Or Conservatism. a Comparison of the Two Attitudes in the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark Bachelor’S Diploma Thesis

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Halina Burová

All that glitters is not gold. “Progressiveness” or Conservatism. A comparison of the two attitudes in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A.

2017

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..

Author’s signature

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor prof. Milada Franková for inspiring guidance

and valuable advice provided during the process of writing. Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 5 1 Muriel Spark ...... 7 1.1 Life ...... 7 1.2 Career ...... 8 1.3 Conversion to Catholicism ...... 9 2 The Novel ...... 12 3 The Film ...... 18 4 Miss Jean Brodie – The Prime Narcissist ...... 23 4.1 Appearance ...... 23 4.2 “Teaching Methods” ...... 26 4.3 Love Affairs ...... 30 4.4 The Dismissal ...... 35 5 Other Characters in Relation to Miss Brodie ...... 40 5.1 Miss Mackay – A Nimble Old Liner ...... 40 5.2 Sandy Stranger – An Assassin or an Ally ...... 43 5.3 Mary Macgregor – A Scapegoat ...... 46 Conclusion ...... 51 Bibliography ...... 53 Resumé (English) ...... 57 Resumé (Czech) ...... 58

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – further referred to as Miss Brodie Introduction

The aim of the thesis is to show that no matter how overwhelming the first impression of a person, a thing or an idea is, one should never cease to penetrate deeper under the surface to explore the true origins of the motivations standing behind particular actions, as the topic of the thesis All that glitters is not gold says.

I will attempt to demonstrate the validity of this old saying on the example of a character study of Miss Jean Brodie, the main heroine of Muriel Spark’s most famous novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie published in 1961. Miss Brodie was a teacher in a conservative Edinburgh primary school for girls. Her personality, lifestyle and teaching methods were considered progressive and therefore they were in a constant clash with the universally acknowledged conservative approach of the school.

The thesis will focus on the subconscious motivations of Miss Brodie’s behaviour, which, although initially considered as progressive and revolutionary, eventually lead to disastrous outcomes as will be shown. This behaviour will be compared to the general conservative attitudes represented by the school of Marcia

Blaine with its headmistress, Miss Mackay as the embodiment of this approach. The thesis will also attempt to show the divergent ways of the impact Miss Brodie’s methods had on the two of her students, Sandy Stranger and Mary Macgregor.

The novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and the film of the same title will serve as the primary sources for the thesis. I do not, however, attempt to compare the two versions of Miss Brodie, rather I focus on the analysis of her personality both in the book and the film.

I also include a separate chapter on the author’s out of the ordinary biography and her way to become a famous novelist; the influences that contributed to the overall

5 shape of the novel as it is known, one such great influence being her conversion to

Catholicism in the 1950s. A chapter on the film version is also included, which discusses some peculiarities worth mentioning.

1 Muriel Spark

1.1 Life

The Scottish novelist, Dame Muriel Sarah Spark was born on 1 February 1918 as Muriel Sarah Camberg to a Presbyterian-Jewish family in Edinburgh. She also wrote biographies and poems but it was her 1961 novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie that brought her the worldwide fame. She was made Dame of the British Empire in 1993 and in 2008 was listed No. 8 among the best fifty British writers since 1945 by The

Times newspaper. She died aged 88 on 15 April 2006 in Florence, Italy (Spark,

Curriculum 22; “Biography”; “The Telegraph”; “The Times”).

Spark attended James Gillespie’s School for Girls between the years 1923-1935, which served her as an inspiration for her novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Spark,

Curriculum 50). The figure of her teacher Christina Kay was later personified in the novel as the radical teacher Jean Brodie and the whole experience of James Gillespie’s

School is reflected in the book. Between the years 1934-1935, she took a course in commercial correspondence and precise writing and taught for a brief period of time

(Spark, Curriculum 105).

In 1937, at the age of 19, she married Sidney Oswald Spark and travelled with him to Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia) (Spark, Curriculum 116). They had a child together, a son named Robin, but not long afterwards she discovered her husband suffered from a mental illness. He was a manic depressive with violent tendencies. She left him and their son in 1940. In 1944, she returned to England and was desperate to find a job to support her son – at that time raised by nuns in Africa (“Biography”) – and to be able to publish her books. Spark was a knowledgeable and a very intelligent woman for her age and thanks to that was offered an exceptional position at the Political

Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office where she remained until the end of 7

World War II. Her tasks at the Department involved for example writing misleading and discouraging news reports for the Germans or other methods of psychological combat

(Spark, Curriculum 146-59).

After the war, she took a few secretarial jobs, to “keep alive until” she “got published” and she needed the money to be able to write; fortunately, that starting help was provided to her by Graham Greene (Smith, 205). At that time, Spark lived in the south-eastern part of London, Camberwell.

She moved to New York in 1962 and some three years later she moved to Rome.

There she met Penelope Jardine, an artist and sculptor. They became close friends and companions and settled a household together in a small village in Tuscany. They often had to face speculations of lesbian relationship which they denied (Franková 168;

“Biography”).

1.2 Career

Spark’s career as a writer began after the war. She started working for the Poetry

Review in 1947 where she remained until 1949. She attempted to write poetry since she was a child of about nine or ten and considered herself mainly a poet all her life. The

Prime of Miss Jean Brodie together with two of her other works (The Girls of Slender

Means and The Mandelbaum Gate) are described by Kemp as fine examples of Spark’s approach as a poet writing novels when he quotes her in his book: “I think my novels are the novels of a poet” (71). In fact, her turn from poetry to short stories to novels was a gradual process. At first she started writing narrative poems, then novels. “I was writing essays more and more on narrative poetry, and I can see I was working toward narrative” (Smith 201), claims the author. The milestone on her way to become a novelist was her winning of the first prize for the competition in The Observer in 1951

8 for her short story “The Seraph and the Zambesi” (Hosmer 135). Except for poems,

Spark also wrote plays and biographies of such figures as John Masefield, Emily Brönte or Mary Shelly. She was influenced greatly by the French writers like Flaubert, Proust or Robbe-Grillet but also by the Belgian writer of detective stories and psychological novels, Georges Simenon, hence the frequent mysterious elements in her works, The

Prime of Miss Jean Brodie including, of which she states: “I believe that the supernatural gives depth” (Smith 210). Another source of inspiration for Spark were mediaeval morality plays (Hosmer 135, 151). Such a reading list speaks for Spark as a truly knowledgeable scholar, a fact which is even more remarkable if we consider most of her knowledge was acquired by self-study.

In the interview with Robert Hosmer, she says she didn’t particularly follow the critics’ reviews: “I didn’t see what was written about me” (146). This is in part good because she did not write to satisfy critics’ taste, she wrote naturally, genuinely.

“I never know at any one time what critics are thinking of my work” (148). Different communities of readers in different countries produce different reactions to her books and the same goes for critics because of their different backgrounds and cultural traditions and therefore it is pointless to try to satisfy everybody.

