Monday, February 22, 2016

Context, Terminology, Themes, and the Puzzles with Paradox

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Mary Poppins takes place in England in the early 1900s, a time very different from our own. This period of time was known as the Edwardian era. During the Edwardian era parenting was more of a formal experience as opposed to a relationship. Families that were moderately well off would most often hire a nanny and other staff that would assume responsibility for raising the children. This meant that the children would either be visited frequently, or seen almost never at all, depending on the parents.

TERMINOLOGY

Alexander the Great, William the Conquerer, and Vlad the Impaler: Historical figures with many important achievements in their lives; suffice it to say that theu were around a long time ago )as far back as 356 BCE), making Mrs. Corry as old as history.

Barley Water:  A sort of tea made by boiling barley; traditionally consumed by pregnant women and older ladies for its health benefits and as an alternative to alcoholic beverages. Michael's request seem to have less to do with barley water's unpleasant smell than his desire for a younger nanny (one, say, with Mary Poppins's youthful energy).

Blighters: People you look at with dislike, annoyance, or pity.

Bloody: A British curse word, considered vulgar.
 

Brimstone and Treacle: A medicine commonly used in Victorian times (a clue as to how old Miss Andrew is!), Brimstone is another name for sulphur; treacle is a crystallized syrup made during the refining of sugar. The molasses has a distinctively strong, slightly bitter flavors. Traditionally a medicinal mixture used as an antidote to poisons, including snakebites.

Castor Oil: Used to treat constipation; tastes similar to how any cooking oil would when drunk straight.

Cod-Liver Oil: A supplement high in Vitamins A and D, which comes from the lives of cod fish. Given to children because Vitamin D's usefulness in preventing rickets, a disease of the bones.

Creed: A system of belief.

Doff: To take off; as in an item of clothing.

Druids: An ancient Celtic people.

Forbearance: Patient self-control; restraint.

Gasworks: An industrial plant for the production of flammable gas; since lighting a match (to smoke a cigarette) near there would cause an explosion, Mrs. Brill seems to be saying she doesn't think much of Robertson Ay's usefulness in the kitchen.

Gruel: A type of cereal (oat, wheat, or rye flour; or rice) boiled in water or milk; a thinner version or porridge. There are many other things Michael would rather eat than this.

Halitotious: a play on the word "halitosis," a symptom in which a noticeably unpleasant odor is present on the exhaled breath.

Hallmark: defining aspect.

Heirloom: A family possession passed from generation to generation.

Lark: A source of amusement or adventure. Also, a type of bird, such as the caged one that Miss Andrew brings with her when she visits Cherry Tree Lane in Act 2.

Larval: Meaning "in the form of larva" with "larva" being the juvenile form of many creatures (including caterpillars and butterflies) take before they turn into adults.

Lead: A leash.

Lummy: An expression of surprise or interest.

Monoliths: Towering slabs of carved stone erected by druids for use in their rituals.

Needs must: An expression used when discussing something you must do, but would rather not.

Neleus: a character form Greek Mythology; the son of Poseidon (God of the sea) and Tyro (a Greek princess). Neleus and his twin brother, Pelias, were abandoned by their parents.

Plinth: The heavy base used to support a statue.

Pressing your advantage: Ising an available opportunity to get ahead.

Rack and ruin: Complete destruction.

Rococococious: a play on the word "Rococo," an eighteenth century artistic period characterized by its elegance and, as Mary Poppins suggests, its flourishes.

Roman Empire: The vast ancient empire built by Julius Caesar, which eventually grew too large to effectively manage or protect and collapsed, r "entered the abyss."

Screever: Someone who draws pictures on sidewalks for money.

Snuffed Aborning: If a flame is snuffed aborning, it is put out while it is just being produced, or born.

Spit-spot: An expression like "chip-chop;" basically hurry up.

"Swing for you and sing as they pull the lever": Mrs. Brill is threatening to kill Robertson Ay and says she'd be happy to suffer the consequences; "they pull the lever" refers to being hanged, which was the punishment for murder at the time. 

Tommy rot: nonsense; ridiculousness.

A Touch of the Cat and a Night on the Yardarm: Originally deriving from pirate lingo, "a touch of the cat" refers to a lashing from a whip with nine lashes used for flogging. It could refer to a full flogging, or just a single blow to "smarten up" a recalcitrant hand; The yardarm refers to the main arm across the mast of a ship which holds up the sail. It was one of the most vulnerable targets in combat, and is also a favorite place from which to hang prisoners or enemies.


Weather vane: An instrument for showing the direction of the wind that is typically placed on the highest point of a building.





A FEW OF THE MAJOR THEMES

The themes behind the mysterious and wonderful tales of Mary Poppins are the reason her story has endured for so long. Beneath the magic and adventures are lessons and love that warm hearts and help is to begin to truly believe that, "Anything Can Happen," as Mary sings at the end of the musical. These ext few themes are some of the most prominent to think about while working through our rehearsals.

Truth vs. Fiction

After many of their adventures with Mary, the Banks children will ask, "Did that really happen?" Mary frequently berates them for such silly talk, leaving the children stumped. While this may seem strange and even rude at first, Mary is simply trying to prepare the children for the future. As adults no one will tell Jane and Michael what is true and what is not; they will have to make those decisions for themselves. Will they be able to believe in magic when they are older? Perhaps this is Mary's way of trying to keep that belief alive in the face of the "real world."

Family

Mary does not descend into the lives of the Banks family in order be a replacement parent or to make their problems disappear. She says herself that she will stay, "until the wind changes/until the chain breaks." Instead, she comes to bring the Banks family closer together. Husband, wife, and children- all three parties are distant from one another for different reasons. Mary reminds them of what should be most important to each of them- their relationship to each other.

Looking Beyond Appearances

The Banks children say their parents wouldn't approve of Bert because he is "dirty" and Jane calls the Bird-woman a "bundle of rags." Mary asks, "When will you learn to look beyond what you see?" Mary constantly challenges the children not to judge situations or people based on hoe they appear, showing them that magic is often hiding where you least expect it.

Child Inside All of Us

Through several characters, we see amazing changes when they allow their heart to follow their dreams and desires and not getting too caught up in the rules life entangles up into. We learn (along with Mr. Banks, The Park Keeper, etc.) the child still lives within all of us, and one must give into the childish pleasures of enjoying the simple play of life. Flying a kite is a wonderful metaphor in that sense.
__________________________________________________________ 



Mary Poppins and the Puzzle of Paradox


Originally printed in the January-February 2004 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Vachet, Helene. “Marry Poppins and the Puzzles of Paradox.” Quest  92.1 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2004):28-33.


Mary Poppins is probably the most famous nanny in history. She arrives out of nowhere to apply for a position with the Banks family and is hired on the spot, without references. Mary Poppins is able to evoke in others a recognition of truth, especially in Mr. Banks, who says that she paid them a signal honor by coming to their house. The lesson Mary Poppins teaches is to use our intuition, to look within, to find the truth. This theme continues throughout the stories, particularly in adventures involving the two older Banks children, Michael and Jane. Mary Poppins almost always denies that anything unusual happened, in order to make them think. Likewise, each adventure has an encrypted, paradoxical message to make the reader look within.
The Mystery of Expectations
Going upstairs to see the nursery, Mary Poppins rides up the banister of the staircase, going against gravity. Only the children notice this phenomenon; Mrs. Banks does not. What is the meaning of riding up the banister? Obviously, this establishes Mary Poppins as a person with magical powers and is a preview of the greater magic to follow.

