The Renunciation of Miss Jean Brodie

by Laura Bommarito, undergraduate scholar

Note: This essay was originally written as an English 1020 assignment. It was presented at the first annual Y|X: Youth Exchange conference on March 30, 2001, during a panel discussion entitled "Why Do We Read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Today?"

Muriel Spark's novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is set in Edinburgh, Scotland where Miss Jean Brodie teaches at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls. Miss Brodie is characterized as a confident, independent, domineering woman who describes herself as being "in her prime." As an idealist she has her own set of teaching standards and is devoted to her girls. Given the impressionable ages of her students, she feels it is her duty as a teacher to imbue them with her principles and beliefs. Her influence over them is important to her; she wants to mold them into individuals and freethinkers. She wants them to share her passion for the classical arts, as well as her political views. It never occurs to her that this influence could have a detrimental effect on the girls. It is Sandy, a precocious member of the Brodie set who recognizes the potential harm of her teacher and, as she slowly develops an opposition to Miss Brodie's sexual mores, she fears for the future unsuspecting young girls Miss Brodie has yet to mold and control. Sandy comes to the realization that she must "put a stop" to Miss Brodie's exploitation of her students. Although Sandy could be considered a typical teenager at a rebellious stage in her life, her betrayal of Jean Brodie is a deliberate decision spurned by religious conversion, moral opposition, and political differences.

There is no doubt of Miss Brodie's influence over her students. This influence affects Sandy differently from the five other girls who are Miss Brodie's chosen group of confidantes known as the Brodie set. Rather than embrace Miss Brodie's liberal way of life as her other students do, Sandy questions Miss Brodie's ethics, and in the end betrays her to Miss Mackay. Although the headmistress can't prove it, she is anxious to dismiss Miss Brodie for suspected impropriety; however with a suggestion from Sandy, it is Miss Brodie's politics that ultimately prove to be her downfall.

It is the nineteen-thirties, and in addition to teaching her students about the Italian Renaissance painters, the benefits of cleansing cream, and the word "menarche," Miss Brodie also expresses her admiration for Mussolini, and her support of Franco's fascisti in the Spanish Civil War. Miss Brodie is also fond of telling the girls about her romantic encounters while traveling, and stories of her lover Hugh, who died in the First World War. The young girls' fascination and curiosity about sex and romance is fueled by Miss Brodie's relationships, and her stories further elicit their interest.

Sandy and her best friend Jenny, also of the Brodie set, explore Miss Brodie's love life. They do so by writing a love story about her and her dead lover Hugh, entitled "The Mountain Eyrie." Sandy's first awareness of Miss Brodie as a sexual being is when Miss Brodie and Teddy Lloyd, the art master at school are discovered kissing in a classroom. Besides the obvious attraction and mutual appreciation for art that exists between Miss Brodie and Teddy Lloyd, Sandy and Jenny also detect the chemistry between Miss Brodie and their singing teacher, Gordon Lowther. Sandy and Jenny now imagine the two in bed together, and they fantasize about what happens: " 'Miss Brodie yawns,' said Sandy in order to restore decency, now that she suspected it was all true" (62). This is the first mention in the text that Sandy disapproves of Miss Brodie's affair. Disliking the idea of Miss Brodie as a sexual being, Sandy censors her fantasy by creating boredom as Miss Brodie's response.