1.3 Conversion to Catholicism

A major influence in Spark’s life and work was her conversion to Catholicism in

1954. Spark was born in a Presbyterian-Jewish family (“The Telegraph”) but was not much interested in practising any of the two religions until the 1950s when she started reading works of Cardinal John Henry Newman, a Catholic convert from the 19th century. She was inspired by it but she first turned to the Anglican faith, considering it more familiar. Later, however, she saw Anglican tradition as too young for her. When

9 asked for the reasons of her conversion, she says the simple answer would be that it corresponded to her overall beliefs and views, the more difficult answer, that it was a step by step building up of a conviction, something too complicated to explain to somebody without an insight but certainly there was no breaking point nor any miraculous event that inclined her to that decision (Spark, Curriculum 202).

Interestingly, before reading Newman, Spark considered herself primarily a poet and wrote no fiction at all (Montgomery 95). The notions of Catholicism and her conversion are reflected in many of her works, for instance in the first of her novels,

The Comforters (1957) but remarkably also in Miss Brodie where the conversion of

Sandy markedly resembles the path of Newman’s and Spark’s own conversion

(Montgomery 94).

In the interview conducted with Spark by Robert Hosmer she says that her process of conversion was a “gradual elimination of all but the Roman Catholic faith”

(132). She also confirms her conversion to be a major influence on her writing because:

“What people believe is their character and as such is of vital interest to a novelist”

(Hosmer 132).

In many of Spark’s works there are numerous instances of violence and also some erotic elements. In the case of Miss Brodie, it would be the death of one of her pupils, Mary Macregor. In the book, she dies in adulthood in a hotel-room fire, in the film in the Spanish Civil War. The interviewer Robert Hosmer is wondering and surprised about the inclusion of so much of violence having in his mind Spark’s

Catholic conviction. She answers simply: “But there is violence in the world” and then:

“I just feel life is cruel. You take that away, it’s like taking away something very vital: these touches of violence are really vital to the story” (Hosmer 144). Thus, Spark does

10 not let herself to be limited by her faith rather she uses it to describe naturalistically the world around her.

But when it comes to the frequent labelling her as a Catholic writer or to the term Catholic novel she objects because for her there is nothing like a Catholic novel unless it is propaganda and claims she wants to be perceived as a writer as such, impartial. The fact that she is Catholic is for her of the same importance as the fact that she writes in English (Hosmer 155-56).

2 The Novel

The twelve years spent in James Gillespie’s High School for Girls were of great significance for Spark as a girl and as a future writer. James Gillespie’s High School for

Girls was one of the best-known in Edinburgh (Spark, Curriculum 50). The novel of

Miss Brodie is entirely soaked with the atmosphere of those school days of Spark’s, of

Edinburgh of the 1920s and 30s. As the author claims in the interview: “I think a background of authenticity is absolutely necessary. It is no use writing about a place intimately if you haven’t been there” (Smith, 202). Marcia Blaine School for Girls as well as James Gillespie’s School were both traditional, conservative. In this world of tradition, art and romance had no room to flourish. “It was certainly an attitude typical of Edinburgh to deny feelings for the sake of principle” (Spark, Curriculum 52) and the principle of Marcia Blaine was taken from the Bible: “Who can find a virtuous woman?

For her price is far above rubies” (Neame 03:12), thus the girls were thought many practical skills, that is “virtues,” such as sewing, dancing etc. However, “nothing can be more puritanical in application than the virtues” (Spark, Curriculum 53) and clearly the conservative puritanical atmosphere must have been dense there, as it is distinctly portrayed in Miss Brodie, the James Gillespie’s reproduction.

There Spark meets Miss Christina Kay, the chief personality in her school days, later to be embodied in the title protagonist of Miss Jean Brodie. The name Brodie was, however, derived from another teacher of Spark’s, a young American teacher named

Charlotte Rule, whose maiden name was Brodie (Spark, Curriculum 56). “In a sense

Miss Kay was nothing like Miss Brodie. In another sense, she was far above and beyond her Brodie counterpart” (Spark, Curriculum 57). The same as Miss Brodie, Miss

Christina Kay involved in her lessons much “extracurricular” information:

“Her accounts of her travels were gripping, fantastic” (Spark, Curriculum 57).

And Spark admits that except for writing essays about her own holidays, she also attempted to write poems about Miss Kay’s various holiday in Rome, Egypt or

Switzerland (the same destinations as chose Miss Brodie). She admits she fell truly

“under her spell” (Spark, Curriculum 57).

The same as Miss Brodie, Miss Kay too had her favourite students and as in the novel it was “the Brodie set” in this case it was something similar but consisting of only two pupils, namely Muriel Spark and her best friend Frances Cowell, née Niven

(Spark, Curriculum 58). They visited galleries and concerts together, she used to take them to teas, they even went to the Empire Theatre to see Anna Pavlova, the prima ballerina of the time, (Spark, Curriculum 58, 65), a figure later also present in the novel and the film, mentioned as the example of one of the “dedicated women” (Spark,

Miss Brodie 63). It could be argued that Spark and her friend are also pictured in

Miss Brodie, namely Muriel Spark in the Brodie girl Sandy, as could be seen in many instances hinting similarities to Spark’s own life; for example, both Sandy’s and Spark’s mothers were English and thus differed in manners and habits from the typical

Edinburgh ladies (Montgomery, 97).

The artistic personality of the charismatic teacher of Spark later imprinted in

Miss Brodie showed in her every lesson. Different than in other classes were the walls in Miss Key’s class covered not with student’s drawings but with reproductions of the most famous Renaissance painters, like da Vinci, Giotto and Botticelli. The whole personality of Miss Kay was that of an artist. As Spark presents her in her Curriculum

Vitae, “she was the ideal dramatic instructor” and compares the setting of a class with a single teacher “performing” in the front to that of a theatre. Her entire language and behaviour were very dramatic, as Spark claims, but it was not that she overacted, says

Spark, “indeed, she never acted at all” (57).

“She was a devout Christian and there could not have been any question of a love-affair with the art master or the sex-affair with the singing master, as in Miss

Brodie’s life” claims Spark in the same place. But children quickly notice those little remarks and glances to be able to construct fantastic stories in their minds. Hence, not, in this aspect it was not a literal Miss Brodie, but she “had it in her, unrealized, to be the character I invented,” believes Spark (Curriculum 57). And, in another place in the book she says: “What filled our minds with wonder and made Christina Kay so memorable was the personal drama and poetry within which everything in her classroom happened. Her large, dark eyes were always alert and shining – that, I think, was half of the magic” (Spark, Curriculum 60-61).