Once in the nursery, Mary Poppins begins to unpack. The children have looked in her suitcase and found it empty, but Mary Poppins takes out “seven flannel nightgowns, a pair of boots, a set of dominoes, two bathing-caps, a postcard album and, last of all, came a folding camp bedstead complete with blankets and an eiderdown, all to the wonder and amazement of the children.” This story illustrates the paradox of expectations: When you expect big things to happen, you get nothing; but when you expect nothing, you get everything. Mary Poppins herself, presents a paradox. Her looks are unremarkable. She is certainly no beauty; she is plain like a Dutch doll. Her role in life is also not powerful—she is a nanny. Caroline Myss, noted medical intuitive, calls paradox the language of the Divine. She says in Spiritual Power, Spiritual Practice that “small is big and big is small—Heaven speaks to us in paradox.”

Pamela L. Travers, the Discoverer of Mary Poppins
My encounter with Mary Poppins began with the Disney movie starring the truly magical Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins, Dick Van Dyke as Bert the chimney sweep, Glynis Johns as Mrs. Banks, and the great David Tomlinson as Mr. Banks. The movie was delightful, but gave no inkling of the real magic of the universe embedded in the stories. To find that mystery, one has to read the books by Pamela L. Travers. Yet somehow Mary Poppins was not part of my childhood reading. It was not until 2002, when I was asked to review A Lively Oracle: A Centennial Celebration of P. L. Travers, Creator of Mary Poppins, thatI became intrigued with the character of Mary Poppins and with Travers, who said that she didn’t create Mary Poppins, but discovered her.

Travers was born of Irish descent in the outback of Australia in 1899. Early in life, she became aware of her gift of storytelling and would entertain her brother and sisters with tales that she created. After a brief career on the stage in Sydney, she went to Ireland, where she wrote for the Irish Statesman and befriended A. E. (George Russell), the famous Irish poet and Theosophist. She became an intimate part of a literary circle composed of W. B. Yeats, Padraic Colum, James Stephens, Lady Gregory, George Bernard Shaw, and others. Later she moved to England and wrote for the New English Weekly. There her circle of friends expanded to include A. R. Orage, P. D. Ouspensky and G. I. Gurdjieff. Meanwhile, W. B. Yeats translated the Upanishads, which was to have a profound influence on Travers, as did Hindu mythology and Buddhism, the lore of the Navajo Indians, and Jungian psychology. Travers wrote numerous poems and articles for well-known journals (later in life, she wrote mainly Jungian articles for Parabola magazine) as well as books, among which are seven Mary Poppins stories produced between 1934 and 1988.

The Meaning of Paradox
Mary Poppins, one could say, resembles a guardian angel, daimon, or cosmic being who comes from time to time to visit Earth. She never settles with the Banks family for very long, but while she is there, she teaches the family, primarily the children, about the deeper meaning of life. She does this through magical outings with the children during the day or at night when the children dream or wake up and seem to leave their room. Joseph Campbell wrote that we must follow our bliss and that to do this, we must put ourself at risk and doors will open. In the Mary Poppins stories, the children follow their bliss, always putting themselves seemingly at risk, and the universe opens for them and, vicariously, for us.

What intrigues me is the interpretation of these adventures. Their meaning is embedded in paradox,like a Zen koan or the wonderful stories of the Upanishads, part of the sacred mythology of India. Rohit Mehta, the Indian and Theosophical scholar, writes in The Call of the Upanishads that “A paradox is the placing of two opposites in juxtaposition. There is no solution to a paradox, a paradox can only be resolved or more truly dissolved” (p.12). Mehta explains that to reconcile a paradox, we must see the two opposites existing in the same place and at the same time. Since the human mind cannot conceive of this, he says, we finally reach a field of nothingness because the two opposites have canceled each other out, leaving nothing. “It is out of this nothingness, out of this negativity that a positive experience is born” and we are able to reconcile the opposites. Again and again in Mary Poppins, Travers asks the question: What will the resolution be when the opposites meet?

The Symbolism of the East Wind
The first chapter of the Mary Poppins series, “East Wind,” explains how she arrives at number seventeen Cherry Tree Lane. Mary Poppins first appears as a shape, “tossed and bent under the wind.” Twoof the Banks children, Jane and Michael, notice that the shape is carried by the air and flung at the gate,then lifted by the wind and carried to the front door. Later, Michael Banks says to Mary Poppins, “You’ll never leave us, will you?” Mary Poppins replies, “I’ll stay till the wind changes.” In other stories, she descends from the sky riding a kite or her parrot-headed umbrella.
What is the significance of the sky and wind bringing Mary Poppins to Cherry Tree Lane and determining the duration of her sojourn there? This reference is reminiscent of a passage from The Voice of the Silence by H. P. Blavatsky, a treatise derived from The Book of the Golden Precepts, studied by mystical students in the East. In fragment forty, the text says, “’Tis only then thou canst become a ‘Walker of the Sky’ who treads the winds above the waves, whose step touches not the waters”(p. 9). The glossary excerpt for this fragment refers to this siddhi, or spiritual power, as being a “sky-walker” wherein “the body of the yogi becomes as one formed of the wind; as a cloud from which limbs have sprouted out,” after which the yogi “beholds the things beyond the seas and stars; he hears the language of the devas and comprehends it and perceives what is passing in the mind of the ant” (p. 77). Known as the Great Exception, this aptly describes the powers of Mary Poppins, meaning in this context that she has gone beyond the evolution of humanity and her life now stands in contrast to those who have not yet reached this stage.

Discerning the Nature of Free Will
In the chapter entitled, “John and Barbara’s Story,” a starling, a wise bird, visits the nursery at Cherry Tree Lane and communes with Mary Poppins and the babies, John and Barbara. Through their conversation, we become aware that the babies, the starling, and Mary Poppins understand the language of the wind, the stars, and the sunlight. However, the starling laments that the children will soon forget everything about where they came from. The children, of course, vehemently protest. Soon, however, they do forget.

