The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Let me say it now: Fabulous book. I read the play about a year ago, borrowing it from the Blackfriars' play library.
I love the title and author: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.
I've read a little about Muriel Spark. She's an international writer, in that her books take place in different international settings, and while she is originally Scottish, and she has lived in other places and currently resides . . . oh, America, maybe? [need to look it up!]
PMJB is her only novel sit in her native city of Edinburgh. It was made into a movie starring Maggie Smith in the title role -- unfortunately, even Netflix doesn't appear to stock it, so I haven't been able to see it.
Its story is that of Miss Jean Brodie, an Edinburgh schoolteacher who attracts and molds a group of schoolgirls called the "Brodie set." Miss Brodie is deliciously manipulative and proud, and continually refers to her "prime," as she calls it -- this is her prime, and she must make the best use of it. "One's prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full." (11)
Quotations: "I am putting old heads on your young shoulders," Miss Brodie had told them at that time, "and all my pupils are the creme de la creme." (8)
"Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life." (9)
Spoilers ahead. Oh, and this is sort of a "review" and sort of my working out the story as I go, coming up with random new thoughts and so on. There is so, so much more I could say about this novel -- actually, my assigned tutorial topic is to talk about the literary stuff in the novel, I need to get on that.
The narrative voice is odd -- it's almost told in the tone of one who had formerly been part of the Brodie set and is disillusioned as to Miss Brodie's method.
The members of her set:
Monica Douglas: famous for mathematics and physically violent anger.
Rose Stanley. Her introductory sentence reads: "Rose Stanley was famous for sex." This is important because it's repeated throughout the novel. It's implied that this is the destiny that Miss Brodie has set out for her, not one she's rightly earned like Monica. Rose is the most beautiful and sexual of the girls, but Miss Brodie, who has denied herself the physical love of Teddy Lloyd, destines Rose to be his proxy lover. However, -- big spoiler here -- it is not to be. While Teddy does paint her portrait (even nude), and appreciates her profile, he actually sleeps with Sandy. Rose also is interested in mechanical things, which serves to help attract boys to her.
Eunice Gardiner: famous for gymnastics and "glamorous swimming." A few decades after the events, she tells her husband that she must visit Miss Brodie's grave -- he asks who she was, and she explains to him about her prime, which makes Miss Brodie seem like a small blip on what has been Eunice's life.
Sandy Stranger: It is Sandy's tone that we hear throughout most of the novel, if not her actual voice. As the introduction author notes, we see much of the events through Sandy's "small, almost non-existent eyes," which are mentioned more than Rose Stanley and sex. Sandy, despite being called ugly by Teddy, later becomes his lover. She also, we learn early on, has ended up in a rather peculiar place: as nun Sister Helena, who is famous for her treatise, "The Transfiguration of the Commonplace." The novel ends with an interviewer (Helena was supposed to be isolated but the fame of her work has led to her being allowed visitors, which is implied to be a bother to her) asking Helena about the inspiration and influences for her work. Helena's simple reply: "There was a Miss Jean Brodie in her prime." Sandy's being a Catholic nun is in direct opposition to Miss Brodie's beliefs, which are staunchly anti-Catholic (Teddy Lloyd is a Catholic, and while she loves him, she hates his religion, which of course prevents him from divorcing his wife). Miss Brodie, proud as ever, even speculates that Sandy became a nun just to spite her.
While many characters having lesbian undertones, Sandy has the most. I noticed, going back over it, that Jenny might also share this with her (they don't have a lesbian relationship together, but both have lesbian interests)
-She takes particular notice of Miss Brodie's chest, frequently (11)
-She and Jenny are the ones who write the "fan fiction" about Miss Brodie's love life
-She and Jenny purposely spill ink on their blouses so that they can have it removed by Miss Lockhart, the science teacher, who they have great interest in -- Sandy also notices the "bulging chests" of the senior art students (24)
-after a man exposes himself to Jenny, a female police officer takes down the case. Sandy "quite deserted Alan Breck and Mr Rochester and all the heroes of fiction for the summer term, and fell in love with the unseen policwoman . . ." (67), almost fetishizing the policewoman's speech and her placement in a "masculine" profession.
