and frequently is, the vehicle for moral teaching, made all the more relevant by fantasy’s
proximity to reality.
There are two very broad categories of domestic fantasy: first, where parents provide
and/or accept the magic, and second, where children discover a magic being or thing
which has the power to change their lives, but which parents fail to notice.
Under the first category, five books each with a different approach to fantasy will be
discussed, to stand for hundreds of others of the same type: A Bear Called Paddington
(1958) by Michael Bond, Mary Poppins (1934) by P.L.Travers, The Ogre Downstairs (1974)
by Diana Wynne Jones, Vice Versa (1893) by F.Anstey, and Freaky Friday (1972) by
Mary Rodgers.
The parents who are the most aware and accepting of the fantastic being are Mr and
Mrs Brown in A Bear Called Paddington. Almost immediately upon the discovery of a
small talking bear on the Paddington station platform in London, they agree to take him
home to live with them. Neither seem to question the reality of a talking bear from Peru;
they accept their daughter Judy’s plea (and indeed Paddington’s Aunt Lucy’s request)
that they look after him. As Mrs Brown says, ‘We shall expect you to be one of the family,
shan’t we, Henry?’ (Bond 1958:12). He moves in, shares the Brown family activities,
provides amusement by his good intentions, his improbable command of English and
his habit of staring people down, and is introduced to British life, places, and characters.
As Margery Fisher suggests:
the central absurdity works simply because it is taken completely for granted.
Though Paddington remains an animal in appearance and movement, he is more
like another child in the family, whose peccadilloes are excused because he is
different. Incongruity is the moving force of the stories.
Fisher 1975:269The premise, according to Paddington, that ‘things are always happening to me. I’m that
sort of bear’ (Bond, 1958 et seq.) has sustained the fantasy through more than fifty
books.
Humour is important too, as is the case with Mary Poppins. Left abruptly without a
nanny for their four children, Mr and Mrs Banks engage Mary Poppins who arrives
without references because, as she observes imperiously, it isn’t fashionable to give
them. In quick succession, Jane and Michael observe her flying in on the wind, sliding
up the banister, pulling items out of an empty carpetbag and ladling different tasting
medicines out of the same bottle. In contrast, the adults appreciate her orderliness and
her matter-of-fact managing of the nursery.
On their first outing with her, Michael and Jane visit Mary Poppins’s Uncle Wigg and
find him bobbing around on the ceiling, buoyed up by his own good humour. On the
bus ride home, Michael and Jane try to talk about the experience. Mary Poppins
responds, ‘What, roll and bob? How dare you. I’ll have you know that my uncle is a
sober, honest, hardworking man, and you’ll be kind enough to speak of him
respectfully. and don’t bite your bus ticket! Roll and bob, indeed—the idea’ (Travers
1945:46). This establishes the pattern of subsequent outings— something out of the
ordinary happens and Mary Poppins denies it, and takes offence at the suggestion that
REAL GARDENS WITH IMAGINARY TOADS: DOMESTIC FANTASY 293