This theme is explored further in the chapter entitled, “The New One” in Mary Poppins Comes Back. When the baby Annabel is born, the starling makes another visit, and he turns somersaults on the windowsill, clapping his wings wildly together each time his head comes up. “What a treat!” he pants, when at last he stands up straight. (Now he had someone to whom he could speak again.) The starling asks Annabel to tell the fledgling that accompanies him to tell where she came from:
“I am earth and air and fire and water,” she said softly. “ I come from the Dark where all things have their beginnings. I come from the sea and its tides, I come from the sky and its stars, I come from the sun and its brightness—and I come from the forest of earth. Slowly, I moved at first always sleeping and dreaming. I remembered all I had been and I thought of all I shall be. And when I had dreamed my dream I awoke and came swiftly. I heard the stars singing as I came and I felt warm wings about me. I passed the beasts of the jungle and came through the dark, deep waters.” “It was a long journey! A long journey indeed!” said the starling softly, lifting his head from his breast. “And ah, so soon forgotten!”
This episode is reminiscent of the soul’s encounter with the river Lethe in Greek mythology. Thesouls of the dead bathe there before they are born, so they will not remember their previous history and choices made before birth (karma) until their life is over. If we knew what happened in past lives with the people we know in the present, we might avoid these people and many of life’s experiences. How can we operate with free will and choice if we know our sacred contracts, asks Caroline Myss, author of Sacred Contracts. In The Secrets of Dr. Traverner, Diane Fortune, the occult fiction writer of the early twentieth century, wrote about a character who refused to come completely into her body because she knew her fate and was afraid to face it. This presents the paradox that from ignorance we exercise free will; from knowledge we forfeit our right to choose.

Exploring Moon Magic at the Zoo
One day Michael mentions to Mary Poppins that he wonders what happens at the zoo at night. After the children are put in bed that night, a disembodied voice calls to Michael and Jane and tells them to get dressed and leads them to the zoo. There everything is the opposite of the usual: the animals run the zoo, the people are in cages, and all of the animals coexist in perfect accord. Although the lion that the children encounter says that he is the king, the real king is a hamadryad, a huge hooded snake that Mary Poppins calls “cousin.” This evening is an occasion for the meeting and the resolution of opposites, ostensibly because Mary Poppins’s birthday fell on the full moon. The climax of the activity was the grand chain when all of the animals circle around Mary Poppins in dance. The hamadryad escorts the children to the dance, and he gives Mary Poppins a snakeskin as her birthday present. The next day, she wears it as a belt, proving to the children that the adventure was real.

What lesson was Travers trying to convey with this story? The idea of rebirth may be demonstrated bythe imagery of both the moon and the serpent, the former having phases and the latter shedding its skin.The moon dies with each cycle and is resurrected anew. The snake sheds its skin and is renewed as life is renewed by the progeny of each generation.

Another aspect of the story is reflected in Mary Poppins calling the hamadryad “cousin.” Heinrich Zimmer, the great German scholar of Eastern religions and their iconography, explains that in South India, a nagini or naga (snake deity) in the family tree gives it greater importance. It is believed in Indian mythology that nagas are genii, guardian spirits, considered to be superior to humans, and they are renowned for their cleverness and charm. They traditionally wear a precious jewel in their heads, and they dwell in resplendent palaces studded with gems and pearls at the bottoms of rivers, lakes, and seas. They are the keepers of the life energy, he says, that is stored in the earthly waters of springs, wells, and ponds as well as being the guardians of the riches of the deep sea: corals, shells, and pearls.

The story of Nagarjuna is a favorite of both Heinrich Zimmer and the noted Theosophist Joy Mills. When the Buddha began teaching his doctrine of nirvana, he soon realized that humankind was not prepared to fully accept his doctrine of the void. They shrank from the implications of his vision. Therefore, he entrusted the deeper interpretation of his doctrines to the nagas, who were told to safeguard it until people were ready to understand. It wasn’t until seven centuries had passed that the great sage Nagarjuna, Arjuna of the Nagas, was born. He was initiated by the serpent kings into the “truth that all is void.” He brought to humanity the full-fledged Buddhist teachings of the Mahayana which illustrate the paradox of emptiness being full and fullness being empty.

Buddhist scholar Malcolm David Eckel says that the verses of Nagarjuna can be interpreted to mean that emptiness is a state of awareness, not just a state of being. However, a most intriguing resolution was demonstrated by Don Campbell, author of The Mozart Effect, at the Theosophical Society in the Ojai Valley. He filled a metal cup with miscellaneous objects from his pocket and then hit it with a gong. The resulting sound was faint and muffled. When he hit the empty cup with the gong, the sound that resulted was a beautiful and melodious chime.

Discovering the Magic of the Sun
In “The Evening Out,” Jane and Michael are able to walk in the sky, where they are invited to a heavenly circus, the polar opposite of the earthly circus at the zoo. Here the animals are the constellations and the circus master is the sun. Instead of dancing the grand chain, the animals dance the “Dance of the Wheeling Sky,” apparently all in honor of Mary Poppins’s evening out. Michael is given the moon to hold, presumably because he had asked for it earlier during the day. When it begins to wane and shrink in size, Michael says to the sun,
“It couldn’t have been a real moon, could it?” The sun replies, “What is real and what is not? Can you tell me or I you? Perhaps we shall never know more than this: that to think a thing is to make it true.” And so, if Michael thought he had the Moon in his arms—why, then, he had indeed. “Then,” said Jane wonderingly, “is it true that we are here tonight or do we only think we are?” The Sun smiled again, a little sadly. “Child,” he said, “seek no further! From the beginning of the world all men have asked that question. And I, who am Lord of the Sky—even I do not know the answer!”
Joseph Campbell in his elegant prose describes this situation of the sun being all light without darkness, containing only the shadows of those who do not open to the light:
What we all want surely, is to know the truth, even though its full knowledge may come only with the dissolution or stilling of the activity of the world. And so, whereas we have a deluding creation, maya [illusion] on the one hand, we have an illuminating destruction on the other, and between the two flows the enigma of the universe (p.264).
This story is also reminiscent of the paradoxical iconography of the Hindu deity Shiva. He is surrounded by circles of flame, rings of fire representing the sun. Shiva’s dance is the universe. A skull and a new moon--death and rebirth at the same moment, the moment of becoming-- adorn his hair. In one hand, Shiva holds a little drum that goes tick-tick-tick. That is the drum of time, the tick of time that shuts out the knowledge of eternity. We are enclosed in time. But in Shiva’s opposite hand is a flame that burns away the veil of time (the veil of maya), and opens our minds to eternity (truth).

Finding One’s Shadow on Hallowe’en
In Mary Poppins in the Park, the last chapter is called “Hallowe’en.” The events of the day foreshadow the events of the evening. Mrs. Corry, a friend of Mary Poppins, accuses Michael and Jane of stepping on her shadow. Jane tells Mrs. Corry that she didn’t think that shadows could feel. Mrs. Corryreplies that this is nonsense and that shadows feel twice as much as we do. She warns the children to take care of their shadows or their shadows won’t take care of them. Finally, she asks them how they would like to find out that their shadows had run away. “And what’s a man without a shadow? Practically nothing, you might say!”

Much later, Michael arouses Jane during the night because he woke up and saw their shadows outside the house. They leave their bedroom and follow their shadows. When they finally catch up, Jane asks, “Why did you run away?” The shadows reply that it is Halloween, the night when every shadow is free. Also, this is a very special occasion—there is a full moon and it has fallen on the Birthday Eve (Mary Poppins’ birthday, of course). The two shadows flit away with the children not far behind, on their way to the park for the party.

