Rather than employing a traditional chronological plot, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie works through flashbacks and glimpses into the future. The secrets of the story are all calmly revealed before they are set in a chronological context. This defeats a typical pattern of building, climax, and falling action, thus focusing attention not on what happens, but on why it happens. While suspense is eliminated, character motivation is highlighted. Spark can manipulate her readers’ responses because she controls the timing. The author likewise manipulates responses to the title character, because readers see her first through the eyes of those who worship her and interpret all of her actions positively.

Another unusual aspect of the novel’s construction is its multivoiced style. Juxtapositions of various levels of language add texture to the novel. Miss Brodie’s lofty speeches on arts or aesthetics are interrupted by her briskly chiding a girl to sit up straight or to stop fidgeting. The narrative voice is fairly uniform throughout, but tone in the girls’ fantasy letters and stories provides humor and an alternate narrative texture through parody. The hilarious imaginary letter that Sandy and Jenny write from Miss Brodie to Mr. Lowther, for example, is a polyvocal combination of adolescent girls’ ideas about sex, legal terms they have read in the newspaper, language from books such as Kidnapped and Jany Eyre, ideas gained from Miss Brodie herself, and formal letter-writing phrases.

It is through such letters that Miss Brodie’s effect on her set is revealed. Although the letters and stories introduce a comic element, the powerful influence of the teacher over her students manifests itself in ways that are more serious. As her girls grow older, Miss Brodie wants them to do things that she would not do herself—Rose’s predicted affair with Teddy Lloyd, for example, reflects a projection of her own unfulfilled dreams. She has started to live vicariously through them, whereas earlier, they had lived vicariously through her.

Miss Brodie’s influence over the girls raises many questions. Why are her companions little girls instead of friends her own age? Why must she be the controlling, dictating element of a group rather than an equal member? Is her need for power based on her own dimly perceived weaknesses?

Although she never thinks to question the morality of her own actions, Miss Brodie attempts to turn her weaknesses into strengths by interpreting them as such in her own mind. She downplays the significance of senior school subjects such as geometry that she is unable to teach her girls; she is trying to prevent her girls from moving beyond her. Her paranoia at being observed by other teachers is converted to a feeling of kinship among her students—they stand united against the intruders.

In the end, it is Miss Brodie’s sense that her power is absolute that brings about her downfall. Mr. Lowther’s marriage to another teacher reveals perhaps the first chink in her armor. Her influence weakens as the girls grow older and do not follow her plans for them. Finally, she is defeated not by her enemies, but by the betrayal of one of her own girls.

Despite her defeat and betrayal, Miss Brodie remains a paradox. Although Sandy believes that Miss Brodie must be stopped, she recognizes that her teacher’s innocence—her inability to view herself critically—is the reason for her manipulative behavior. Readers are encouraged to think highly of Miss Brodie through Spark’s characterization methods, which show her in the most positive light, even while readers are beginning to question her need for absolute power. Much of her behavior is contradictory: She keeps the...