One day when Jenny is out walking alone, she is accosted by an exhibitionist. After the incident is reported to the police, Sandy becomes obsessed with the policewoman who questions Jenny. As her new imaginary ally, Sandy names the policewoman Anne Grey. Spark writes: "Sandy was Anne Grey's right-hand woman in the Force, and they were dedicated to eliminate sex from Edinburgh and environs" (72). As Sandy and Jenny harmlessly script out a love letter to Gordon Lowther from Miss Brodie, Sandy is laying plans to expose her with Anne Grey. When listening to Miss Brodie ascribe traits of her admirers Gordon Lowther and Teddy Lloyd to her former lover Hugh, "Sandy was fascinated by this method of making patterns with facts, and was divided between her admiration for the technique and the pressing need to prove Miss Brodie guilty of misconduct" (76). At this point Sandy realizes that she morally opposes Miss Brodie's sexual exploits, but doesn't yet appreciate that she will betray Miss Brodie in real life. The betrayal remains somewhat of a game. When Jenny wants to confide in Miss Brodie about the incident with the exhibitionist, Sandy objects. This is Sandy's first action against Miss Brodie by not confiding in her about Jenny's secret. The man who exposed himself to Jenny represents sexual promiscuity and triggers a kind of sexual repression in Sandy. She makes a connection between the man and Miss Brodie's immorality. Sandy wants to exclude Miss Brodie from the secret, but can't explain the reason to Jenny. Sandy's feelings about Miss Brodie's relationship with Gordon Lowther are described as being in an "undecided state," and having an "unfinished quality." Sandy is undecided herself about Miss Brodie's sexuality, and has ambiguous feelings about seeing people in this new light.

Rose, also of the Brodie set, has drawn Miss Brodie's attention as one who is "endowed with instinct." Miss Brodie explains to Sandy: "Rose will be a great lover. She is above the common moral code,…" (117). Because Teddy Lloyd is married, Miss Brodie does not pursue an affair with him but prefers to foist Rose upon him in her stead.

With the first realization that people engage in sexual intercourse, Sandy is intrigued, but also repulsed. Here she fantasizes about the character from Kidnapped, Alan Breck, visiting her for a dinner date: "Supposing that passion struck upon them in the course of the evening and they were swept away into sexual intercourse? She saw the picture of it happening in her mind, and Sandy could not stand for this spoiling" (37).

Sandy eventually does have sexual intercourse (with Teddy Lloyd), but the experience doesn't abate her desire to betray Miss Brodie. Sandy eventually loses respect for Miss Brodie, and sees her as a proud, overbearing, and arrogant woman who uses people for her own selfish needs. She uses Gordon Lowther (for sexual release) although she is in love with Teddy Lloyd, and she wants to use Rose as the lover of Teddy Lloyd in place of herself. She also uses Joyce Emily, an idealistic student who becomes enraptured with Miss Brodie's romantic descriptions of Franco's fascisti. Miss Brodie encourages Joyce Emily to go to Spain and fight for Franco in the Spanish Civil War.

When Sandy is in her last year at school she decides to follow through with her plan to betray Miss Brodie. This decision was escalated by the death of Joyce Emily, who ran away to Spain to fight for Franco at the urging of Miss Brodie, even though most people in Edinburgh supported the Republicans. Sandy suddenly sees Miss Brodie as a threat, capable of causing harm inadvertently to those who trust her judgment. Sandy notes how her feelings for the woman have changed over the years:

And Miss Brodie said to Sandy: "From what you tell me I should think that Rose and Teddy Lloyd will soon be lovers." 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. She thought of Miss Brodie eight years ago sitting under the elm tree telling her first simple love story and wondered to what extent it was Miss Brodie who had developed complications throughout the years, and to what extent it was her own conception of Miss Brodie that had changed. (128)

At this point Sandy discerns the difference between fantasy and reality, and the difference between telling a simple love story and using others to vicariously live the love story.

Sandy has matured and developed a sense of morality and purpose in her obsession to have Miss Brodie dismissed from her teaching post. Later in life as a nun, Sandy admits that Miss Brodie provided "something to react against." More than simply an adolescent's need to rebel, Sandy feared the harm Miss Brodie was capable of inflicting on other young girls who would come to trust and believe in her, as Sandy did. Miss Brodie's support of Franco in the Spanish Civil War and her admiration for the fascists in Italy and Germany were a large factor in Sandy's decision to betray Miss Brodie. The admiration Miss Brodie elicited from "her girls" as an object of sexual fascination was seen as "unconscious Lesbian" behavior by Sandy. As Sandy becomes increasingly conservative, she becomes morally opposed to Miss Brodie. Now an adult, Sandy has adopted her own politics, embraced Catholicism, and entered a convent. She feels no remorse for renouncing Miss Brodie and all she represents.

 

Work Cited

Spark, Muriel. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. New York: HarperCollins, 1961.