This episode brings to mind a passage in The Sorcerers’ Crossing: A Woman’s Journey by Taisha Abelar. She was a student of Carlos Castaneda and gives us a glimpse of the American Indian perspective of the shadow. Since Travers had been initiated into the Navajo mysteries and given a secret name, this knowledge was hers also:
“I have news for you,” Clara continued. “You’ve seen shadows move before as a child, but then you were not yet rational so it was all right to see them move. As you grew up, your energy was harnessed by social constraints, and so you forgot you had seen them moving, and only remember what you think is permissible to remember” (p.74).
At the party, the children have a conversation with the Bird Woman regarding the nature of shadows. Jane says that shadows aren’t real because they go through things and that they are made of nothing. The Bird Woman responds, “Nothin’s made of nothin’, lovey. And that’s what they’re for—to go through things. Through and out on the other side—it’s the way they get to be wise. You take my word for it, my loves, when you know what your shadder knows—then you know a lot. Your shadder’s the other part of you, the outside of your inside—if you understand what I mean.”
During the party, in further conversation with the Bird Woman, the children ask her why Mary Poppins’sshadow and that of Mrs. Corry were not free like the others. The Bird Woman replies that Mrs. Corry was old and that she had learned a lot. “Let ’er shadder escape—not she. And as for Mary Poppins’shadder—It wouldn’t leave’ er if you paid it—not for a thousand pound!”

Once we acknowledge our shadows and cease to lie to ourselves about who we are, we will have the greatest protection against evil. Then we will be able to utilize the creative energies of the shadow to assist us on our journey toward individuation. Carl Jung said that our first contact with the unconscious is always with the shadow. From the perspective of Jungian psychology, the shadow is the part of ourselves that is unknown, a paradox in itself. How can a part of ourselves be unknown to us? To become whole and fully conscious, we must integrate our unknown self, our shadow, with our conscious selves. To do this, we must search for clues in the secret recesses of our being—our deepest desires and our greatest fears. We must analyze the reasons for our mirth, our sadness, our illnesses, and our addictions and address those parts of us, however unpleasant or diminishing they may be to our persona, the face we present to the world. There is a positive aspect to this investigation, say Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf in Romancing the Shadow: “The shadow reveals its gold in creative works, which build bridges between the conscious and unconscious worlds” (p. 41).

To express the inexpressible in a form both enjoyable and meaningful was Travers’s task. We are both entertained and prodded to look within while following the adventures of her famous nanny, Mary Poppins, and the Banks children. If we are successful in decoding the messages, perhaps for a brief moment we can still the cacophony of voices in our mind to hear the truth.

References
Abelar, Taisha. The Sorcerers’ Crossing: A Woman’s Journey. New York: Penguin Books, 1992.
Blavatsky, H.P. The Voice of the Silence. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1992.
Campbell, Joseph. Myths to Live By. New York: Penguin Compass, 1993.
Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday, 1988.
Campbell, Joseph. Baksheeh and Brahman. New York: Harper-Collins, 1955.
Draper Ellen Dooling, and Jenny Koralek., Eds. A Lively Oracle: A Centennial Celebration of P. L. Travers, Creator of Mary Poppins. New York: Larson Publications, 1999.
Eckel, Malcolm David. To See the Buddha: A Philosopher’s Quest for the Meaning of Emptiness. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992.
Hillman, James. The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling. New York: Random House, 1969.
Mehta, Rohit. The Call of the Upanishads. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1970.
Myss, Caroline. Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential. New York: Random House, 2001.
Myss, Caroline. Spiritual Power, Spiritual Practice. (Part of 6-CD Set Audio Collection.) Boulder, CO: SoundsTrue, 2001.
Zimmer, Heinrich. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. New York: Pantheon Books, 1953.
Zweig, Connie and Steve Wolf. Romancing the Shadow: A Guide to Soul Work for a Vital, Authentic Life. New York: Ballantine 1997.

"If you reach for the stars
All you get are the stars
But we've found a whole new spin
If you reach for the heavens
You get the stars thrown in"
-Mary Poppins 

Sunday, February 21, 2016

The Various Mediums of Mary Poppins

BOOKS

The Mary Poppins musical was adapted from the first three of the eight books in P.L. Travers's series

 

Mary Poppins, published 1934

The first book introduces the Banks family from Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane, London, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Banks; their children Jane and Michael; and baby twins John and Barbara. When the children's nanny, Katie Nana, storms out in a huff, Mary Poppins arrives at their home, complete with her traveling carpetbag, blown in by a very strong wind. She accepts the job, and the children soon learn that their nanny, though she is stern, vain, and usually cross, has a magical touch that makes her wonderful. Among the things Jane and Michael experience are a tea party on a ceiling with Mr. Wigg, a trip around the world with a compass, the purchase of gingerbread stars from the extremely old Mrs. Corry, a meeting with the Bird Woman, a birthday party at the zoo among the animals, and a Christmas shopping trip with a star named Mafia from the Pleiades of the Taurus constellation. In the end, Mary Poppins is satisfied with the work she has done with the Banks family, and the West Wind carries her away. 


Original and revised versions of the "Bad Tuesday" chapter


Mary Poppins contained a version of the chapter "Bad Tuesday" in which Mary and the children use a compass to visit places all over the world in a remarkably short period of time. The original story in the 1934 edition contained a variety of cultural and ethnic types of Chinese, Eskimo, sub-Saharan Africans, and Native Americans; Travers responded to criticism that the picture given was too simple by revising the chapter in 1981 to include animal representatives instead of people. At the same time, original illustrator Mary Shepard altered the accompanying drawing of the compass to show a polar bear at the north, a macaw at the south, a panda at the east, and a dolphin at the west.


Mary Poppins Comes Back, published 1935

Nothing has been right since Mary Poppins left Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane. One day, when Mrs. Banks sends the children out to the park, Michael flies his kite up into the clouds. Everyone is surprised when it comes down bringing Mary Poppins as a passenger, who returns to the Banks home and takes charge of the children once again. This time, Jane and Michael meet the fearsome Miss Andrew, experience an upside-down tea party, and visit a circus in the sky. As in Mary Poppins, Mary leaves at the end, but this time with a "return ticket, just in case" she needs to return.


Mary Poppins Opens the Door, published 1943

When Mary last left the Banks children in Cherry Tree Lane, she took a "return ticket, just in case." In the third book, she returns to the park in front of Cherry Tree Lane the way she came, falling with fireworks. Once again she takes up nanny duties in the Banks household and leads Jane, Michael, John, and Barbara on various adventures. This time, they visit her cousin Fred Twigley, befriend a statue that has come to life, go riding on peppermint horses, and experience a garden party under the sea.


Mary Poppins in the Park, published 1952

This fourth book contains six adventures of the Banks children with Mary Poppins during their outings in the park along Cherry Tree Lane. Chronologically the events in this book occurred during the second or third book (Mary Poppins Comes Back and Mary Poppins Opens the Door respectively). Among the adventures they experience are a tea party with the people who live under the dandelions, a visit to cats on a different planet, and a Halloween dance party with their shadows.


