Coming into reading Mary Poppins, I was expecting a nice, kind lady with an umbrella that flew places. The latter was correct; unfortunately, the former wasn't. (I do remember that Mary Poppins was briefly mentioned in Guardians of the Galaxy 2.)
My first impression of Mary Poppins aligns with the agreed view in class, which is overly vain and self-interested, which is evidenced by Poppins' excessive mirror usage and outfit planning. When thinking about Mary Poppins as a witch, I can't bring myself to wrap my head around that idea because it doesn't seem like she has an intent to harm. I do agree that the magical powers may bring some to believe she is a witch, but she doesn't want to destroy the children or anything of the sort. At the beginning of the novel, Poppins was giving the children some sort of sweet remedy to put them to sleep, and I can’t help but imagine that this is some sort of hallucinogenic drug causing them to believe everything they’re seeing.
Based off Poppins’ life, and the whole fiasco with her father and mother being absent and she was acting like the mother figure for her little siblings, I believe I can see Travers as a Poppins in real life. The whole pessimistic and dark attitude of Poppins comes from Travers’ negative outlook on life; however, she still needed to be imaginative to take care of the children and help them enjoy their young lives. When thinking about why Poppins seemed to put down the notions that anything magical had occurred at the end of every chapter, it seems odd – but certainly, this must tie into the whole idea of the traumatic events of her childhood, and how maybe she doesn’t like remembering what happened? It is interesting to see Travers’ portrayal of children and adults in the story; the adults, for the most part, are completely absent in the children’s’ lives, similar to Travers’ life, and the children are the ones who seem to be learning and getting smarter. It’s interesting to me that the parents have no clue what the children are doing… which makes me wonder whether they even leave the house at all (maybe it is hallucinogens).
I believe the worst parts of the novel are when Poppins just up and leaves the household, leaving them for the worst. I wonder if she understands that when she leaves, the house becomes completely dysfunctional, without any hope of remedy. It’s interesting to me that even when she leaves, the children still want her to stay, which points me to believe that Poppins has some sort of good nature about her, even though it’ not entirely apparent. Sometimes it seems as though she is the one shutting down the fun that the children are having, when in fact it is her who is the one bolstering their joy and providing them with a source of happiness. Although I had mentioned that Poppins was a very self-interested figure, it seems pretty apparent that she was doing a wonderful job of parenting the children, even in the absence of their biological family.
I somewhat enjoyed both books – in the second book, the chapters got longer and longer, and there was room for more detail, but I feel like if a father or mother is reading a chapter a night to their children, the first book would be better. My favorite chapter was probably Robertson Ay’s story, but it did feel a tad dragged out. Overall, my final impressions about the novel were mostly positive. It is a wonderful book for children to read, aside from the rude and dark nature of Poppins.
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