The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
...s. Eunice was of the Episcopalian faith and claimed… "…she did not believe in Jesus, but in the Father, Son and Holy ghost." (Pg.36). Near the end of the novel, when the girls are forced to pick their area of study for the post secondary education, Eunice was the one in the set who chose Science over arts, which Miss Brodie thought was second best. She also went on to become a nurse and marry a doctor. Eunice was the one girl in the set who seemed to be somewhat independent. " She now refused to do somersaults outside of the gymnasium, she wore lavender water on her handkerchief, declined a try of Rose Stanley"'"s aunt"'"s lipstick, was taking a suspiciously healthy interest in international sport and, when Miss Brodie herded her set to the Empire Theatre for their first and last opportunity to witness the dancing of Pavlova, Eunice was absent, she had pleaded off because of something else she had to attend which she described as "'"a social"'"."(Pg.62). In the park one day, as a pack of Girl Guides strolled by, Eunice showed interest in joining the group. When Miss Brodie heard light of this idea, she called them a facisti, and dismissed Eunice"'"s radical thinking. When Miss Brodie talks to Sandy about who she thought had betrayed her in her prime, she suspected Eunice on the grounds that… " …but I did have to come down firmly on her commonplace ideas. She wanted to be a Girl Guide, you remember. She was attracted to the Team Spirit- could it be that Eunice bore a grudge?" (Pg.126). When Eunice does look back to the past in retrospect, she relays to her husband that Miss Brodie left a great impression on her childhood and her life as an adult. Miss Brodie's Physical Appearance Miss Brodie is described as an average size woman with dark hair, flashing brown eyes, and a Roman profile. "Miss Brodie forced her brown eyes to flash as a meaningful accompaniment to her quite voice. She looked a mighty woman with her dark Roman profile in the sun." (P. 9) "Miss Brodie stood in her brown dress like a gladiator with raised arm and eyes flashing like a sword." (P. 46) "She looked disapprovingly towards the door and lifted her fine dark Roman head with dignity." (P. 46) "Miss Brodie's bones were small, although her eyes, nose and mouth were large." (P. 101) Miss Brodie has dominant features such as large eyes and a prominent nose just as she is a very dominant figure. She stands in a confident manner in front of her students and always walks about with her head held high. "… Miss Brodie on a day of lessons indoors stood erect, with her brown head held high, staring out of the window like Joan of Arc as she spoke." (P. 11) Miss Brodie was a lot like Joan of Arc in that she was a very opinionated and dominant woman; set in her ways and strong in her will. "Some days it seemed to Sandy that Miss Brodie's chest was flat, no bulges at all, but straight as her back." (P. 11) Like Joan of Arc, Miss Brodie was also masculine. Miss Brodie's Conduct in the Classroom Miss Brodie claims that she is leading the knowledge out of her students. "The word 'education' comes from the root e from ex, out, and duco, I lead. It means a leading out. To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul." (P. 36) Miss Brodie does the complete opposite. She does not allow the students form their own opinions. "Who is the greatest Italian painter? 'Leonardo da Vinci, Miss Brodie.' 'That is incorrect. The answer is Giotto, he is my favorite.'" (P. 10) She also leads the students to believe that some subjects are more important that others. "Art is greater than Science. Art comes first, and then Science." "Art and religion first; then Philosophy; lastly science. That is the order of the great subjects of life, that's their order or importance." (P. 25) Miss Brodie brainwashes her students into believing what she says. This is obvious when the Brodie set makes the transition to the senior school and chooses, with the exception of one, to take the classical languages (Greek and Latin) over the modern languages. Miss Brodie singles out certain students in her class and uses them for their abilities. One student, Mary Macgregor, is used as a scapegoat. Miss Brodie blames everything on Mary and treats her badly. "Miss Brodie grasped Mary's arm, jerked her to her feet and propelled her to the door where she thrust her outside and shut her out…" (P. 50). "Who has spilled ink on the floor - was it you Mary?" (P. 15) Although Mary was treated this way, she later recalls that these were the happiest years of her life. Mary was a part of a group; she felt included. To her, Miss Brodie made the normal world seem extraordinary. Miss Brodie would take her class outside and tell them stories about her own personal life and her travels. She preached about music, art, love, and poetry. During summer vacation, Miss Brodie would visit fascist countries and