Mary Poppins blows minds for a living: she leads the kids into trippy animated worlds, uses magic to clean up the nursery, and has an uncle who floats when he laughs. Oh, and she flies.
Naturally, a lot of eyes are bugging at this—when Ellen, the maid, first sees Mary slide up the banister, to the top of the stairs, she almost freaks out. But Mary isn't just a show off: she's using shock and awe for a purpose: to liven people and shake them out of their boring everyday sense of life.
By the time she's done with them, they're able to find new enjoyment in everyday activities—like flying a kite.
Questions about Awe and Amazement
- How do the characters relate to the magic Mary performs? How come it surprises some of them (like Michael) but not others (like Bert)?
- Why does Mary Poppins deny that the amazing things she does—like leading Jane and Michael into the chalk drawing world—happened?
- Why does Mary try to provoke awe and amazement in the children? How does it help her purposes?
Chew on This
Mary Poppins inspires awe in order to communicate wisdom and shock people into a greater awareness of themselves and what their situation in the world is.
The awe Mary Poppins inspires is actually inspired by the characters' own imaginations. That's why she denies that they ever participated in a horse race in a magical cartoon universe, when Michael reminds her that this happened—she's trying to make Michael look to his own imagination for amazement, not to magic.