To start off his blog, it is important for me to point out that I had never read Mary Poppins nor had I ever seen the movie. What I knew of Mary Poppins was the friendly image of Julie Andrews, the phrase and song “a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down”, and the song “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” I never really knew what this story or movie was about. I just knew that she was a nanny.
By many, Marry Poppins is seen as a children’s story, however, what many do not know is that this is mostly due to Disney and their Disneyification of the original story.
When I finally read the book, I was very surprised at the way Mary Poppins is portrayed. I never expected her to act the way she does in the original story. It seems to me that Disney created a Mary Poppins that was almost the opposite of what the original Mary Poppins was like. To describe the original Mary Poppins you could use words like vain, condescending, strict, prideful, self-assured, and often times rude. I guess in a way she still cared for the children but at the same time she also completely disregarded their feelings and even their wellbeing at times. For example, her vanity seems to always get the best of her when she passes by a window where she is able to see her reflection. Due to this, she will often stop outside a shop window and just stare at herself even when it meant that she was allowing the children she cared for to freeze outside in the cold.
I am not exactly sure why P.L. travers had Mary Poppins deny every fantastical adventure they encountered, which made the children completely confused and question their reality. I honestly think that these adventures, Mary Poppins’s denial of the magical adventures, and the way that Mary Poppins treats these children is going to completely mess with their minds or mental state in the future. The children don’t even seem to care about the way she treats them and never want her to leave. This is mostly due to the magic that Mary Poppins brings into their lives but not her actual personality. I am think that if Mary Poppins did not possess this magic, the children would not be able to tolerate her. However, I guess if I were to try to explain why P.L. Travers made it so that Mary Poppins denied the fantastical, I would say that she is making a comment about childhood and adulthood. She does this by sort of commenting on the ever curious and imaginative qualities of children. By Mary Poppins denying all of their magical adventures, it makes it seem as though the children just have incredibly overactive imaginations. As children, we are incredibly curious about the world around us, have overactive imaginations, and are incredible creativity. Then as we grow older and mature, we seem to lose these abilities. This message is especially clear in the chapter entitled, “John and Barbara’s Story.” In this chapter, John and Barbara are under the age of one. In the story, before the age of one, people seem to possess these abilities where they can understand the “language” of the wind, sunlight, trees, etc. The problem is that once they turn the age of one, they suddenly and unintentionally lose this unique ability. This applies to the same idea that as you grow older and mature, you seem to lose this imagination and innocence that you once possessed and instead try to rationalize everything. However, what is interesting is that Mary Poppins seems to be the one “Great Exception” that does not lose these childlike qualities. I do not really understand why that is.
Also I just want to point out that some of the “adventures” or stories were also just plain creepy or even disturbing at times.
Just by reading this book, you can tell that the target audience wasn’t exactly children or its hard to understand how this could be meant for children. Mary Poppins’s surprising rudeness, and the way she messed with the children’s minds does not seem as though it would appeal to children. P.L. Travers even confirms that he never had any intent to make this a story for children. However it isn’t exactly clear who is intended audience was. To P.L. Travers, you cannot really write a book specifically to children because there is no clear line between childhood and adulthood. He says, “You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book specifically for children for if you are honest — you have, in fact, no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins.” This was interesting to think about because I thought I always knew what was meant to be for children and what was meant to be for adults.
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