Mary Poppins From A to Z, published 1962

Twenty-six vignettes (one for each letter of the alphabet) weave unexpected tales of Mary Poppins, the Banks children, and other characters from Travers's previous novels. Each vignette is filled with fun and unusual words that start with the featured letter.


Mary Poppins in the Kitchen, published 1975

Mary Poppins comes to the rescue when the Banks's family cook has to go on an unexpected leave, teaching the young Banks children the basics of cooking in the process. The book includes recipes.


Mary Poppins in Cherry Tree Lane, published 1982

Mary Poppins takes the Banks children on yet another memorable adventure, this time on the magical Midsummer's Eve. All kinds of strange things can happen, and even mythical figures can descend from the heavens. At the back of the book is a list of the herbs that are mentioned in the story, with their botanical, local and Latin names.


Mary Poppins and the House Next Door, published 1988

The residents of Cherry Tree Lane are distressed to learn that their beloved Number Eighteen, an empty house for which each neighbour has created an imaginary, wished-for tenant, is about to be occupied by Mr. Banks's childhood governess, Miss Andrew, otherwise known as the Holy Terror. Her dreaded arrival brings a pleasant surprise as well, for Luti, a boy from the South Seas, has accompanied her as both servant and student. Delighted by the prospect of a new friend, Jane and Michael are frustrated by the restrictions that the hypochondriacal Miss Andrew has placed on Luti, who grows more and more homesick for his family and tropical surroundings. When the call in his heart to return home becomes more than he can bear, it is Mary Poppins who makes the trip possible by means of a visit to the Man in the Moon.


Due to the series' popularity, there were several adaptations of the books to various media:



Studio One: The character was first brought to life in an early television play telecast live in 1949 by CBS television, as part of their anthology series Studio One. She was played by character actress Mary Wickes, in a performance that may have been noticeably closer to what P. L. Travers envisioned. E.G. Marshall portrayed Mr. Banks and future Lassie child star Tommy Rettig played Michael. David Opatoshu played Bert, who was a Match Man (a seller of matches) in this version. Apparently, no effort was made to disguise the fact that these actors were American.

1964 Film:
Mary Poppins was made into a film based on the first four books in the series by Walt Disney Productions in 1964. According to the 40th anniversary DVD release of the film in 2004, Walt Disney first attempted to purchase the film rights to Mary Poppins from P. L. Travers as early as 1938, but was rebuffed because Travers did not believe a film version of her books would do justice to her creation and did not want an animated cartoon based on it. Disney finally succeeded in 1961, although Travers demanded and got script approval rights.
The relationship between Travers and Disney is detailed in Mary Poppins She Wrote, a biography of Travers, by Valerie Lawson, published by Aurum Press in the United Kingdom. The relationship is also the subject of the 2013 Disney film Saving Mr. Banks.
The process of planning the film and composing the songs took about two years. Songs in the film are by the Sherman Brothers. Mary Poppins is played by British actress Julie Andrews. Disney cast Dick Van Dyke in the key supporting role of Bert. The Banks children were played by Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber. George and Winifred Banks were played by David Tomlinson and Glynis Johns. The film features a mix of adventures and episodes taken from each of the existing novels, and new events, created for it. In notable differences from the original novels, the film does not include the characters John, Barbara or Annabel Banks, and has Mary Poppins herself characterized as noticeably kinder.
The film received widespread acclaim from critics and audiences, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture with Julie Andrews winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Mary Poppins. The film won an additional four Oscars for Best Original Song ("Chim Chim Cher-ee"), Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects and Best Original Score.

1983 Film:
In 1983, the story was adapted by the Soviet Union's Mosfilm studios into the Russian-language TV musical film Мэри Поппинс, до свидания! (Mary Poppins, Goodbye), starring Natalya Andreychenko (acting) and Tatyana Voronina (singing) as Mary Poppins, Albert Filozov as George Banks and Oleg Tabakov as Miss Andrew.





Here is a link to part 1 of  Поппинс, до свидания!
(You're welcome)

And part 2 of  Поппинс, до свидания!
(You're welcome...again!)


2004 Musical:
Author P. L. Travers resisted selling the stage rights to the Mary Poppins stories for many years, as a result of her dislike of the 1964 film version, and her perception of being treated discourteously by Walt Disney at the film's premiere. Travers eventually agreed to sell the stage rights after being approached by London theatre producer Cameron Mackintosh. She acquiesced on the condition (expressed in her will) that only English-born writers – and no Americans, particularly anyone involved with the film production – were to be directly involved in the creative process of the stage musical.

The world premiere of the stage adaptation of Mary Poppins took place at the Bristol Hippodrome in the United Kingdom in September 2004. The production then moved to the Prince Edward Theatre in London's West End on December 15, 2004, where it ran for three years before closing in January 2008. The show transferred to a UK national tour, and a number of international versions were staged, including a long Broadway run in New York City.

BBC Radio:
On 31 May 2010 BBC Radio 7 broadcast a one-hour dramatization combining several of the adventures into one drama, starring Juliet Stevenson as Mary Poppins. This production has been rebroadcast several times on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

2014 Tim Burton Hoaxes
In both March and October 2014, there were rumors circulating that director Tim Burton was set to helm a new version of the story, first with frequent collaborators Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp, and later on with Cate Blanchett in the title role, alongside Sam Riley. There was even a poster made, with Blanchett in period dress against a Victorian city with umbrellas falling from the sky. However, both of these were subsequently debunked as total hoaxes by several news outlets.

Unnamed 2015 Mary Poppins Film
On September 14, 2015, Disney announced a new Mary Poppins film was to be made, with a new plot and new songs. The film is going to be directed by Rob Marshall and written by David Magee. New songs will be composed by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who have both already gotten support from Richard Sherman, who created some of the iconic songs in the original Mary Poppins. Though the film will not be a reboot or remake of the original 1964 film, Mary Poppins will revisit the Banks Children from the first film. It will be loosely based on the other 7 Mary Poppins books by P. L. Travers and expand beyond those. The film will be set 20 years after the original film takes place. The name of the actress who will succeed Julie Andrews is currently unknown.

_____________________________________________________________
Below is an article written by Michael Ribbeck, Chief Reporter at the Bristol Post, about why generation after generation has "fallen in love with nanny"


Something Steely, Unsympathetic, and Cold: A Reconsideration of Mary Poppins


Originally posted on June 22nd, 2010 by Larry Fahey
(http://therumpus.net/2010/06/something-steely-unsympathetic-and-cold-a-reconsideration-of-mary-poppins/)


Something horrible is coming to 17 Cherry Tree Lane, the home of the Banks family. Anyone can see it: clouds are mounting on the horizon, the winds have shifted, the barometer is falling. Their neighbor Admiral Broom (Reginald Owen) warns Mr. Banks (David Tomlinson) that he’s “steering into a nasty piece of weather,” just as Broom had cautioned neighborhood chimney sweep Bert (Dick Van Dyke) that “storm signals are up at number 17.”

But this is no ordinary storm. Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews) is coming.

If the last time you saw Mary Poppins you were under the age of 10, prepare to be startled upon a fresh viewing. I recently watched it with my kids, and like so many things revisited in adulthood, Mary Poppins proved altogether different from my memory.