-Possible lesbianism:
"A man and a woman stood in the midst of the crowd which had formed a ring round them. They were shouting at each other and the man hit the woman twice across the head. Another woman, very little, with cropped black hair, a red face and a big mouth, came forward and took the man by the arm. She said: 'I'll be your man.' From time to time throughout her life Sandy pondered this, for she was certain that the little woman's words were 'I'll be your man', not 'I'll be your woman', and it was never explained." (33)
That is interesting to me as well -- for one thing, like Sandy, we don't know if it even has any importance -- now it's bugging me as it did her! Could it be possible that the "man" was actually a woman in the first place? Or is the cropped-haired woman a lesbian who was just joking around with the man? What's truly missing here is the events that happen afterward -- wouldn't the man also smack a woman who was joking with him? We don't know because the Brodie set walks past this event without staying.
We are privy to more of Sandy's daydreams than anyone else's. Many of them are like self-insertion fanfic. Examples:
-She's been reading Kidnapped, and she has a conversation with one of the heroes, Alan Breck:
"Sandy, you must take this message o'er the heather to the Macphersons," said Alan Breck. "My life depends on it, and the Cause no less."
"I shall never fail you, Alan Breck," said Sandy. "Never." (29)
Jenny Gray: Sandy's best friend.
Mary Macgregor: the least intelligent and most pathetic of the group: "whose fame rested on her being a silent lump, a nobody whom everybody cold blame." Miss Brodie, while wondering about who in her set had betrayed her, causing her early retirement and thus bringing about a premature end to her prime, often wonders if it was Mary, if she should have been nicer to Mary. Mary joins the Wrens after WWII and dies at age 24 in a fire, running about in hallways and remembering her pathetic life -- she runs into someone, falls down, and dies.
Joyce Emily Hammond: Not a member of the set, she wants to be, but is rejected. She's rich and notoriously difficult in schools. Later, Miss Brodie convinces her to go help fight the Fascists (?) and she dies. Miss Brodie shows no remorse for her roundabout hand in Joyce's death.
Traits of Miss Brodie herself:
She knows that her ideas are unpopular among the school brass of the Marcia Blaine school, and she only explains herself fully to her "set," whom she has influenced since age 10. Going along with her admiration of Fascism, she often talks about "plots" and other political language as if she were a political leader.
Although she would fit in better at a "progressive school," Miss Brodie refuses, staying on at Marcia Blaine. She calls the progressive schools "crank schools." It's implied, however, that Miss Brodie's credentials are not high enough for another position -- that's why she's at the Junior, not Senior, school. Miss Brodie herself explains it away by saying that when she was getting her credentials, opportunities for women were not as great as they are now. But is that the truth?
Miss Brodie, when she's supposed to be teaching lessons, has her girls hold up their books in case they're intruded upon, while she tells them personal stories of her love life.
"Who is the greatest Italian painter?"
"Leonardo da Vinci, Miss Brodie."
"That is incorrect. The answer is Giotto, he is my favorite." (11)
Miss Brodie's love life itself is a tangled web of truth and lies. She tells the girls about her fiance, who was killed in WWI, romanticizing his life and their love greatly. Later, when she enters into relationships with Teddy Lloyd, the art teacher, and Gordon Lowther, the music teacher, it gets even more confusing. Her true, pure love is Teddy, but he's married, so she denies herself to him. She sleeps with Gordon, and at one point becomes a sort of housekeeper where she provides him with tons and tons of food -- almost as a proxy for the full love that she won't give him. During her relationship with Gordon, her dead lover from WWI starts taking on attributes of Gordon -- loving music -- which puts the veracity of that relationship to doubt.
The girls are entranced with Miss Brodie's love life -- they write stories about it (fanfiction) and idolize Miss Brodie as the ultimate romantic heroine.
Another aspect that the novel brings up about Miss Brodie and men is that this novel takes place after the "Great War." Miss Brodie is, officially, a spinster. Many women were single after the war because there had been such a great loss of men that there weren't enough men to marry. " . . . for in many ways Miss Brodie was an Edinburgh spinster of the deepest dye." (26)
"Miss Brodie says prime is best," Sandy said.
"Yes, but she never got married like our mothers and fathers."
"They don't have primes," said Sandy.
