A bit of a philosophical question for you...?

Question

My daughter, who's 17, asked me a question last night while we were watching an old Disney movie. The question was..." What is Mary Poppins?" Not WHO, but WHAT? I really had no answer except Nanny? Angel? Counselor? So I'm putting the question here...maybe one of you can answer it better than I could? She did state "She lives in the clouds at the beginning of the movie." True, she does...she straightens up her "charges" and brings families back together and all done on the whim of the wind...half counselor/half angel? I truly have NO idea! ....so, Yahoo! Answerers....What is Mary Poppins?

While there are a couple of you who started to hit upon what I am looking for...no one really came that close! So I'm keeping this open a bit longer, to see if anyone comes up with the "right" explanation for me! :)

Answer 1

Plot Outline: A magic nanny comes to work for a cold banker's unhappy family.

Blown by the wind with an umbrella, she comes down from the clouds in response to the Banks' advertisement for a nanny. Her personality can be abrasive at times. She is not very sympathetic to the children other than in the Disney movie adaptation. There have been many questions as to whether Mary Poppins is human or not (perhaps an extraterrestrial disguised as a human)--that is for the reader to decide. P.L Travers said that Mary Poppins is 'a pretty young woman, a nurturing mother and a wise old woman, all in one.' Thus, Mary Poppins may be a reference to the "Triple Goddess," a frequently occuring archetype in many world cultures.

Another charater reference has been noted that the first book, Mary Poppins, published in 1934, introduced the mysterious anti-heroine, a vain, acerbic magical English nanny blown by a windstorm

Mary Poppins Comes Back
Mary Poppins Opens the Door.

The other books in the sequence, P.L. Travers explains in her introduction to Mary Poppins in the Park, describe incidents which happened during any of these three visits, for 'Mary could not forever arrive and depart.'

Who is Mary Poppins? An ordinary nanny? A witch? A fairy? (The penguin says, p. 160: “If you’re going to say ‘fairy,’ don’t. I’ve thought of that already but as it’s not a bit like her, it won’t do.”) Critics suggest she is an elemental spirit, a manifestation of the earth and nature – Evidence:
She can talk to animals (Miss Lark’s Andrew, the Dancing Cow, zoo animals, animals in “Bad Tuesday”).
She works with Mrs. Corry to put the stars back in the sky.
The animals look to her as above all of them.
She can talk with the wind, and seems to be allied with it (she arrives with the wind, and moves on when it changes).


....and I believe she is a magical nanny, nothing more and nothing less.

Answer 2

Mary is a charming fictional character! Doesn't she have some features that we adore in some of the older ladies we know? Really I think she's very human, although she does float around quite a bit like Peter Pan, another charming fiction.

Answer 3

mary poppins is to show people there is still hope for dreaming and believing in human kind

Answer 4

A character

Answer 5

Well she is the incarnation or personification of patience, love, understanding and family-values.
-So she is more a trait than a person.

Answer 6

I thing metaphor for Hope and that everything is possible

Answer 7

a figment of human imagination

Answer 8

A teacher. Nothing more, nothing less.

Hails
Silence

Answer 9

i think she is a bit of a loon

Answer 10

A MOVIE!!!