The first thing you notice is that, despite her reputation as a paragon of patience, understanding, and love, Mary Poppins simply isn’t very pleasant. It’s not clear that we’re even meant to like her. For one thing, she’s highly and relentlessly critical of the children, Michael (Matthew Garber) and Jane (Karen Dotrice) — you slouch, she tells them, you’re slobs, your manners are deplorable, and when you let your mouths hang open you look like fish. She’s also largely humorless, never satisfied with anyone but herself, and terribly vain (she describes herself, quite sincerely, as “practically perfect in every way”). Furthermore, she’s a bully: When a line of nannies congregate outside the Banks’s front door to apply for the job, she conjures a violent windstorm to sweep them away.
Mary Poppins isn’t just rude and egotistical, she’s also faintly sinister. It isn’t simply that director Robert Stevenson (a Disney lifer whose final film, The Shaggy DA, is also surprisingly creepy), and screenwriters Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi (adapting from the P.L. Travers book series) choose a violent, foreboding storm to announce her arrival, although that certainly sets the stage. There is, in Andrews’ performance, something steely, unsympathetic and cold that makes even the magical things she does — sending toys leaping back onto shelves with a snap of her fingers, say, or jumping into a chalk sidewalk drawing — feel a little threatening. It’s not for nothing that this recut trailer works so well.
If we have a pervasive, collective sense of Mary Poppins as the most dreamily agreeable babysitter of all time, it’s presumably because she can perform magic (I suppose looking and sounding like Julie Andrews doesn’t hurt, either). But really, it’s remarkable how much is obscured by the magic and the singing. The children have fun with Mary Poppins, but she allows it only grudgingly. Bert is the real instigator—she only takes the children into the sidewalk drawing after he fails in his attempt to do so (“Why do you always complicate things that are really quite simple?” she scolds Bert), and when they find old Uncle Albert (Ed Wynn) floating helplessly at the ceiling thanks to a fit of giggles, she’s furious at Bert and the children for encouraging him, as if fun and laughter are somehow hazardous. This could be the key scene in the film, in fact. The lightness and giddiness are all things we associate with Mary Poppins. The first time we see her, she’s sitting in a cloud, presumably awaiting her next assignment, and between that and her magic umbrella, she’s strongly identified with the heavens. But on close inspection, none of that feeling really comes from Mary herself, and the fact is that her sensibilities are firmly earthbound. The frivolousness, fun and whimsy of childhood are everywhere in the movie, but only in spite of Mary Poppins who, it seems clear, would just as soon see the children dressed properly in their best Sunday suits, obediently awaiting her next command.

There’s very little on the screen to suggest that Mary Poppins is, or is meant to be, a real character, with feelings, dreams, a past or a future. She doesn’t suffer aspirations or disappointments, only annoyances (and many of those) and smug affirmations of her good sense and rightness, and she doesn’t want anything because she has everything she wants already. The “practically perfect” line is meant as a joke, I suppose, but it’s true: She’s perfectly in charge of the children, perfectly vain, and perfectly self-assured. “I never explain anything,” she haughtily tells Mr. Banks when he demands to know, quite reasonably, why he’s come home to find a small army of chimney sweeps performing a choreographed dance number in his living room. Mary Poppins is a closed circuit, perfectly self-sustaining, a machine without the capacity or need for love, either chaste or romantic (you could spend the entire film watching nothing but the sexual undercurrents between Bert and Mary, although they almost entirely flow from him towards her).

But if Mary isn’t meant to be a person, what is she? If she’s meant to represent something, then what? It’s not warmth or kindness — she makes it quite clear during her initial interview with Mr. Banks that her wages are a matter of great concern to her, and she holds the children at arm’s length. It’s not love, either: at the end of the film, as Mary begins to pack her bag (including her prized possession, a mirror), the children tearfully beg her not to leave, profess their love and ask, “Don’t you love us?” Mary replies, “And what would happen to me, may I ask, if I loved all the children I said goodbye to?” Andrews and the treacly music behind the dialogue do their best to inject a mood of sorrow into the scene, but there’s simply nothing else in the story or Andrews’s performance to support the idea that Mary Poppins cares about them in the least, to suggest that this hasn’t been, in fact, just another job.

By the end of the film, we’re meant to feel that Mary Poppins has taught the children — or more to the point, their parents — a valuable lesson, but it’s hard to say just what it is. Standing on the front step, ready to depart, Mary watches the kids run off to the park with their parents without so much as a goodbye, and her bird-shaped umbrella handle says, “Look at them! You know, they think more of their father than they do of you!” (By this point, it seems perfectly consistent that Mary Poppins has an easier and more natural relationship with an inanimate object than she does with actual people.) “That’s as it should be,” Mary replies, and again, Andrews gives her line readings a Disney touch of sentimentality. But again, because she’s been such a relentlessly unsentimental character, it rings hollow. So have they somehow learned, thanks to Mary’s eye-rolling and grumbling assent to various ill-advised adventures, to love their father, or he to love them? It’s a stretch.

Still, I can’t help but feel that there is some message in the film, even it isn’t the one that everyone seems to hear (in fairness, the steeliness of Mary Poppins hasn’t entirely escaped notice). Maybe I’m giving it too much credit. After all, the early 1960s were a strange, transitional time in American film. The studio system was moribund, and the new Hollywood of independent cinema, maverick directors and raw subject matter were rumbling below the surface, but still a few years from changing movies (John Cassavetes’ Shadows appeared in 1959, but Easy Rider didn’t come along until 1969). With few exceptions, major studio films were bloated and unfocused, designed by committee to make money, not statements.

Nevertheless, you could say that even a high-profile spectacle like Mary Poppins might have a message. After all, Mary represents discipline and, specifically, the idea of giving children less love, or at least what too many parents think of as love—namely, indulgence. What if Mary Poppins, a supernatural being if ever there was one in cinema, is the higher, less familiar idea of boundaries, consistency, and authority? Their parents, and specifically their father, have a strong sense of propriety, but that’s not really the same thing. As I said, Mary doesn’t try very hard to make us or anyone else like her, and maybe that’s the point: Maybe Mary Poppins is meant to suggest that love and indulgence are different things, and that sometimes love looks cold, efficient and decidedly unsentimental. Can a movie made in the 1960s and set in Edwardian England have something to teach 21st century parents? I think it can.

The Socioeconomic Class structure of 1910 England


EDWARDIAN SOCIETY

During our rehearsals for Mary Poppins, we will be having discussions about society in 1910 London and how one's station may have had an impact on his entire life. England was emerging from 60 years of Victorian puritanism, and British society was considered quite "buttoned up." The Edwardian era corresponds to the reign of King Edward VII in Great Britain, whose short-lived governance (1901-1910) followed Victoria's long reign and preceded the modern House of Windsor in England. The "Edwardian" style broadly encompasses the years of 1901 through to 1919. After the reign of Queen Victoria's son, Edward VII, society relaxed a bit and finally began to "undo the top button." Change, however, can be a slow process, and many people clung to the strict mindset and manners of Victorian times.

