The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie door Muriel Spark

Summary of the plot

Miss Jean Brodie was a teacher at Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh. She was teaching the girls from the Junior School, so her pupils were about 10 - 12 years old. In her class of 1931 she elected a few girls who she liked the most and they became the Brodie set.
These were Miss Brodie special girls, each famous for something. There was Mary Macgregor who was famous for being a nobody whom everybody could blame. At the age of 24 years old, she died in a hotel-fire. Rose Stanley was famous for sex, Monica Douglas mostly for her gymnastics and glamorous swimming, later on she became a nurse and married a doctor. Sandy Stranger was interested in psychology and became later a nun, sister Helena of the Transfiguration. And there is also Jenny Gray, Sandy’s best friend, who became an actress and was married to a theatrical manager.
To all of these girls Miss Brodie was the biggest influence in their teens. Miss Brodie had a different kind of teaching than the other teachers. For example when there was supposed to be a history lesson, the pupils took out their history-books – pretending – but in fact Miss Brodie told them stories of her life and of her trips to Italy. She was also very artistic and showed them pictures of Italian Renaissance painters. She took her students to the theatre, to art galleries, for walks, to a musical. Miss Brodie aimed at perfection. The girls had to keep their heads up while walking, they must answer in a complete sentence, they had to be well-mannered and must grow up to be dedicated women, just as Miss Brodie had dedicated herself to them. She wanted her girls to be the crème de la crème.
The headmistress Miss Mackay did not agree with Miss Brodie’s way of teaching and wanted her out of school. But Miss Brodie was in her prime, in the best years of her life.
Mr Lloyd, the art teacher of the Senior School, was Miss Brodie’s love of her prime, but he was married. Later on she had an affair with Mr Lowther, the singing teacher, who was a bachelor.
Miss Mackay hoped that the Brodie set would be tricked into letting fall some piece of evidence which could be used to enforce Miss Brodie’s retirement. Miss Brodie, who was an educational reformer; her girls had no team-spirit at all. But in the Senior School the Brodie set was amoung the brightest girls in the school.
In 1938 the last of the Brodie set had left Marcia Blaine. Later on Miss Brodie was betrayed by Sandy. She told the headmistress that Miss Brody was a born fascist and she was forced to retire in 1939 on grounds that she had been teaching Fascism. They used this political excuse as a weapon to destroy her.
Miss Brodie desperately wanted to know who betrayed her, but now she’s past her prime.
Later on she died, but her name and memory are kept alive by her girls.

Characters

Miss Brodie:
Miss Brodie is a progressive teacher at Marcia Blaine School for girls. She was engaged to a young man at the beginning of the First Great War but he died during that war on Flanders Field. A few years later she falls in love with Mr Lloyd, the art teacher, but he’s married. Then she starts an affaire with Mr Lowther who eventually marries Miss Lockhart, the science teacher.
Through all this set-back, she’s a woman in her prime and dedicates her best years of her life to her special girls. She has a very special band with her group of girls and she’s devastated by the fact that one of them betrayed her. But still she was the biggest influence in their teens.

The Brodie set
The Brodie set were Miss Brodie’s special girls. All six of them were famous for something. But Sandy, whom Miss Brodie trusted the most, betrayed her many years later by which she had to retire before her time.

Miss Mackay - the head mistress
Miss Mackay didn’t approve of Miss Brodie’s way of teaching and wanted to get rid of her. She tried to trick the girls into betraying Miss Brodie and eventually Sandy did. But before that, she had tried several times to prove personal immorality against Miss Brodie, but failed.

Settings – time

This novel tells us the story about a teacher in the beginning of the ’30’s. The First War was behind them and they didn’t think there would be another one.
A part of the story is situated on the Marcia Blaine School in Edinburgh but also at Miss Brodie’s house and at Mr Lowther’s home were the girls would come to visit Miss Brodie two by two every week.

Theme

The theme is about a free-thinking, unconventional teacher, Miss Brodie, who’s a educational reformer, and her students who are initiated into a world of adult games and activities. She’s trying to make of her special girls the crème de la crème.

Appreciation

This comic novel is relative easy to read. There are flash-backs but the author is also looking in advance. Sometimes the author jumps from one part to another but it’s not to diffucult to follow.

Author

Muriel Spark was born and educated in Edinburgh and has been active in the field of creative writing since 1950, when she won a short-story competition in the Observer. Her many subsequent novels and stories, such as Memento Mori, the Girls of Slender Means, The Only Problem, A Far Cry from Kensington, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Reality and Dreams, have brought pleasure to readers throughout the world. She has also written plays, poems, children’s books and biographies of Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte and John Masefield. Her first autobiographical volume, Curriculum Vitae, was published in 1992. She was elected C. Lit. in 1992 and was awarded the DBE in 1993. Among many other awards she has received the Italia Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the FNAC Prix étranger, the Saltire Prize, the Ingersoll T.S. Eliot Award and the David Cohen British Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime’s literary achievement.
Dame Muriel was elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1978 and Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France in 1996.