She also, like Miss Brodie, used to stop in mid-sentence to point out the etymology of a word:

“Merily, merily,shall I live now

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough –

And the root of ‘bough’ is? … Right. Bog, to bend. It describes the flexible

bough. Well, as I was saying, (…)” as Spark remembers (Curriculum 61). This was then later immortalized in the film and in the book when in the memorable scene at the head mistress’s office Miss Brodie discussed with the headmistress Miss Mackay the origin of the word education, trying to penetrate its very sense (Neame 39:48). She was convinced that education is based on leading out of what is already in the students’ minds, of releasing one’s internal potential, whereas the headmistress was of the opposite belief, namely that there should be also some “putting in” into those minds, upon which Miss Brodie answers that it would be an intrusion. 14

Another feature linking Miss Key to Miss Brodie would be that of mixing together of quite unrelated contexts. Like when, talking about her lover’s tragic death in the Battle of Flanders, she interrupts to reprove one girl for having her sleeves rolled up, which Miss Brodie did not like (Neame 10:11). Like when mentioning in the middle of the sentence, that Mussolini is a great leader and a dedicated man and that he put a stop to litter in the streets of Italy (That admiration to Italy being one another trait in common with Miss Kay). This points to her romantic, absent-minded nature. She also mentions the fur shops in a certain street of Berlin when the context is the war (Spark,

Curriculum 59) or, at one of the set’s picnics she juxtaposes French cuisine with French women’s suffrage: “The French have a genius for food but I doubt French women will ever get the vote” (Neame 15:42). Those free associations may indicate vivid imagination but they are rather too irrational, in fact.

There were also other teachers, who are until certain extent embodied in the novel and the film but to none of them did Spark devote so much space in her

Curriculum Vitae as she did to Miss Kay. She was under the care of Miss Kay from her

11 until her 13, for two years, 1929 and 1930 (Spark, Curriculum 61). But, however short the period was, it immensely influenced her life and work and showed, as Glavin describes: “what Muriel Sarah Camberg might have become, had she remained in

Edinburgh and not revised herself into Muriel Spark” (226).

Mrs. Spark, as quoted by Kemp, began her works by the creation of a title and only then the particular plots unravel: “I always start with a title… and then work round different meanings. A novel is, for me, always an elaboration of a title – contains a play on words” (72). Also, in another interview, she claims the same: “Very often it is just a title, and it is ‘given.’ It is some sort of act of inspiration but maybe it is unconscious.

I go on repeating the title until I’ve got the sort of feel of it. It’s poetic in process,

15 really” (Columbia, 211). And so is the case with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie where the word “prime” as a noun refers to the adulthood of Miss Brodie, perceived by her to be the best years of her life. But it is at the same time also an adjective meaning “the first,” “the best,” “the superior.” In that sense, it refers not only to her prime of life but also to the elitism Miss Brodie is preoccupied with, to the set of the so called “Brodie girls,” the chosen ones penetrating their way into the society’s top (as in Kemp: “In the classroom at Marcia Blaine, with Miss Brodie in command, elitism is passionately preached” (72)).

She creates suspense gradually, unravelling particular traits of her characters, in our case the faults of Miss Brodie, as the story escalates. She is, however, rather cautious when it comes to expressing character’s feelings and she claims: “Feelings and thoughts are even more emphasised when you don’t mention them” (Hosmer 147). She avoids by that the pathetic effect it would have, if the emotions were stated more explicitly. In another interview, she says: “The fact is that emotions are not clear to anybody. I think mental states and emotional states are very much tied up but I do think that not everyone has control over their emotions in every particular” (Columbia, 202).

In the novel she frequently uses flash-forwards. The reason for that is that: “Both the future and the past can influence the present” (Hosmer 148). She also, by that means discloses what happens later in the book. When asked for the purpose of the early giveaways, Spark suggests that to be a deliberate attempt to draw the reader’s attention somewhere else. Spark confirms and adds that: “To give the show away in a strange way, strange manner, creates suspense more than the withholding of information does.

Secondly, I think it has an aestachological function” (Hosmer 149-50). The reader knows the unexpected result but does not know how it came about. That is what makes up for the mystery in her works, she asserts (Hosmer 156).

The element of detective story can also be seen in the character of Sandy

Stranger, the “dependable” of the set. In the book and the film she is presented as a clever girl, with whom Miss Brodie must be careful to be on good terms not to expose herself too much. Miss Brodie gives her the label “dependable” and tries to take information from her. Eventually, Sandy “betrays” her, disclosing to the headmistress

Miss Brodie’s misdemeanours.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is exceptional for another reason. It is the only novel by Muriel Spark situated in her home Scotland. It is not for a mere sentiment she had set her novel in her home town Edinburgh: “Edinburgh, focal point of Calvinism, a creed of which, also built around a concept of the chosen and the rejected, occupies a place in theology similar to that of Fascism in politics” (Kemp, 73). This concept of predestination is one of the key elements in Miss Brodie as the central character is excited by the notion of being exceptional and better then others and with the fascistic regime, which also builds upon that principle.

3 The Film

Creation of a book and creation of a film are two totally different processes requiring totally different methods and devices, in order to achieve an outcome – a specific reaction – on the side of the receiver, which is not necessarily to be the same in both cases. The question of whether or not to stay faithful to the literary model and until what extent is the major issue in adapting literary works to films.

The film version of Miss Brodie was released in 1969 by producers James

Cresson and Robert Fryer and the 20th Century Fox film studio. Directed by Ronald

Neame, the film made a huge success winning several awards, namely the Academy

Award for the Best Actress staring Maggie Smith in the title role of Miss Brodie, the

Golden Globe for the Best Song “Jean”, two BAFTA awards and many other prizes and nominations (“Awards”; “The Prime”). As to our first impression of the film and of the quite unexpected further development of the plot, Stephen Farber in the Film Quarterly writes: “As far as technique is concerned, Miss Jean Brodie could have been made in

1949 as easily as in 1969, and in fact, the old fashioned, cosy look of the film does not quite prepare us for the surprising characterizations and insights that the film contains”

(63). And it well corresponds with the clearly unpredictable character of Miss Jean

Brodie and the original intention of Spark, never cease to surprise.

Both of the forms, film as well as book, however, have their limitations. One of the main problems lies in depicting in a film what was profusely described in a book.

The elements which were left to the reader’s imagination are in the film presented in a particular way and it depends on the viewers how they comprehend them, whereas while reading the book they can create the whole story according to their own taste.

Another difference lies in the fact that while writing a book, the author creates some sort of their own imaginary world of how they would like the story to be interpreted. In the film there is a director, actors, a script writer and many other staff who contribute to the whole outcome, every one of them giving their varied notions on how it should look like. Therefore, the picture we are given in the film is richer in a sense that it is a compound of manifold view points and extensive experience.

Of immense importance in films is the sound and it is one another huge difference compared to books. Music, sound system and voices of particular actors, their intonation, timbre and pitch are major factors in creating of atmosphere. Taking this away, half of the drama of the moment vanishes, horror movies lose their creepiness, action scenes become dull. Only the mere dubbing makes the difference from the original picture tremendous. The difference compared to the impression created by a book is even greater.

The performance of the Dame Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is astonishing. Although some critics rate it as overdone (Best) it is exactly that pathetic effect what creates the comical element of the film. In the series of the same name produced in the 1970s, there is Geraldine McEwan (Acorn TV), whose ways are perhaps more natural and therefore believable but those are the extremities, not the moderation and temperance that make up for the complex personality of Miss Brodie.

