P. L. Travers. Are Mary Poppins and Mr. Banks the parents she always wanted?

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to explore how the author P. L. Travers used character traits from her mother and aunt to create a mother figure. This mother figure then appears in the character of Mary Poppins. The essay will also explore how Travers used her father to create Mr. Banks: a father that she always desired. With the application of psychoanalytic theory, particularly by employing Freudian terms like displacement, projection, sublimation and transference, a connection can be made between these individuals and the colorful characters of Travers’s books. In order to establish these connections, five of the Mary Poppins books are reviewed. Many examples from these books show that some traits of the actual people in Travers’s life are used in both a positive and negative way as parts of Travers’s feelings and defense mechanisms. Since Travers had a difficult upbringing it is significant in this essay to demonstrate the connection she had with her parents. Travers’s relationship with her mother was troubled and tangled. But regardless of that Travers felt inspired to use her relationship with her mother to create a new mother figure. While this difficult bond existed between Travers and her mother, the loss of her father at the age of seven is also a significant issue. Through her childhood she lacked a father figure and she was always in search of someone who could fill the fatherless void in her heart. In the end she had to create this father figure herself. Travers did however have support from her Aunt Ellie which later turned out to be critical and inspirational for her writing career. It is also interesting that Travers projects herself into the books about Mary Poppins, endorsing her complicated relationships with her parents and aunt. Moreover, the essay sheds light upon why Travers makes Mary Poppins a governess by mirroring her own desires for a more orderly upbringing.