Character Analysis
Sweeping, dusting, and… breezily musing on someone's potential suicide? Such are the pastimes that occupy Ellen, one of the Bank's family's maids. (The other is Mrs. Brill).
The maids don't play a huge role in the story, to be honest. Mainly, they offer up short comments on events—for instance, Ellen wrings her hands over Katie Nanna's departure, since she thinks the burden of looking after the kids is going to fall on her. And both maids are over-awed by Mary Poppins, who cheers everyone up.
Yet Ellen has a dour and disaster-obsessed mind. When the children go missing, she says to Mrs. Banks:
ELLEN: You don't think the lion could've got at them, do ya? You know how fond they was of hangin' around the cage [at the zoo].
Later, when George goes missing after being fired, Ellen speculates that he might've committed suicide, telling Mrs. Banks, insensitively:
ELLEN: Wouldn't hurt to have them drag the river. There's a spot there by Suffolk bridge. Popular with jumpers.
So, Ellen seems to be mentally excited by possible chaos and bloodshed…dark. But Mrs. Brill doesn't say all that much, just comments from the sidelines like:
MRS. BRILL: They're at it again!
We don't really learn anything about her. Ellen's comments are enough to give us a glimpse into her heart of darkness.