Mary Poppins

“If you are looking for Number 17—and it is more than likely that you will be, for this book is all about that particular house—you will very soon find it.”

In this passage, the author uses synecdoche, which is a figure of speech in which a word that refers to a part of something stands in for the whole; in this case, the house stands in for the whole family and the details of their domestic life.

“And with that, she took from the empty bag a starched white apron and tied it round her waist.”

Mary Poppins, the new nanny, is unpacking her bag, but the bag is seemingly empty. This contradiction is only the first of many that characterize Mary Poppins and her interactions with the world around her. That Mary Poppins’s bag can be empty and full at the same time is indicative of the magic she possesses.

“Mary Poppins thought of the raspberry-jam cakes they always had on her Day Out, and she was just going to sigh, when she saw the Match-Man’s face.”

The author capitalizes the first letters of words contained in phrases that are meaningful to various characters in the book but ordinary to everyone else. Here, she capitalizes the words “day” and “out” as if they are proper nouns, because Mary Poppins’s Day Out is much more interesting than it initially seems; a day off from work is often a pedestrian event, full of errands and appointments, but for Mary Poppins, a day away from the children is full of excitement and magic.