bring the ideas back into the classroom. Miss Brodie taught her students to conceal truth about what really took place during class. "She turned to the blackboard and rubbed out with her duster the long division sum she always kept on the blackboard in case of intrusions from the outside during any arithmetic periods when Miss Brodie should happen not to be teaching arithmetic." (P. 45) When Miss Brodie would take her class outside to sit under the trees while she told them about her past lover, she would get them to prop their books up in their hands to make it look like they were doing History. "Get out your history books and prop them up in your hands. I shall tell you a little more about Italy. I met a young poet by a fountain." (P. 46) Miss Brodie the Hypocrite Miss Brodie shows she is a hypocrite at many different points during the novel. "Her disapproval of the Church of Rome was based on her assertions that it was a church of superstition, and that only people who did not want to think for themselves were Roman Catholics." (P. 85) Miss Brodie does not like the Roman Catholic religion but she tells her students of her vacations to Rome which she took in search if culture. She also chose her set much like Jesus chose his disciples. "She always went to church on Sunday mornings, she had a rota of different denominations and sects which included the Free Churches if Scotland, the Established Church of Scotland…" (P. 85) Miss Brodie liked the Church of Scotland but yet she did not like John Knox, the founder of these institutions. "…and 'John Knox' said Miss Brodie, 'was an embittered man.'" (P. 33) Miss Brodie disliked the concept of team spirit but was very interested in Mussolini's fascisti. " ' Phrases like "the team spirit" are always employed to cut across individualism, love and personal loyalties,' she said, 'ought not to be enjoined on the female sex, especially if they are of that dedicated nature whose virtues from time to time immemorial have been utterly opposed to the concept…'" (P. 79) "Mussolini had put an end to unemployment with his fascisti and there was no litter in the streets." (P. 31) Also, Miss Brodie sleeps with Mr. Lowther the music teacher but will not sleep with Mr. Lloyd the art teacher because he is married with children. "… and so she experienced no difficulty or sense of hypocrisy in worship while at the same time she went to bed with the singing master. Just as an excessive sense of guilt can drive people to excessive action, so was Miss Brodie driven to it by an excessive lack of guilt." (P. 85) This is said shortly after discovering that Miss Brodie never misses church on Sunday mornings. Miss Brodie changed her former love stories to fit the feature of her new lovers. "Sometimes Hugh would sing, he had a rich tenor voice. At other times he fell silent and would set up his easel and paint. He was very talented at both arts, but I think the painter was the real Hugh." (P. 72) These talents were not mentioned before Miss Brodie's encounters with Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Lowther. Miss Brodie was unable to see the world except as an extension of herself. The Brodie set existed only to carry out her wishes. On the occasions where Miss Brodie was to be questioned by the head mistress, she expected her girls to drop whatever they were doing and stick up for her: " 'I should like you girls to come to supper tomorrow night, Miss Brodie said. 'Make sure you are free.' 'The Dramatic Society …' murmured Jenny. 'Send an excuse,' said Miss Brodie." (P. 9) Miss Brodie chose Rose to sleep with Teddy Lloyd so that she may live her fantasies through another medium. In this way, Miss Brodie could have the best of both worlds. In the end, Miss Brodie ended up losing the three things that were most important to her: Mr. Lowther, her position at Marcia Blaine, and the affection of her famous "Brodie set". Miss Brodie's Past Miss Brodie was brought up under the Church of Scotland. "… Miss Brodie who, at the same time as adhering to the strict Church of Scotland habits of her youth…" (P. 36). She also talked about her lovers of the past such as Hugh Carruthers. "I was engaged to a man at the beginning of the War but he fell on Flander's Field." (P. 12) "She fell for an Egyptian courier once…" (P. 27). When Miss Brodie first came to Edinburgh she lived on one of the unpleasant streets. "I had lodgings in this street when I first came to Edinburgh as a student." (P. 40) Miss Brodie did a lot of travelling during the summer. She visited Italy, Rome, England, Germany, and Austria. She was well traveled but most of her travels took her to fascist countries. Miss Brodie was a descendant of a wealthy cabinet maker who involved himself in politics. "I am a descendant, do not forget, of Willie Brodie, a man of substance, a cabinet maker and a designer of gibbets, a member of the Town Council of Edinburgh and a keeper of two mistresses