Stephen Farber further notes: “her performance is extraordinary – the self-controlled, deliberate flamboyance of the teaching scenes, a spontaneous, fiery outburst in the prissy headmistress’ office (…), the unabashed romanticism of the scenes in which she thinks about her own frustration while discussing poetry. Few actresses could sustain such different moods in a film” (63).

Also, the other actors and actresses were well-chosen. Celia Johnson as Miss

Mackay and Pamela Franklin as Sandy were both awarded as Best Supporting

Actresses, the first with the BAFTA award, the second with the award by the National

Board of Review and both performances were magnificent. The peculiar coincidence of the film is also the selection of the other cast; Robert Stephens for the role of the art master Teddy Lloyd, Miss Brodie’s lover, was in fact Smith’s husband at that time and the singing master Gordon Lowther (Gordon Jackson) and a Chemistry teacher Miss

Lockhart (Rona Anderson) who were in the film engaged to be married were also a married couple in real life (Best; “Obituaries”).

The song “Jean” composed by Rod McKuen and performed by the singer Oliver was also nominated for the Academy Award but missed to “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on

My Head” from the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (“Emanuel Levy”).

There in the film, considerable changes have been made when compared to the original book version. The novel was made into a play by Jay Presson Allen with

Vanessa Redgrave, then to a film. The use of the flash-forwards so frequently employed by Spark in the book is totally omitted in the film which, in fact, makes it easier to follow. Spark was not overwhelmingly pleased with the film when she first saw it. She perceived the colours to be too bright for Edinburgh setting, however, she admits that

Miss Kay would love it, since she was greatly aware of colours (Curriculum Vitae, 60).

The religious aspects of the book are almost entirely missing in the film. The plot is set in Edinburgh, the fortress of Calvinism (Kemp, 73) and the Calvinist principles are very important for the context of Miss Brodie. The Calvinist concept of predestination is the root of the whole elitism Miss Brodie is preoccupied with. The already mentioned flash-forwards are not used without purpose; they serve, as

Montgomery says: “prophetic determinism insofar as they too look into the girls‘ futures and appease the readers’ desire for narrative unfolding” (100). There are the chosen, allowed to misdemeanours. Also, in accordance with the principles of

Calvinism, there are the ones to be damned and in this case that was the part for Mary

Macgregor. O the basis of the principle of predestination, some people may also believe in the notion of romantic love, that there are two people created for each other and that they cannot be happy with anybody else; such hints are also visible in Miss Brodie. The

Roman Catholic faith is in the film mentioned only twice; once by the art master Teddy

Lloyd, who does not take it very seriously although himself claiming allegiance to it, the second time by Miss Brodie, who despises it speaking of Lloyd as of a man who

“can’t think for himself” (Neame 1:47:17). Sandy’s future career as a nun is also not there. Showing this, would require the use of flash-forwards which is not involved in the film. The film is thus more realistic than the book.

Also the number of the girls of the set is reduced in the play and consequently in the film as well. Originally, there were six girls in the novel, in the film, however, there are only four of them. Characteristics of the two of the missing girls are blended into the other characters. Thus Mary acquires characteristics of Joyce Emily, Jenny bears traits of another girl, Rose. In fact, she is more like Rose because in the book it was Rose who was to become Teddy Lloyd’s lover. Anyway, she is Jenny in the film.

Also many of the erotic elements are eliminated. Those are widely used in the book and it often enlivening to hit upon such thing in different situational contexts of the book but putting this in the film might be perceived as overused and after a few times mentioning the phrase that someone would be in the future “famous for sex,”

(00:52:20) as rather dull and boring. Also the passage where the exhibitionist walked in

Jenny’s way home from school and took of his clothes in front of her might not come

21 out very successfully. In a whole, what works good in a book might not work as well in the film. It would be totally different picture and arguably that successful.

The objection can be raised that the changes made are too vast, that the resemblance to the original book is preserved only in the most rough outlines. It is partly true, but the outcome is an Oscar winning film. It might have been that if the director had undertaken the task to stay scrupulously faithful to the novel, it would not go out that well. One has to admit that the novel is really very comprehensive and not always easy to follow. With all the time-shifts and skipping of actions, the probable outcome would be a crazy science fiction film, out of which it is difficult not to make a kitsch or a parody of the original. This way the better service to the author had been made, and the consequently, it gained the due reception.

4 Miss Jean Brodie – The Prime Narcissist

4.1 Appearance

The impression we gain when we first see Miss Brodie in the film is that of a positive, energetic teacher, who enjoys her job and is eager to embrace and pass forward new ideas. She is an elegant, well-kept and neat, still quite young looking lady in her late-thirties. In the opening-scene she is just on her way to school on her bicycle, exhibiting her sporty figure in one of her close-fitting dresses. She is of medium-height, slim. Her fashionable hairstyle is rather noticeable – a bright blond-dyed, short haircut, back-combed, not one hair out of place. In the novel, her hair is brown and so are her eyes. In the film, however, she is personified by Maggie Smith, whose large eyes are bright-blue. That piercing blue of her eyes, however, apart from suggesting the enthusiasm of which Miss Brodie is undoubtedly full, also adds to the overall cold and reserved impression she creates. It is also one of the identification signs of narcissism, a personality disorder of which many symptoms can be traced in Miss Brodie. Erich

Fromm in his book Lidské srdce (The Heart of Man) describes several features of how to recognize this personality disorder: “Sometimes it is possible to recognize narcissistic personality by their facial expression. Their face often shines or they are smiling, which gives the impression of refinement, bliss, trustfulness, naivety. Narcissism is often, mainly in its extreme forms, characterized by a peculiar glitter in the eyes, which some consider half a sign of sanctity, others as a sign of a half madness” (56, my translation).

She often wears bright colours which pose a striking contrast compared to the grey of her pupils’ uniforms, the grey of the class-rooms and the corridors, the ever-present grey in the school of Marcia Blain. One cannot overlook her. The dresses she wears are also noticeable by being very skin-tight, which on the one hand looks sexy, underlining the slim figure of Miss Brodie but, at the same time, they seem rather starchy and

23 uncomfortable. In fact, they often resemble a military uniform. In one of the scenes one of the teachers says: “She always looks so extreme,” (Neame 16:43) and that is the right and most fitting word for the impression Miss Brodie gives.

She always maintains an upright bearing, proudly holding her head high “like

Sybil Thorndike” (Spark, Miss Brodie 23). This, however, also comprises to the stiff authoritative image of a leader, the personality type she admires and herself would like to become, at least for her students. The vision of the ranks of soldiers marching like one man and obeying the orders of their leader, looking up to him as to the fatherly figure, serving the noble goal, every one of them dedicated to the common purpose, loyal until death. Those were the images pleasing Miss Brodie’s eyes, such attitudes she would like to witness in her pupils. And it would be her, who will “provide them with interests” (Neame 7:14), give them the ideals (Neame 1:48:40), encourage them (Neame

1:03:03) to distinguish themselves in the world (Neame 50:04), to find their place and sense of life, to identify with a lofty principle for which they could be proud of, against which they would lean their self-esteem.

