Mirrors Containing Multitudes in “Mary Poppins” by P. L. Travers (post 2): “you begin to feel you are not yourself but a whole crowd of somebody else”

As previously discussed in past posts, persons with multiple personality may see more than one person when they look in a mirror. Persons with clinical, multiple personality disorder, may see specific alternate personalities, which may be distressing. In contrast, persons with milder, nonclinical, multiple personality trait, may find what they see in a mirror to be intriguing.

“…they knew that the thing Mary Poppins liked doing best of all was looking in shop windows. They knew, too, that while they saw toys and books and holly-boughs and plum cakes, Mary Poppins saw nothing but herself reflected there…(1, p. 163).

“…if you look long enough…you begin to feel you are not yourself but a whole crowd of somebody else. Mary Poppins sighed with pleasure…when she saw three of herself…She thought it was such a lovely sight that she wished there had been a dozen of her or even thirty. The more Mary Poppins the better” (1, p. 28).

Search “mirrors” and “containing multitudes” for previous discussions related to other writers.

1. P. L. Travers. Mary Poppins [1934]. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1997.