who bore him five children between them. Blood tells. He played much dice and fighting cocks. Eventually he was a wanted man for having robber the Excise Office - not that he needed the money, he was a night burglar only for the sake of the danger in it. Of course, he was arrested abroad and was brought back to the Tolbooth prison, but that was mere chance. He died cheerfully on a gibbet of his own devising in seventeen-eighty-eight. However all this may be, it is the stuff I am made of…" (P. 88). Miss Brodie was not the only woman of her kind during this time. Many women like herself also traveled around the world and took up new languages. "There were legions of her kind during the nineteen-thirties, women from the age of thirty upward, who crowded their war-bereved spinsterhood with voyages of discovery into new ideas and energetic practices in art or social welfare, education or religion." (P. 42) These women had lost husbands in the war and occupied themselves with arguing over trivial matters. They were feminists and found talking to be a great joy. "But those of Miss Brodie's kind were great talkers and feminists and, like most feminists, talked to men as man-to-man." (P. 43) Sandy Stranger Sandy Stranger was famous in the Brodie set because of her vowel sounds. "Sandy, being half-English, made the most of her vowel sounds, it was her only fame." (P. 22) Sandy's last name, Stranger, was chosen by Spark for a reason. Sandy is different from the rest of the set. She is very reflective and it is she who first realizes that what Mussolini is doing with his group, Miss Brodie is doing with her group. As the girls marched along one day like the men in the painting Miss Brodie showed them of Mussolini's fascisti, Sandy made her realization. "It occurred to Sandy, there at the end of the Middle Meadow Walk, that the Brodie set was Miss Brodie's fascisti, not to the naked eye, marching along, but all knit together for her need and in another way, marching along." (P. 31) The whole group was walking like Mussolini's men in the painting with the exception of Sandy. "But Sandy was walking unevenly, in little spurts forward and little halts…" (P. 29). Miss Brodie's voice seemed to trigger something nasty in Sandy. "Then suddenly Sandy wanted to be kind to Mary Macgregor… The sound of Miss Brodie's presence, just when it was on the tip of Sandy's tongue to be nice to Mary Macgregor, arrested the urge." (P. 30) Sandy always chose to do things which were against Miss Brodie's beliefs. She thought about joining the girl guides (P. 72), and she liked to go to the science room to have ink removed from her blouse. "All the same, the visits to the science room were Sandy's most secret joy…" (P. 25). Sandy had to keep her joy secret because Miss Brodie did not approve of the frequent trips to get ink removed. In the end, Sandy turned her back on Calvinism and became Roman Catholic to spite Miss Brodie. She wrote a psychology book, Transfiguration of the Commonplace inspired by Miss Brodie. When asked what her inspiration was, she would reply "There was a Miss Jean Brodie in her prime." (P. 128) The title of the book infers that is was about how the ordinary world could be made extraordinary. Once Sandy grew older and was no longer afraid of losing Miss Brodie's affection, she betrayed her. " 'I'm not really interested in world affairs,' said Sandy, 'only putting a stop to Miss Brodie.'" (P. 125) Sandy's Physical Appearance Sandy's most important feature was her little pig-like eyes. References to Sandy's eyes were made many times throughout the novel. "She was merely notorious for her small, almost non-existent, eyes…" (P. 7). "…with her little eyes screwed on Miss Brodie…" (P. 22). " 'Compared to music,' said Sandy, blinking up at her with her little pig-like eyes." (P. 66) Although Sandy's eyes were so small, they could still see so much. Sandy's Double Life Throughout the novel, Sandy has many make-believe conversations with herself. She leads a double life to keep herself from getting bored. "Sandy was never bored, but she had to lead a double life of her own in order never to be bored." (P. 21) In these conversations, Sandy creates her own world where she can be perfect. "Never! said Sandy, placing her young lithe body squarely in front of the latch and her arm through the bolt. Her large eyes flashed with an azure light of appeal." (P. 19) During these fantasies Sandy is always the object of love or beauty. Along with conversations, Sandy wrote romantic fiction including a letter from Miss Brodie to Mr. Lowther (P. 73) and a love story about Hugh Carruthers (P. 18). Sandy breaks into these imaginary conversations when she has been bothered by something. Her first conversation with Alan Breck takes place after Miss Brodie has spoken to Mary Macgregor about being stupid. Sandy was also bothered by the female police detective's pronunciation of the word "nasty" that she had to