Miss Brodie’s way of speech is another component completing the whole extravagant image. This could be only experienced in the film where, in the person of

Maggie Smith, Miss Brodie raises and sinks in her intonation, making her utterances vivid and alive. Also, the distinctive Scottish accent is inevitably present, this is, however, obviously used by all the actors. The performance of Maggie Smith is inimitable, when she moves her lips in such strikingly artificial manner that it would certainly please Miss Brodie because she would perceive it as highly artistic.

Her affected speech is in great contrast to her coveted way of composure, to be “like the

Mona Lisa” (Neame 1:05:34). Her diction is very alike that of the “great leaders” of her time, as were Mussolini, Hitler or Franco. Energetic, vigorous and dynamic, economical

24 as well, saying only the most necessary things to say, but always very personal, at least seemingly, to grasp the attention of the audience, addressing them as “little girls” and praising them to be the crème de la crème – this is the way by which Miss Brodie gains her pupils’ naive hearts and consequently also their loyalty.

Her fervent behaviour contradicts the noble ideal of coolness she pursues. In fact, she is a very nervous woman, who only struggles to cover this with a veil of a superficial self-control. She herself admits, when speaking to Sandy at a tea one afternoon: “I am a deeply emotional woman, I feel many things passionately” (Neame

1:02:10). But she feels them only in one direction; she feels what affects her, not so much what affects the other people. She is ecstatic about her own ideas and plans but she cannot be truly happy for anyone else’s success or joy. She feels offended and gradually even depressed when somebody dares to objectively criticize her insane deeds but she evidently does not care too much if her speech does not do any harm to anybody, she speaks to other people off the top of her head and everybody is struck dumb so that they cannot contradict her at the very moment but only afterwards, when they have recovered from the shock. She says the most ordinary statements as if they were the cleverest jokes, often repeating her would-be witty announcements. Phrases like: “I would not leave you, girls, for the Lord Lyon, King-of-Arms”

(Neame 49:05, 7:43) or “If they want to get rid of me, they would have to assassinate me!” (Neame 49:13, 58:17) her girls then know by heart. She throws a scene in the headmistress’s office but it is “permissible in a great artist” (Spark, Miss Brodie 62-63).

She is, indeed, a passionate woman. But at this level it is not only passion but sheer hysteria which is not good for people and people, especially children should not be exposed to her (Neame 1:50:05), to paraphrase her pupil Sandy.

4.2 “Teaching Methods”

Miss Brodie is criticised for being progressive. The headmistress Miss Mackay admonishes her several times. It appears to us, from the first encounters with the bright

Miss Jean Brodie in the dim surroundings of the school and the severe looking Miss

Mackay, and from the point of view the narrative is presented, that it must surely be

Miss Brodie who is right. Heilman claims that she: “manages to seem superior to a whole cadre of routine-bound dull souls” (418). Her teaching methods are indeed innovative for the standards of the 1930s – she takes her students to galleries and theatres, decorates her classroom with copies of the most famous paintings; she is illustrative. She takes her inspiration from the great figures of history: Helen of Troy,

Joan of Arc or Florence Nightingale are the frequent names on her list of heroines, the dedicated women, to take an example from. However, among her other idols are also names like Mussolini, Franco or Hitler. Those were undoubtedly the great leaders of that time, unfortunately, where to they led Miss Brodie was never to fully comprehend.

Suh says that: “her attraction to fascism appears to be motivated by extra-political reasons” and that ”she does not perceive the violence behind its idealist rhetoric and aesthetic appeal” (87). For Miss Brodie those fascists were only good soldiers trusting in their leader’s convictions.

Instead of teaching, she tells her girls romantic stories from her last holidays, showing private pictures. It is striking, when there in the film, in an overview of the lessons, we are in a lab with the girls performing chemical experiments, at other times we are at the gym where the girls are exercising, then they are having a singing lesson with Mr. Lowther and everybody is singing. And then, they are with Miss Brodie having a picnic (Neame 00:45:08). It often happens to her that she completely forgets what subjects they are just doing (Neame 01:05:15). Sometimes she deliberately

26 neglects a subject to tell them a romantic story. In such cases, she tells the children to have their books open in case somebody comes in. Doing this, she: “instructs her students to cultivate deceiving appearances to fool their superiors” (Kızılaslan 281).

They also make excursions to various places; theatres, galleries, museums. But they also visit Mr. Lowther in his house in Cramond. Miss Brodie, however, advocates those trips as purely scientific so that no one can blame her: “I use the woods of Cramond for lessons in botany, the rocks of the shore to investigate the mysteries of geology.

It should be patently clear that my expeditions to Cramond are expeditions for enrichment. Enrichment for my girls…and for Marcia Blaine” (Neame 00:41:49).

Miss Brodie addresses her pupils: “my special girls,” (Neame 01:32:50) giving them by that means a status of exclusivity. This is, however, problematic. Erich Fromm explains it in the following words: “The most dangerous consequence of narcissistic attachment is distortion of rational judgement. The object of narcissistic attachment is considered valuable (good, beautiful, wise etc.) but not based on objective value judgement but because it is me or it is mine. Narcissistic value judgement is biased and one-sided” (Fromm, Lidské srdce 58, my translation). But all her students were the crème de la crème because they were hers. She carefully organizes picnic lunches for her and the girls, instead of eating together with others in the school canteen. That would be very unlike her, to dine in a common room. It would mean a kind of exposing herself to the stark reality of not being in the centre of attention. There, at the picnic under the elm tree, she was the one the girls were looking up to, the one who was leading the show. There was she, Miss Brodie – the teacher, and her pupils. The actor and her audience, the leader and her disciples. In the common room, she would have been just one of the many. There she was also safe from the risk of being confronted with the opinions of her colleagues, who, although being in her eyes always less than

27 her, were at least adults, not children. Not that she would not be clever enough to speak with them; she was inventive in making up stories but the plain friendship is not in any way attractive to the narcissistic personality of Miss Brodie. She makes friends only to use them for her own purposes, to manipulate them into the figures in her play.

The kinds of relationship she cultivates are servitude on the one hand and domination on the other. And the same she wants from her girls: “She wants her girls to be both leaders and disciples, dominating others and subordinating to her” (Kemp 78).

She strongly professed individualism and it was the common spirit promoted by the school that she despised so much. “Phrases like ‘the team spirit’ are always to cut across the individualism. Cleopatra knew nothing of team spirit if you read your

Shakespeare. And where would the team spirit have got Anna Pavlova? She is the prima ballerina. It is the corps de ballet that had the team spirit” (Neame 23:50:00). But she was inclined to maintain a certain kind of team spirit within her set. This was however, rather a clique, distinguishing the few chosen in an enclosed circle of the better sort.