The beginning of the Twentieth Century experienced tremendous technological and social change. The wonders of the modern world, which had only sprang into being in the 1880s and 1890's brought the first rewards of modern industrialization and mass-produced abundance. It was a time where Britain was at its imperial height and one in three of the world's population were her subjects. On the other side of the Atlantic, Americans were experiencing new-found wealth and indulging in cuisine, fashion, entertainment and travel as never before. Perhaps the Edwardian era was best captured in the Titanic, the grand ocean liner which embodied human progress, opulence, and the excesses of the time.

The Edwardian era is viewed nostalgically and often called the "Gilded Age". In Britain, it was a time of peace: sandwiched between the Boer War (1899-1902) and the First World War which broke out in 1914. In the words of Samuel Hynes, it was a 'leisurely time when women wore picture hats and did not vote, when the rich were not ashamed to live conspicuously, and the sun really never set on the British flag'. It was also a time of great inequality, in which the privileges of the rich were made possible by the labor of their servants, an age when the inequalities of wealth and poverty were starkly delineated and the conventions of class were still rigidly defined - there was a place for everyone and everyone knew their place.

Here is a brief outline to what was going on in Britain from 1901 - 1914

1901
22nd January Death of Queen Victoria, aged 81, after a reign of 63 years. Edward VII succeeds to the throne.
September Taff Vale Judgement, a landmark in the development of the Labor Party. Workers on the Taff Vale Railway took action to gain the right to join a trade union. After the strike was settled, the railway company sought damages from the union for losses incurred during the strike. The House of Lords granted £42,000 plus costs against the union, thereby severely limiting the right to strike.
October Britain's first submarine launched.
December First Nobel Prizes awarded.
1902
January Smallpox outbreak in London
March Cecil Rhodes 'the architect of Empire' dies.
May Boer War ends.
July Arthur Balfour succeeds Salisbury as Conservative Prime Minister.
9th August Coronation of Edward VII, delayed from July because of the King's appendicitis.
Charles Booth's survey of poverty, Life and Labour of the People of London, published. Windsor Castle opened to the public. Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit published. Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories published.
1903
1st January Edward VII proclaimed Emperor of India.
October Formation of the suffragette Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst.
December Marie Curie becomes the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. Wright Brothers make the first successful flight in a petrol-powered airplane.
1904
February War breaks out between Russia and Japan when the Russian fleet attacks at Port Arthur.
April Entente Cordiale signed with France. License plates for cars compulsory.
May Rolls-Royce car manufacturing company formed.
November Figures released reveal that poverty is rising dramatically - 122,000 people in London and 800,000 in England and Wales are in receipt of poor relief, with 250,000 in workhouses.
December J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up opens in London.
1905
January By popular demand, Arthur Conan Doyle brings his famous detective back from the 'dead' in a new book, The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
April More than 10,000 people perish in an earthquake in Lahore, India.
May Women's Suffrage Bill 'talked out' in Commons.
June Automobile Association founded.
July Einstein's Theory of Relativity proposed.
August Lord Curzon resigns as Viceroy of India.
October Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney arrested: start of the militant phase of the Suffrage movement. Aspirin on sale in Britain.
December Balfour resigns; Henry Campbell-Bannerman invited to form a government. First motorized ambulances for traffic accident victims introduced by London County Council (previously ambulances were used only for people suffering from infectious diseases).
1906
February Liberal landslide at General Election; Labor wins 29 seats. HMS Dreadnought launched. Formation of the Labor Party. Trade Disputes Act overturns Taff Vale Judgement. Free school meals introduced for children in need.
April Vesuvius erupts, killing hundreds. San Francisco earthquake: 800 die. SOS becomes the international distress signal.
1907
April Women can stand for election in county and borough elections and can take the office of mayor.
1908
April Ill-health forces Campbell-Bannerman's resignation: Herbert Asquith succeeds him as Prime Minister. Old Age Pensions introduced for a minority of old people. Coal Mines Regulation Act legislates for a maximum working day of 8 hours underground. Territorial Army founded. By 1914 it had over 250,000 members. England plays the first ever international football match, against Austria - and wins 6-1.
June Edward VII visits Russia. Olympic Games staged in London. National Farmer's Union founded.
December Professor Ernest Rutherford awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on radiation and the nature of the atom. E.M. Forster's Room with a View published.
1909
Labor Exchanges established. Trade Boards Act establishes minimum wage in some of the lowest-paid trades.
July Blériot makes the first cross-Channel flight, taking 43 minutes.
November The House of Lords throws out Lloyd George's 'people's budget' - the 'most radical budget in the nation's history'.
1910
Liberals under Asquith win general election in February and December.
21st May Death of Edward VII; succeeded by George V.
July Dr. Crippen arrested at sea for the murder of his wife, the first criminal suspect to be caught by radio. He was traveling with his mistress Ethel Le Neve, disguised as a boy.
20th August Florence Nightingale dies. Osborne Judgement bans trade unions from funding political activities. Girl Guide movement founded by Baden-Powell and his sister, Agnes.
1911
March Shops Act legislates for 60-hour week and all employees entitled to half-day holiday each week. Payment of MPs (Members of Parliament) introduced.
23rd June George V crowned in Westminster Abbey.
July Agadir crisis, when Germany sent a gunboat to Morocco, fueled Britain's concern about Germany's expansionist aims.
November Balfour resigns as leader of the Conservative Party; succeeded by Andrew Bonar Law.
December George V crowned King Emperor at Delhi Durbar.
Period of industrial unrest 1911 to 1914.
1912
January Captain Scott's expedition reaches the South pole - Amundsen has beaten them. All perish on the return journey.
April The 'unsinkable' Titanic sinks after hitting an iceberg, with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.
May Irish Home Rule Bill introduced.
September Edward Carson organizes the Ulster Volunteers to resist Home Rule for Ireland. British Board of Film Censors established. Royal Flying Corps (precursor of the Royal Air Force) established.
1913
March Cat and Mouse Act introduced in an attempt to deal with the problem of suffragettes' hunger strikes in prison.
June The suffragette Emily Davison throws herself under the King's horse at the Derby and dies from her injuries. The zip fastener patented by a Swedish engineer. Trade Union Act reverses Osborne Judgement.
September Ulster Volunteer Force established. D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers published.
1914
Immigration, already restricted since 1905 Act, further restricted. By 1914 there were over 50,000 women involved in peaceful campaigning to get women the vote.
March Velazquez's Rokeby Venus slashed in the National Gallery by a suffragette with a meat cleaver.
April George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion opens in London. James Joyce's Dubliners published.
28th June Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo.
1st August Germany declares war on Russia and, on the 3rd, France.
4th August Britain declares war on Germany when it violates Belgian neutrality. In the first 18 months of war 2.4 million men signed up voluntarily. A quarter of men of fighting age volunteered in England and Wales. Fighting continues on the Western Front until 11.00am on 11th November 1918. By this time, 772,000 British have been killed, and 1,676, 037 wounded.

