The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Masterplots II: British and Commonwealth Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Muriel Spark
- First Published: 1961
- Type of Work: Moral satire
- Time of Work: 1930-1939
- Setting: Edinburgh, Scotland
- Principal Characters: Miss Jean Brodie, Sandy Stranger, Jenny Gray, Mary Macgregor, Eunice Gardiner, Monica Douglas, Rose Stanley, Joyce Emily Hammond, Miss Mackay, Gordon Lowther, Teddy Lloyd
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Bildungsroman, Satire
- Subjects: Girls, Maturation or coming of age, Teaching or teachers, Children, Self-discovery, Power, personal or social, Sex or sexuality, Social issues, Education or educators, Betrayal, Friendship, Schools or school life, 1930’s, Women, Death or dying, Moral conditions, Lifestyles, Scotland or Scottish people, Conformity, Students or student life, Fascism
- Locales: Edinburgh, Scotland
The Novel
At issue in this short novel are two competing notions of education: the nonconformist individuality of Miss Jean Brodie’s set and the team spirit and school loyalty insisted upon by Miss Mackay, the headmistress of the Marcia Blaine School for Girls. The story is told in multiple time frames so that the girls of the Brodie set can reflect back from a mature perspective upon the events of their school days.
Brodie believes that she has entered her “prime” in 1930, and this perception influences her teaching, which becomes all the more idiosyncratic and...
[The entire page is 2387 words long]
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