The girls were, however, maturing and developing their personalities each in her own original way. When they fully establish their personality as adults, they will no more need Miss Brodie nor any other “guide” in life, they will decide for themselves. In order to preserve the girls’ allegiance, she, even after once stopped being their teacher, invites them to teas and tries to wheedle information from them:

On most Saturday afternoons Miss Brodie entertained her old set to tea

and listened to their new experiences. Herself, she told them, she did not think

much of her new pupils’ potentialities and she described some of her new little

girls and made the old ones laugh, which bound her set together more than ever

and made them feel chosen (quoted in Kemp 74).

The roles are assigned in the group of four (six in the novel) girls and their teacher. Miss Brodie as a leader. Jenny, her favourite, is established as beautiful and having instinct. Sandy’s role in the set was that of an informer. Sandy herself describes herself as dependable (Neame 50:30). There is also a scapegoat within the set, Mary

Macgregor, “famous for being stupid and always to blame” (Miss Brodie 1). Curiously, they needed someone like that to enforce their feeling of superiority. We will learn more about Mary and Sandy in the respective chapters. The fourth girl of the set, Monica, was just a makeweight, somebody to stand and stare, occasionally contributing with a comment or nod, not a very significant figure. As Kennel interestingly points out:

“The resulting group identity exists as a way for Miss Brodie to control the situation but more important as a way for her to define herself,” and a little further on we read: “The identities she has given to them are really also parts of her own identity, so that, taken together as a ‘set,’ the girls form one Miss Brodie” (78-79). Sandy remarks that if

Mr. Lloyd was to make a group painting of the set, they would “all look like one big

Brodie,” (Neame 56:51) and Montgomery notices: “that absent presence beneath and beyond them that makes them one” (104). It was also not that easy for the girls to break up with the Brodie set because they were perceived as the Brodie set by the members of the school (Montgomery, 93).

Miss Brodie declared that she was “in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders,” (Neame 00:07:27) giving ideals and stimulating the development of unique personalities of her girls. The truth, however, was that she wanted the girls to cling to her, to gain power over them and manipulate them to be able to use them for her own goals. After Mary Macgregor went to Spain to fight for Franco, at Miss Brodie’s instigation and then died before she reached the battlefield, Miss Brodie summons the girls to the class room to tell them the “truth” about Mary Macgregor – that she died

29 a heroine. And when one of the girls asked if they may think about Miss Brodie as their example of dedication, she says: “Well, why not. Deep in most of us is a potential for greatness or the potential to inspire greatness” (Neame 1:32:52). She was indeed an inspiring teacher. With the exception that her inspiring of others was in fact manipulation. Dedicated as she might claim to have been, she did not truly care for her pupils. She did not love them if we consider what Fromm tells us: “In terms of this discussion of the practice of the art of loving, this means: love being dependent on the relative absence of narcissism, it requires development of humility, objectivity and reason. One’s whole life must be devoted to this aim” (Fromm, The Art of Loving 100).

It seems rather that Miss Brodie devoted her life to admiration of the great leaders and, placing herself among them, also to self-adoration, but let us not be deceived by that impression. As a narcissist, she was unable to love anybody, not even herself: “While on the surface it seems that these persons are very much in love with themselves, they actually are not fond of themselves, and their narcissism – like selfishness – is an overcompensation for the basic lack of self-love” (Fromm, Escape from Freedom 79).

Therefore, despite all her monstrosity, she is rather a pitiable character.

4.3 Love Affairs

Miss Brodie’s attitudes to marriage and to the overall male-female relationships were of the same would-be progressive touch as her other views mentioned before. If we consider the plot taking place in the 1930s Edinburgh, the atmosphere there was still rather different from what we usually associate with the age of jazz: “where cleanliness and goodliness shook hands with each other, honesty was the best policy, all was not gold that glistered and necessity was the mother of invention. Nobody questioned these maxims,” (Spark, Curriculum Vitae 79) describes Spark. At that time and place, anything going beyond the established boundaries would be considered progressive by

30 the conservative majority, with the undertone of irony in their voice. And as those boundaries were rather narrow, the mere teaching of the biological processes going on in the human body would be ascribed with the same label as adultery – “progressive.”

Franková further adds that: “From the author’s humour, later critical attitudes of the

1960s towards “Victorian” morality of the first half of the twentieth century could be heard, when young girls were kept in ignorance about the biological function and the processes of their bodies, when nobody talked about sex and the issues connected with the body and sex were not named or at least not with their real names” (166, my translation). That humorous effect is also in part achieved by the contrast Spark indicates between those “Victorian” attitudes and those of Miss Brodie that are at the opposite end of the axis. Miss Brodie clearly does not hide anything from her students.

On the contrary, she tells them various love stories and even uses the taboo word “sex” in front of them, moreover, talking about one of them, when she describes the envisaged fame of her student, Jenny: “In years to come, I think that Jenny will be famous for sex”

(Neame 00:52:04). She is proud that her girls are “more aware” (Neame 00:39:42).

She does not, however, remain just with the rhetoric, she is an illustrative teacher and the examples follow. She takes her girls to Mr. Lowther’s estate, where they have multiple occasions to watch their budding romance. Marry Macgregor sees her kissing with Mr. Lloyd and the imagination of the girls starts to work. Miss Brodie instructed her girls in what she perceived as progressive, whether it was a love-affair with a married man or the selfish abuse of another to achieve her own goals (e.i. becoming a romantic heroine). Let us have a look at how she did that on the following examples.

First, she presents the girls with the story of Hugh, her lover who died in the war. She gives them a romanticized image of a platonic love, with Hugh’s heroic death further reinforcing that picture: “He fell the week before Armistice was declared. He fell

31 like an autumn leaf” (Spark, Miss Brodie 12). She thus establishes her lover Hugh almost as a saint and their love as something extra-terrestrial. However, doing this she does not prevent ambiguous interpretations, when she describes their final parting in a way that they: “clung to each other with passionate abandon” (Spark, Miss Brodie 20).

Although her prepubescent girls conceded erotic explanation, still they stuck to the innocent image of Miss Brodie and Hugh, whose “love was above all that” (Spark,

Miss Brodie, 20). At this point, it suffices – she has established herself in the eyes of her pupils as someone special, out of the ordinary, a romantic heroine to look up to.

Gradually, she will supplement this image with the more adult “possibilities of life”

(Neame 1:11:00).

In the later stories of Hugh, there are visible parallels with the two current suitors, Mr. Lowther, the singing master and Mr. Lloyd, the art master: “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” (Spark, Miss Brodie 72). Sandy, “the clever of the set”, sees the analogies and explains to the rest of the girls: “Mr. Lloyd is an artist. And Miss Brodie is artistic too. Miss Brodie’s really in love with Mr. Lloyd but he is married to another… So she’s working it off on Mr. Lowther” (Neame 00:32:50). And indeed, Miss Brodie continues to visit Mr. Lowther at his estate in Cramond, substituting her love with most elaborate meals and further inquiring about Mr. Lloyd. Miss Brodie was confident that this Mr.