"They have sexual intercourse," Jenny said. (16)
"It is not to be supposed that Miss Brodie was unique at this point of her prime . . . There were legions of her kind during the nineteen-thirties, women from the age of thirty and upward, who crowded their war-bereaved spinsterhood with voyages of discovery into new ideas and energetic practices in art or social welfare, education, or religion." (42)
Miss Brodie's beliefs about learning and culture are very elitist. "Art and religion first; then philosophy; lastly science. That is the order of the great subjects of life, that's their order of importance." (25) It's noted that the girls aren't taught many practical things by her -- they count on their fingers as she does, they don't know proper arithmetic. As Miss Mackay, the headmistress, says, "Culture cannot compensate for lack of hard knowledge." (66)
Her religion is also odd: raised in the Church of Scotland, she usually attends church every Sunday, but at different churches. She doesn't allow Eunice to do cartwheels on Sundays. Yet many of her ideas are at odds with most church beliefs, and she detests the Catholic church. She seems to revel in the beauty of religion more than actual belief. She takes a comparative religion class (36). When she describes a visit with friends to a papal audience, she doesn't kiss his ring as the others do -- she merely bends over it. Then she goes on to describe her outfit: "I wore a long black gown with a lace mantilla, and looked magnificent," (44) which proves her belief of aestheticism over religion -- as well as her dislike of Catholicism. She makes fun of Eunice when she becomes more interested in religion, attending a church social instead of a Brodie outing.
Her political beliefs are also odd. She seems to be a champion for individualism, as she herself is an definite individual, but she admires Fascism. Yet she looks down her nose at the Brownies and Girl Guides -- not that they're Fascists, but they also wear uniforms.
The novel intrigues me -- I want to read it over and over again, yet I can't right now since I've got other things to read (and a paper due next Friday, which unfortunately is for my other class). I mean, many things are perfectly plain and stated outright (even Sandy's "lesbianism," which she herself identifies, but in the context of the other girls), but I wonder if there are more hidden threads that I haven't noticed. I'm not sure if I entirely like the way the book just states things at you -- is it being like Miss Brodie itself, distorting its own version of history? (After all, we mainly get Sandy's version of events, with little hints of the others). What about Miss Brodie herself? When she is not surrounded by admirers (her lovers or her set), does she become a weak, vulnerable person? Does she truly believe all the lies that she seems to believe about herself?
I love the title and author: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.
I've read a little about Muriel Spark. She's an international writer, in that her books take place in different international settings, and while she is originally Scottish, and she has lived in other places and currently resides . . . oh, America, maybe? [need to look it up!]
PMJB is her only novel sit in her native city of Edinburgh. It was made into a movie starring Maggie Smith in the title role -- unfortunately, even Netflix doesn't appear to stock it, so I haven't been able to see it.
Its story is that of Miss Jean Brodie, an Edinburgh schoolteacher who attracts and molds a group of schoolgirls called the "Brodie set." Miss Brodie is deliciously manipulative and proud, and continually refers to her "prime," as she calls it -- this is her prime, and she must make the best use of it. "One's prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full." (11)
Quotations: "I am putting old heads on your young shoulders," Miss Brodie had told them at that time, "and all my pupils are the creme de la creme." (8)
"Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life." (9)
Spoilers ahead. Oh, and this is sort of a "review" and sort of my working out the story as I go, coming up with random new thoughts and so on. There is so, so much more I could say about this novel -- actually, my assigned tutorial topic is to talk about the literary stuff in the novel, I need to get on that.
The narrative voice is odd -- it's almost told in the tone of one who had formerly been part of the Brodie set and is disillusioned as to Miss Brodie's method.
The members of her set:
Monica Douglas: famous for mathematics and physically violent anger.
Rose Stanley. Her introductory sentence reads: "Rose Stanley was famous for sex." This is important because it's repeated throughout the novel. It's implied that this is the destiny that Miss Brodie has set out for her, not one she's rightly earned like Monica. Rose is the most beautiful and sexual of the girls, but Miss Brodie, who has denied herself the physical love of Teddy Lloyd, destines Rose to be his proxy lover. However, -- big spoiler here -- it is not to be. While Teddy does paint her portrait (even nude), and appreciates her profile, he actually sleeps with Sandy. Rose also is interested in mechanical things, which serves to help attract boys to her.
