

Though Mary Poppins is a magical person who takes childish topics like Fairyland seriously, she is not a warm and gentle person. Jane and Michael quickly understand that challenging Mary Poppins only creates problems because she does not welcome their comments or questions; in fact, Mary Poppins often behaves as if she does not like children, despite her role as their caretaker.

“For in his secret, innermost heart, Andrew longed to be a common dog. He never passed his pedigree (which hung on the wall in Miss Lark’s drawing room) without a shudder of shame.”

Andrew’s reluctance to accept and embrace his pedigree is a thinly veiled commentary on class. Andrew’s shame is ironic because the source of his shame is the source of Miss Lark’s pride. Because Andrew finds his aristocratic, privileged life boring and dull, his wish to be a common dog is a wish for the freedom to explore his own wants and desires.

“‘Good gracious, my dear!’ my Mother said to her. ‘You don’t suppose that only one star ever fell out of the sky! Billions fall every night, I’m told. But they fall in different places, of course. You can’t expect two stars to drop in the field in one lifetime.’”

Mary Poppins explains the relationship between the cow and her mother in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, suggesting that such relationships between animals and humans are commonplace. Mary Poppins likely acquired her pragmatic attitude toward magic from her mother, who also understands magic from a practical point of view.

“And for the first time in his life Michael entirely bathed himself. He knew by this that he was in disgrace, and he purposely neglected to wash behind his ears.”

When Michael wakes up feeling naughty, he deliberately makes trouble for himself and others, and pushes his naughtiness to extremes. This inexplicable defiance is an authentic experience for many children.

“And all the time he was enjoying his badness, hugging it to him as though it were a friend, and not caring a bit.”

Michael, who is typically a cheerful and reasonable child, is reveling in his “badness” and taking pleasure in this unusual indulgence. Michael’s feelings of negativity are not abnormal; in fact, some adults might acknowledge feeling this kind of mood on a regular basis. This chapter explores Michael’s “badness” thoroughly, debunking the myth of the idealized and unrealistic well-behaved child often popular in children’s literature.

“He felt peaceful and happy, and as if he would like to give everybody he knew a birthday present.”

Like a lot of children and adults who have a bad day, Michael experiences the mood passing him by as the day ends. The author communicates the sense of peacefulness and benevolence in terms that both a child and an adult can understand: the impulse to do something nice as a gesture of goodwill and inner peace.

“Every time she stopped to make sure, Jane and Michael would sigh, but they did not dare say anything for fear she would spend even longer looking at herself in the windows, and turning this way and that to see which attitude was the most becoming.”

Mary Poppins routinely looks at her reflections in windows. Her interest in her appearance suggests vanity but also a curiosity about her own existence in general. Mary Poppins is a magical figure; she looks like an adult, but she is different, and her interest in her reflection may have to do with her own need to understand herself as different from others.

‘“You sparrer!’ cried Mary Poppins, and shook her umbrella at him.”

Mary Poppins shakes her umbrella threateningly at a sparrow, pronouncing the word “sparrow” in a noteworthy way. In Britain, people’s accents reveal their origins; high-class accents sound posh, or fancy, while the lower classes speak in a way sometimes described as rough or coarse. Mary Poppins’s accent while addressing the sparrow reveals that her origins, at least the ones related to her manner of speaking, may differ from her polished exterior.

‘“Oh, really? I thought it was the other way round,’ said Mary Poppins with a scornful laugh.”

Mary Poppins’s scornful laugh, her derisive tone, and her sarcastic manner towards Jane and Michael challenge her image as a magical person who has access to fantastical worlds. Often, such magical characters appear benevolent and friendly to children; when magical characters are sinister, they are overtly threatening. Mary Poppins, on the other hand, is erratic, suggesting that her otherworldliness is truly unusual and that she really is one-of-a-kind.

‘“Anything you give them, Mrs. Corry, could only do them good,’ said Mary Poppins with most surprising courtesy.”

Jane and Michael are surprised by Mary Poppins’s unexpected politeness towards Mrs. Corry. In keeping with the magical tone of the story, the author provides no explanation for Mary Poppins’s deferential tone. It is understood and accepted that Mrs. Corry has an extremely harsh way with her daughters and an exceptionally comfortable way with the stars that she and the other women fix onto the night sky.