Lowther who “is not a worldly man, not a reckless man” and “It is doubtful whether he would recognize recklessness in others,” (Neame 00:40:49) would fall to her feet whenever she wished: “I need only lift my little finger and he would be at my side,” but what a shock it must have been for her when the following day after this statement she read in the newspaper the announcement of engagement of Mr. Lowther to Miss

Lockhart, the chemistry teacher (Spark, Miss Brodie 113). So much was she blinded by her egocentric vision of the world spinning around her that when the reality showed, she was struck with a shock.

She does not want to continue the romance with a married man but she wants him to remain in love with her. She tells him of her dates with Mr. Lowther in order to make him feel jealous. In one of the scenes Mr. Lloyd drags Miss Brodie to the toilets to speak to her. He wanted to invite her to his studio, to finish the portrait of her but she told him, she had another engagement and that was supposed to be a sailing trip with

Mr. Lowther. Only afterwards, however, she speaks to Mr. Lowther and tricks him to invite her sailing, pretending not to know that he owned a boat. Her manipulation of both men is cruel but in her case, we cannot state so confidently that she was really doing that quite deliberately. I would rather incline to the interpretation of Miss

Brodie’s suffering from the mental illness, which prevented her from seeing things as they really were. It might have been that in her view, she did not want to continue a romance with a married man and saw the relationship with Mr. Lowther as possible to last, even if lacking in romanticism. Her subsequent deeds would then be only a way out of an unfortunate relationship to a relationship that could be thriving. This would not be an entirely bad idea, had she tried to bear in mind the individual independence of the people involved in her plans.

She manipulates Mr. Lloyd, trying to behave indifferently to him but if she were honest with herself she would have to admit that in fact, she enjoys his continuous interest in her. To maintain their romance at least obliquely, she manipulates another person, that is her pupil Jenny, to slip her to him, regarding the girl as her own continuation: “Sometimes I think there is a spiritual bond between Jenny and me,” notes

Miss Brodie at their picnic. The scene concludes with the words: “Jenny will be painted

33 many times. In years to come, I think that Jenny will be famous for sex,”

(Neame 00:52:04) as was already mentioned. Again, Miss Brodie is taking her pupil as an object – a sexual delegate in this case, as Kemp fittingly states (82). This love affair experienced only indirectly, watched from a distance, from where she could safely gain information about its development from the other girls, could be described as a brutal reality show, only that the actors were real people exposing unknowingly their lots to a shrewd and cunning Miss Brodie. From her point of view, Miss Brodie was doing nothing else but sacrificing herself to her teacher’s profession, whereas she would have rather run off with the art master. She was sacrificing Jenny too; her magnificent mission was to take over Miss Brodie’s place as Teddy Lloyd’s mistress. She designs it carefully and discloses her plan to Sandy, when she tells her, that they all should encourage Jenny, that she will be like the heroines by D. H. Lawrence (Spark,

Miss Brodie 110), the few for whom the common moral code does not apply, for they are above it (Spark, Miss Brodie 110). Concluding, Miss Brodie manipulated several people to take part in her game, the purpose of which was to heal her frustrated hunger for love and excitement: “Miss Jean Brodie does not treat her students as ‘ends in themselves’ but merely as means, as instrumentalities of her own romantic ideals, and worse, of her own frustrated sexual and romantic desires” (Katz 631).

In the 1930s, the interwar period, there were, however, many women like Miss

Brodie, alone and with few prospects of marriage. She was, according to what her colleagues said about her, “sex-bestirred,” (Kemp 76) desperately in search of love.

From the beginning, we know two significant facts about her and those are that she is in her prime but is still a Miss, which means that by the standards of that time she was considered a spinster, never to marry (Holloway 598). “She,” however, as Farber notes correctly, “refuses marriage because she will not accept a subservient role in her

34 society; she insists on creating a meaningful life that is hers alone” (63). She prefers to become a romantic heroine, whose love was never fulfilled and to become somehow special by that. She confirms that in the scene at the headmistress’s office when confronted with the letter that Sandy and Jenny drew up making fun of her, where they comically describe her romances with Mr. Lowther and Mr. Lloyd, she defends herself saying: “Two little girls at the age of budding sexual fantasy have concocted a romance for themselves. They’ve chosen me as a romantic symbol. Is that so surprising?”

(Neame 01:08:13). Doing this, she defines her own personal identity, which she is not sure of: “By telling stories of her past – and especially ones that change to fit the new situations of daily life – she sets herself up as a character in a story,” as Kennell aptly states (78-79) and “she was determined to enter and share the new lives of her special girls” (Montgomery 101; Spark, Miss Brodie 82). In all of her relationships, the men were only a means of reaching this goal, manipulating others to comply with her ill visions. Those visions created in her brain entail her as a pitiable martyr, scarifying her private life to the profession of teacher. She not only destroys her own life and does a lot of damage to the lives of the men who happened to fall in love with her, she, moreover, exposes her underage students to this life of fiction she strives to perform and thus influences their own view on the matters.

4.4 The Dismissal

The fall of Miss Brodie is setting in from the beginning when she notices that some of the teachers are “saying ‘good morning’ with predestination in their smiles”

(Spark, Miss Brodie 75). She is suspicious and she takes things as personal assaults. She is scared but she does not admit it. The other teachers also notice the remarkable distinction of the Brodie set: “Miss Brodie’s girls are different” (Neame 00:16:12).

Mr. Lloyd, the former lover of Miss Brodie, takes that as mere gossip and laughs about

35 it: “The dangerous Miss Brodie,” (Neame 23:36) he says. But then, when he realizes she wants to involve him with Jenny (Neame 01:15:45) and when he learns about her political interests (Neame 01:23:09), he starts to be aware. Anyway, he still tries to warn her because he cares for her. He tries to open her eyes (Neame 01:40:21) but nothing can help when Miss Brodie cannot see the truth: “You’ll accept anything, anything but reality,” (Neame 01:16:22) says Lloyd, and, indeed Miss Brodie “shapes the world to fit her perceptions of how she wants things to be,” (EDN 4) regardless how things really are.

Miss Brodie is summoned three times to the headmistress’ office to answer for the suspicions she raises by her actions. First, she is only admonished because of her visits to Cramond. Miss Brodie defends herself by an arrogant monologue about the true nature of education (Neame 00:39:50) and the educational character of her visits there (Neame 00:41:49), as was already mentioned. It is, however, clear, that there is no sense in any further discussion, since Miss Brodie is confident in her position. Miss

Mackay thus decides to let her go until she gathers more incriminating evidence. For this purpose she chooses her weird secretary, Miss Gaunt, and charges her with a mission to collaborate with her brother, the deacon of Cramond, in proving Miss

Brodie guilty of misconduct.

The second time, Miss Brodie is called for because of the fictitious love letter to

Mr. Lowther fabricated by Sandy and Jenny. She assures the headmistress that there is no connection between the contents of the letter and the true nature of things. Miss

Mackay, however, will not be deceived and demands Miss Brodie’s resignation, upon which she witnesses an extraordinary tantrum of Miss Brodie when she argues: “I will not resign. – You will not resign? You will force me to dismiss you? – I will not resign and you will not dismiss me, Miss Mackay” (Neame 01:09:36). This outrage, however,

36 only proved herself guilty – if the accusations were false, she would not react that way.