Eunice Gardiner: famous for gymnastics and "glamorous swimming." A few decades after the events, she tells her husband that she must visit Miss Brodie's grave -- he asks who she was, and she explains to him about her prime, which makes Miss Brodie seem like a small blip on what has been Eunice's life.
Sandy Stranger: It is Sandy's tone that we hear throughout most of the novel, if not her actual voice. As the introduction author notes, we see much of the events through Sandy's "small, almost non-existent eyes," which are mentioned more than Rose Stanley and sex. Sandy, despite being called ugly by Teddy, later becomes his lover. She also, we learn early on, has ended up in a rather peculiar place: as nun Sister Helena, who is famous for her treatise, "The Transfiguration of the Commonplace." The novel ends with an interviewer (Helena was supposed to be isolated but the fame of her work has led to her being allowed visitors, which is implied to be a bother to her) asking Helena about the inspiration and influences for her work. Helena's simple reply: "There was a Miss Jean Brodie in her prime." Sandy's being a Catholic nun is in direct opposition to Miss Brodie's beliefs, which are staunchly anti-Catholic (Teddy Lloyd is a Catholic, and while she loves him, she hates his religion, which of course prevents him from divorcing his wife). Miss Brodie, proud as ever, even speculates that Sandy became a nun just to spite her.
While many characters having lesbian undertones, Sandy has the most. I noticed, going back over it, that Jenny might also share this with her (they don't have a lesbian relationship together, but both have lesbian interests)
-She takes particular notice of Miss Brodie's chest, frequently (11)
-She and Jenny are the ones who write the "fan fiction" about Miss Brodie's love life
-She and Jenny purposely spill ink on their blouses so that they can have it removed by Miss Lockhart, the science teacher, who they have great interest in -- Sandy also notices the "bulging chests" of the senior art students (24)
-after a man exposes himself to Jenny, a female police officer takes down the case. Sandy "quite deserted Alan Breck and Mr Rochester and all the heroes of fiction for the summer term, and fell in love with the unseen policwoman . . ." (67), almost fetishizing the policewoman's speech and her placement in a "masculine" profession.
-Possible lesbianism:
"A man and a woman stood in the midst of the crowd which had formed a ring round them. They were shouting at each other and the man hit the woman twice across the head. Another woman, very little, with cropped black hair, a red face and a big mouth, came forward and took the man by the arm. She said: 'I'll be your man.' From time to time throughout her life Sandy pondered this, for she was certain that the little woman's words were 'I'll be your man', not 'I'll be your woman', and it was never explained." (33)
That is interesting to me as well -- for one thing, like Sandy, we don't know if it even has any importance -- now it's bugging me as it did her! Could it be possible that the "man" was actually a woman in the first place? Or is the cropped-haired woman a lesbian who was just joking around with the man? What's truly missing here is the events that happen afterward -- wouldn't the man also smack a woman who was joking with him? We don't know because the Brodie set walks past this event without staying.
We are privy to more of Sandy's daydreams than anyone else's. Many of them are like self-insertion fanfic. Examples:
-She's been reading Kidnapped, and she has a conversation with one of the heroes, Alan Breck:
"Sandy, you must take this message o'er the heather to the Macphersons," said Alan Breck. "My life depends on it, and the Cause no less."
"I shall never fail you, Alan Breck," said Sandy. "Never." (29)
Jenny Gray: Sandy's best friend.
Mary Macgregor: the least intelligent and most pathetic of the group: "whose fame rested on her being a silent lump, a nobody whom everybody cold blame." Miss Brodie, while wondering about who in her set had betrayed her, causing her early retirement and thus bringing about a premature end to her prime, often wonders if it was Mary, if she should have been nicer to Mary. Mary joins the Wrens after WWII and dies at age 24 in a fire, running about in hallways and remembering her pathetic life -- she runs into someone, falls down, and dies.
Joyce Emily Hammond: Not a member of the set, she wants to be, but is rejected. She's rich and notoriously difficult in schools. Later, Miss Brodie convinces her to go help fight the Fascists (?) and she dies. Miss Brodie shows no remorse for her roundabout hand in Joyce's death.
Traits of Miss Brodie herself:
She knows that her ideas are unpopular among the school brass of the Marcia Blaine school, and she only explains herself fully to her "set," whom she has influenced since age 10. Going along with her admiration of Fascism, she often talks about "plots" and other political language as if she were a political leader.