create a conversation in which the woman spoke properly. "It bothered Sandy a great deal and she had to invent a new speaking-image for the policewoman." (P. 68) Perhaps this is Sandy's way of tuning out Miss Brodie and creating an environment where she could be an individual. Sandy liked to analyze the minds of people around her. "She listened to their conversations, at the same time calculating their souls by signs and symbols, as was the habit in those days of young persons who had read books of psychology when listening to older persons who had not." (P. 120). She became obsessed with Teddy Lloyd's mind because she wanted to know about the mind of a man that could love a woman like Miss Brodie. "The more she discovered him to be in love with Jean Brodie, the more she was curious about the mind that loved the woman. By the end of the year it happened that she had quite lost interest in the man himself, but was deeply absorbed in his mind…" (P. 123). Miss brodie Hitler was the fascist German dictator at the time of the story. Hitler is probably one of the most notorious people of the 20th century. He was responsible for millions of deaths during his regime. Miss Brodie was a supporter of Hitler and spoke of him several times during the novel. Ill Douche"- Mussolini was a fascist leader of Italy, prior to World War II. Mussolini was one of a number of fascist leaders that Miss Brodie would speak of after travelling in the summer. Fascism in Europe left soon after it began. Like the fall of the fascist leaders, the fall of Miss Brodie can not be attributed to any one event; rather, it is a combination of events that leads to the final outcome. Some may even claim that the outcome was evident from the very beginnings of the Brodie set. By exploring the events surrounding Miss Brodie's betrayal, it becomes apparent that the end was inevitable. As Miss Brodie's reign over her set diminished and her fall began, her girls "shook off Miss Brodie's influence as a dog shakes pond-water from its coat" (p. 119). The new portrait of Miss Brodie contrasts the picture drawn earlier, the picture of an "invincible" teacher and leader. "Miss Brodie looked beautiful and fragile, just as dark heavy Edinburgh itself could suddenly be changed into a floating city when the light was a special pearly white and fell upon one of the gracefully fashioned streets" (p. 111). Her fall, her betrayal by one of her set, follows Sandy's breaking free from Brodie's assigned roles. Sandy is Miss Brodie's closest confidant, and as such, is privied to exclusive information. She realizes that Miss Brodie had become serious about Rose becoming the lover of Teddy Lloyd in lieu of Miss Brodie: All at once Sandy realized that this was not all theory and a kind of Brodie game, in the way that so much of life was unreal talk and game-planning, like the prospects of a war and other theories that people were putting about in the air like pigeons, and one said, 'Yes, of course, it's inevitable.' But this was not theory; Miss Brodie meant it. Sandy looked at her, and perceived that the woman was obsessed by the need for Rose to sleep with the man she herself was in love with; there was nothing new in the idea, it was the reality that was new. (pp. 119) This passage contains many of Sandy's realizations: the link between Miss Brodie's actions and the war actions of other fascist leaders, the real consequences of Miss Brodie's decisions, the extent to which she now perceived the truth. This passage supports the idea that Miss Brodie's fall is evident from the very beginning. Sandy realizes that she had known about Jean Brodie all along, and that it is only now that she has come to realize the seriousness of the situation. Sandy has insight, and these realizations transform her "respect" for her former teacher, Miss Brodie. As she tells Mr. Lloyd, "You have instinct…but no insight, or you would see that the woman isn't to be taken seriously" (p. 123). Indeed, Sandy no longer took Miss Brodie seriously; however, upon discovering that Miss Brodie had formed a new set, Sandy realizes something has to be done, and betrays Miss Brodie. "I'm not really interested in world affairs…only in putting a stop to Miss Brodie" (p. 125). This was Sandy's reasoning for her betrayal. The grounds for the betrayal also provide clues as to Sandy's dormant realizations. "She's a born Fascist, have you thought of that?" (p. 125). Sandy realized all along that Miss Brodie was and still is a fascist, but only now does she reveal to the reader that she possesses this knowledge. The reader also realizes the truth in this, for even after the war, Miss Brodie's only comment is, "Hitler was rather naughty" (p. 122). The fall ends not in acceptance and repentance, but rather denial. Blame is first attributed to the scapegoat, Mary, but after her death, Miss Brodie becomes disillusioned, blaming all but herself. "'I'm afraid', Jenny wrote, 'M...