‘“What I want to know, she said, ‘is this: Are the stars gold paper or is the gold paper stars?’”

Jane’s simple question demonstrates the appealing quality of children who do not possess the adult impulse to analyze situations they cannot understand. Though Jane has just observed a remarkable thing when she sees Mary Poppins and Mrs. Corry fixing stars to the sky, Jane’s curiosity is around one simple idea regarding the stars themselves. Jane’s question underscores how the apparently simple ideas of a child may be more complex than an adult’s.

‘“Chatter, chatter, chatter! I never heard such a place for chatter. There’s always somebody talking in this room,’ said a shrill voice at the window.”

The voice at the nursery’s window, where the infant twins John and Barbara spend most of their time, belongs to the Starling. The bird comments on the chattiness of the babies, who have an ability to communicate with birds, the wind, the sunshine, and other elements of nature, like Mary Poppins herself. The Starling can understand the babies, and vice versa. Ironically, the adults in the book cannot understand the babies, a phenomenon that suggests that all humans have the potential for magic.

‘“You’ll forget because you just can’t help it. There never was a human being that remembered after the age of one—at the very latest—except, of course, Her.’ And he jerked his head over his shoulder at Mary Poppins.”

While talking with the infant twins, the Starling explains that babies under the age of one, like John and Barbara themselves, have an ability to communicate that disappears once they get older. Worse, no one can remember the time during which they were able to communicate with nature, except Mary Poppins. This revelation underscores just how exceptional Mary Poppins is.

‘“It’ll seem so funny without them, though. Always liked talking to them—so I did. I shall miss them.’”

The Starling speaks with Mary Poppins of John and Barbara’s inevitable loss of communication. His mournful tone indicates that he appears to have genuinely enjoyed the babies’ company and their conversation, but when the Starling expresses his sadness over the change to come, Mary Poppins mocks him. This negativity on the part of Mary Poppins may disguise her own sadness, or it may reflect a pragmatic attitude towards non-magical beings who must grow up eventually and lose any magic they may have once had.

“Animals were running about on all the paths, sometimes accompanied by birds and sometimes alone. Two wolves ran past the children, talking eagerly to a very tall stork who was tiptoeing between them with dainty, delicate movements.”

When Mary Poppins rouses Jane and Michael from their beds, they are surprised to find themselves at the zoo under a full moon. The animals, all anthropomorphized, appear comical with their human characteristics; these changes suggest a political and/or social meaning, but the changes are also very interesting to the children from a magical point of view. Thanks to Mary Poppins and perhaps their condition of being children, Jane and Michael are able to witness the change, which suggests they still possess some capacity for magic.

“Jane and Michael had a good view of what was happening, through a gap between a panther and a dingo. Bottles of milk were being thrown in to the babies, who made soft little grabs with their hands and clutched them greedily. The older children snatched sponge cakes and doughnuts from the forks and began to eat ravenously.”

This description of human babies and children in cages is satirical because humans take the position of confined zoo animals. The author pokes fun at zoos, where animal behaviors are on display for human entertainment. Because the zoo functions as a metaphor for other elements of society that function as traps or cages, like the class system, the author draws attention here to the folly of living by such rigid standards.

‘“The same stuff composes us—the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star—we are all one, all moving to the same end.’”

When Jane speaks hesitantly to the hamadryad of her surprise that groups of seemingly natural enemies can socialize together without risk of violence, the hamadryad imparts this sage message to her. His message to her is an overarching message of the book: Everyone and everything is equal when death and decomposition await. For this reason, social hierarchies are utterly meaningless.

“Maia looked at the gloves, hanging very large and almost empty upon her hands. She said nothing, but moving close to Mary Poppins she reached up her spare arm and put it round Mary Poppin’s neck and kissed her.”

When Mary Poppins gifts Maia, the second-eldest of the Pleiades, her fur-lined gloves, Maia is delighted, as evidenced by her affectionate gesture towards Mary Poppins. Maia has selected a number of Christmas gifts to give, and when Michael wonders out loud how she will pay for them, Maia announces that Christmas time is not for paying for things, but for giving things away. This reminder inspires Mary Poppins to give away her own treasured gloves to the celestial child.