Although she would fit in better at a "progressive school," Miss Brodie refuses, staying on at Marcia Blaine. She calls the progressive schools "crank schools." It's implied, however, that Miss Brodie's credentials are not high enough for another position -- that's why she's at the Junior, not Senior, school. Miss Brodie herself explains it away by saying that when she was getting her credentials, opportunities for women were not as great as they are now. But is that the truth?
Miss Brodie, when she's supposed to be teaching lessons, has her girls hold up their books in case they're intruded upon, while she tells them personal stories of her love life.
"Who is the greatest Italian painter?"
"Leonardo da Vinci, Miss Brodie."
"That is incorrect. The answer is Giotto, he is my favorite." (11)
Miss Brodie's love life itself is a tangled web of truth and lies. She tells the girls about her fiance, who was killed in WWI, romanticizing his life and their love greatly. Later, when she enters into relationships with Teddy Lloyd, the art teacher, and Gordon Lowther, the music teacher, it gets even more confusing. Her true, pure love is Teddy, but he's married, so she denies herself to him. She sleeps with Gordon, and at one point becomes a sort of housekeeper where she provides him with tons and tons of food -- almost as a proxy for the full love that she won't give him. During her relationship with Gordon, her dead lover from WWI starts taking on attributes of Gordon -- loving music -- which puts the veracity of that relationship to doubt.
The girls are entranced with Miss Brodie's love life -- they write stories about it (fanfiction) and idolize Miss Brodie as the ultimate romantic heroine.
Another aspect that the novel brings up about Miss Brodie and men is that this novel takes place after the "Great War." Miss Brodie is, officially, a spinster. Many women were single after the war because there had been such a great loss of men that there weren't enough men to marry. " . . . for in many ways Miss Brodie was an Edinburgh spinster of the deepest dye." (26)
"Miss Brodie says prime is best," Sandy said.
"Yes, but she never got married like our mothers and fathers."
"They don't have primes," said Sandy.
"They have sexual intercourse," Jenny said. (16)
"It is not to be supposed that Miss Brodie was unique at this point of her prime . . . There were legions of her kind during the nineteen-thirties, women from the age of thirty and upward, who crowded their war-bereaved spinsterhood with voyages of discovery into new ideas and energetic practices in art or social welfare, education, or religion." (42)
Miss Brodie's beliefs about learning and culture are very elitist. "Art and religion first; then philosophy; lastly science. That is the order of the great subjects of life, that's their order of importance." (25) It's noted that the girls aren't taught many practical things by her -- they count on their fingers as she does, they don't know proper arithmetic. As Miss Mackay, the headmistress, says, "Culture cannot compensate for lack of hard knowledge." (66)
Her religion is also odd: raised in the Church of Scotland, she usually attends church every Sunday, but at different churches. She doesn't allow Eunice to do cartwheels on Sundays. Yet many of her ideas are at odds with most church beliefs, and she detests the Catholic church. She seems to revel in the beauty of religion more than actual belief. She takes a comparative religion class (36). When she describes a visit with friends to a papal audience, she doesn't kiss his ring as the others do -- she merely bends over it. Then she goes on to describe her outfit: "I wore a long black gown with a lace mantilla, and looked magnificent," (44) which proves her belief of aestheticism over religion -- as well as her dislike of Catholicism. She makes fun of Eunice when she becomes more interested in religion, attending a church social instead of a Brodie outing.
Her political beliefs are also odd. She seems to be a champion for individualism, as she herself is an definite individual, but she admires Fascism. Yet she looks down her nose at the Brownies and Girl Guides -- not that they're Fascists, but they also wear uniforms.
The novel intrigues me -- I want to read it over and over again, yet I can't right now since I've got other things to read (and a paper due next Friday, which unfortunately is for my other class). I mean, many things are perfectly plain and stated outright (even Sandy's "lesbianism," which she herself identifies, but in the context of the other girls), but I wonder if there are more hidden threads that I haven't noticed. I'm not sure if I entirely like the way the book just states things at you -- is it being like Miss Brodie itself, distorting its own version of history? (After all, we mainly get Sandy's version of events, with little hints of the others). What about Miss Brodie herself? When she is not surrounded by admirers (her lovers or her set), does she become a weak, vulnerable person? Does she truly believe all the lies that she seems to believe about herself?