CLASS STATUS

Status is a person's position in society, and it changes the way she sees the world, and how others see her. In Edwardian England, status was pretty much set in stone - your position when you were born was the same throughout your life. What Americans would consider "individualism" did not really exist. There was very little thought about moving up to a higher station in life - it was just not done - and so, people comported themselves according to their position in the hierarchy. But your status can be different depending on whom you relate to. For example, Mary Poppins's status is high compared to the children (she is their mentor and caregiver), but Mr. Banks can fire her (she is his employee).

At the beginning of the 20th century, English society was built on the vision that everybody had his place in the ladder of society, and those on the lower rungs served those higher up. During the Edwardian period, British society was divided. The following are the people who might have worked in an upper class or upper middle class English home in 1910.

  • Upper Class: Royalty, the nobility, and the very rich.

  • Upper-middle Class: The wealthy, bankers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, and manufactures.

  • Lower-middle Class: A growing class in early 20th century Britain, consisting  of shop keepers, managers, civil servants and small manufactures.

  • Working Class: Chimney sweeps, farmers, factory workers, shop employees, house servants, clerks.
  • Lower Class: The homeless and destitute were still a grave and growing concern during the Edwardian Era.

THE RISE OF THE NANNY

During the 19th century and into the early 20th century, something unique happened in Great Britain. Rather than raising their children themselves, mothers and fathers from rich and middle-class families handed over their children to special caregivers called "nannies," who were hired to address children's every need from food and education to discipline. As in Mary Poppins, fathers worked while mothers entertained guests and led the staff or servants. Having a nanny became a status symbol; the middle classes hired nannies even if they couldn't afford them.

So why did this happen? During the industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, both population and wealth dramatically increased in Great Britain. In 1830, the average English family had six or seven children, and this number was even higher for the wealthy. More children created a need, and more money created the means to hire more servants to watch the children. As Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy in his book The Rise and Fall of the British Nanny writes, "If the rich had anything that needed looking after - whether it was a coat or a child - then there was a servant for it."

As nannies became more and more popular among the wealthy and middle classes, their power in the household increased. The nursery was their kingdom and they ruled it with a firm hand. The nursery was always removed from the rest of the house; many times, as in Mary Poppins, it was on the top floor or near the servants quarters. Children would see their parents for only a short amount of time each day. Nannies controlled the children's clothing, books, food, medicine, and discipline, and so exerted a great deal of influence over the lives and personalities of their charges. (**cough cough George Banks**)

Below are some of the people who might have worked in an upper-class or upper-middle-class English home in 1910. Note that the Banks family has not hired this entire staff of workers for their home - George's position at the bank does not pay enough for them to afford such a staff this large.



EDWARDIAN DRESS AND MANNERS

In the Edwardian era, how one held oneself and moved was in keeping with their social status. The wealthy were obsessed with public appearance, and they took great pains with the way their looked. Much of the desired effect was accomplished with clothing.

In order to achieve the ideal Edwardian body shape, women wore corsets underneath their clothing. Wearing such undergarments affected every movement they made. Because they could not move very quickly or take large steps, women had an air of leisure in the way they strolled. When ladies sat, it was usually on the edge of their seats, since sitting back would make it virtually impossible to get up again. This reinforced the illusion of poise. It also made it extremely difficult to dress without the help of servants. All women wore corsets, even the servants. Servants' clothing, however, was not as weighty as their employer's, since they were expected to cook, scrub, and carry for hours every day. They held themselves up straight and, depending on their status in the hierarchy of servants, could have an elegance of their own, but they also had to be able to complete their duties.



"[The Edwardian lady is] a spectacle which cannot be seen today... she knew how to move and carry herself. She had balance and poise, she had elegance, and she was one hundred percent feminine." - W. Macqueen-Pope, Goodbye Piccadilly 



The hallmark look of the age was the S-shape silhouette. Accomplished with eh S-bend )or swan bill) corset that helped push the hips backward, it enhanced the chest and gave the woman the appearance of leaning forward (A style known as a "pigeon-breast"). In the years preceding 1910, women wore their hair in pompadours, made famous by the "Gibson Girl" (the feminine ideal of beauty portrayed by the satirical pen-and-ink illustrations of illustrator Charles Dana Gibson). By 1910, the hairstyle was more flattened on top and puffed out on the sides with a part in the middle. A lady never went out without her hat, which generally had a large brim in order to protect her skin from the sun. Tanning was shunned, as a pale complexion was the ideal.

For Edwardian men, the three piece suit was the standard. In the upper and middle classes, tailored suits and starched collars were typical, and some men wore modified corsets as well. The tightly tailored suits, along with the well-starched high collard shirts and corsets restricted movement and forced straighter posture. All of this influenced the way Edwardian men carried themselves and gave them an air of importance.They tended to wear more muted colors (black, dark blue, gray), but added to the elegance and formality of their look with elaborate cravats and gloves. Their hair was usually parted in the middle or brushed across their temples - some men even curled their hair. The servants in such households were held to a certain formal dress code, but were still expected to complete their duties in uniform. Working men, such as chimney sweeps, had neither the means or the need for such finery and wore functional clothing to get their jobs done.


For the children of the upper and middle classes, sailor-inspired looks were popular for both boys and girls. Dresses for girls loosely mimicked the "pigeon-breast" appearance in a range of pastel colors.


During the 20th century, the rooftops of London were the chimney sweeps' kingdom. As long as we have heated our homes with fire, there has been a need to clean out chimneys of soot, and the sweeps have always come to the rescue. During the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, more and more people built tightly packed houses in cities and urban centers - and with houses came chimneys.  In 19th-century England, young boys were employed as chimney sweeps because it was easier for them to get inside the chimney. Many became sick and dies from this difficult work.

The chimney sweeps of London were not restricted by the formality of clothing at all - no starched collars for them! Because they had to crawl around in narrow spaces, climb up chimney flues, and traverse the rooftops, it was necessary that their clothing be functional, allowing them complete freedom of movement. They were more grounded; walked with a looser, easier gait; and never had to worry about how they looked, especially since they spent a lot of time covered in soot.

The phrase "to light a fire under" someone - to make him work faster or harder - comes from the young chimney sweeps. Sometimes a young sweep was too scared to go into a chimney, so his boss would light a fire in the fireplace underneath him! Being a chimney sweep was a dangerous job, but an important one. Dirty chimneys could easily cause fires and back up with deadly smoke.

Eventually, the creation of instruments that would allow someone to sweep the chimney without actually being inside allowed older men like Bert to take over the job. In many places in Great Britain, it's still considered good luck to shake hands with a sweep. Chimney sweeps are sometimes hired for weddings so they can shake hands with the bride and groom before the ceremony. In fact, sweeps today often make more money at weddings than they do cleaning chimneys!
Character sketch of Bert by Bob Crowley

"A FATHER, A MOTHER, A DAUGHTER, A SON
THE THREADS OF THEIR LIVES ARE ALL RAVELLING UNDONE
SOMETHING IS NEEDED TO TWIST THEM AS TIGHT
AS THE STRING YOU MIGHT USE WHEN YOU'RE FLYING A KITE."
- BERT