She also proves the elements of narcissism to be true: “Such a narcissistic personality is also recognisable from their sensitivity to any kind of criticism. That sensitivity might be expressed by denying validity of any criticism or that a person in question reacts with anger or depression” (Fromm, Lidské srdce 55, my translation). She does not feel guilty for any of the accusations nor does she feel ashamed for the scene she gave, being convinced by the examples of her heroes that such tantrums and fits of rage are

“permissible in a great artist” (Spark, Miss Brodie 62-63).

In the course of time reasons for the dismissal of Miss Brodie accumulated.

Rejecting of the curriculum, moral indignation, promoting of political views and encouraging to radicalism lead to the growing aversion to Miss Brodie. Finally, when one of her students, Mary Macgregor, enlists in the army to fight to become a heroine, as Miss Brodie encouraged her, it is enough proof to finally dismiss her. In the third scene in Miss Mackay’s office, the decision is already taken. Still, Miss Brodie does not give up, she wants to issue a petition, relying on the loyalty of her girls, but that loyalty is questioned by Miss Mackay, to which Miss Brodie has no answer.

Now the “assassination” was accomplished. One of her girls “betrayed” her.

By “betrayal” Miss Brodie calls the reporting to the headmistress of the dangerous enterprises she undertook. That was but plain “putting a stop” (Neame 1:49:48) to the insane teacher, who would sacrifice anything and anyone to become a heroine by her own standards. She is thus punished for her “progressive” ideas, the true motivation of which being in fact uncovered as craving for power to rule and manipulate others.

Baumlin and Weaver describe it as “psychologically abusive wielding of authority” and

“narcissistic exercise of power” (79-80).

Later, in the classroom, where she goes to gather her thoughts, she meets Sandy, who tells her how things really are but even when confronted with the stark reality of her involvement in the death of Mary Macgregor, she remains blind to the fact that the tragedy was in fact her fault. She cannot make out the connection between her dismissal and the pupil’s untimely death: “What has Mary to do with it?” she asks. “She had you, that was her misfortune. To please you that silly stupid girl run off and got herself killed. Don’t you feel responsible for that? – No. No, I feel responsible for giving her ideals” (Neame 01:47:50). And those were the ideals of an ill-minded teacher with a need to rule and to manipulate.

There, in the same scene, she presents the reasons for why she is the way she is:

But I am a descend, do not forget, of Willie Brodie, he was a man of

substance. A cabinet maker and a designer of gibbets. And a member of

the town council of Edinburgh. The keeper of two mistresses who bore

him five children between them. Blood tells. (…) Eventually, he was

a wanted man for having robbed the excise office. Not that he needed the

money. He was a burglar for the sake of the danger. He died cheerfully

on a gibbet of his own devising in 1788. That is the stuff I am made of

(Neame 1:51:08).

Such characteristics appeal to her as heroic and she presents them as examples to follow. In fact, no one would probably agree with her.

Finally, Kemp writes in her defence: “But the total portrait of the teacher is not one of simple condemnation. She is, it is stressed, victim as well as autocrat: partly a casualty of history” (75). And surely there were more such Miss Brodies in the 1930s who came to believe the brutal ideologies at the mere hope of a change in those times of

38 recession and unemployment. There were also, at that time, in the interwar period, many women who had lost their husbands in the war, many unmarried women who, in search of fulfilment, chose to dedicate their life to a “great cause”, serving for example, in the social welfare, charity or the red cross, taking part in various workshops, attending lectures, travelling (Kemp 75). And so, Miss Brodie took interest in politics and the worldly affairs.

Miss Brodie’s modern methods were grounded on encouraging her students to a greater level of confidence. This confidence was, however, based mainly on a latent conviction of their own supremacy, not so much on their actual achievements, and hence it was rather shaky. Miss Brodie must thus have been punished for her excessive pride which developed into narcissistic self-adoration and abuse of others. Until the end of her days, she did not fully understand the reasons of her untimely dismissal. I ascribe this to the narcissistic personality disorder, the symptoms of which being the incapacity of objective value judgement and consequent rejecting of critical approach to oneself.

Based on the many instances of narcissistic behaviour, I suspect Miss Brodie to be an exemplar case of this disease.

5 Other Characters in Relation to Miss Brodie

In the following section I will investigate three other female characters of the novel, every one of whom being in different relation to Miss Brodie. The first of them will be Miss Mackay, the headmistress of Marcia Blaine, a distinct conservative and

Miss Brodie’s senior. Then there will be two of Miss Brodie’s students, every one influenced by the same teacher in the very opposite way; one, Sandy Stranger, first astonished by Miss Brodie but then standing in her opposition, the other, Mary

Macgregor, literally loyal until death.

5.1 Miss Mackay – A Nimble Old Liner

Miss Emmaline Mackay, due to the film, is a tall and thin greyish lady of about sixty. We do not know her exact age but perhaps, thanks to the glasses, her hairstyle and the clothes she wears, she may create the impression of being slightly older than she really is. Definitely, she is past her prime, as would Miss Brodie say. She represents the conservative attitudes of the whole institution of which she is the headmistress, Marcia

Blaine School for Girls. In comparison to Miss Brodie, she, however, does not seem any stiff or starchy. She always behaves very naturally and in a far more relaxed manner than the constrained and affected Miss Brodie. She is a nimble old lady, for that sake.

Miss Mackay does not lack in sense of humour, as one might presume of a conservative. She views the things critically and is not easily satisfied with what is presented to her as good or worthy. She puts everything to the test of her analytical mind. Many of even renowned works of art are, as everybody knows, pathetic kitsch.

That involves also many of the Italian operas, which Miss Brodie held in such awe.

Miss Mackay would not share her view. Violetta, the main character of the famous

La Traviata, was to Miss Mackay “a thoroughly silly woman with diseased lungs,”

40 and as such, her “expiring for the love of Alfredo,” was a tenuous explanation for her death (Neame 00:35:00). That ironic reply shows Miss Mackay is standing on the top of things. She is smart, she is no thick-headed stubborn teacher unable of compromise sticking firmly to her old ways which are the only right ways.

She stands firmly on the ground; she is practical and reasonable, she sees things as a whole and thus is able to deduct possible outcomes of events. In her case, they are not faint presumptions based upon her own imagination, as is the case with Miss

Brodie, but logical thinking. She tells the girls that no matter how knowledgeable they are when the human sciences are concerned, culture is still “no compensation for the lack of hard knowledge” (Neame 00:36:58). She does not mind them having a broad overview of cultural affairs but she wants them also to try hard at other subjects that might be useful for them in the future. She is, moreover, aware of the impact the romanticised, pathetic operas like La Traviata might have on school girls; that is to say, they might give them a distorted image of reality. Furthermore, is she also rightly alert, when she learns of the set’s suspicious expeditions to Cramond, a private estate of

Mr. Lowther and other cultural events to which the unmarried couple take the girls.

Teachers usually do not invite their students to their houses, nor do they take them to operas and concerts. They would only do so if they had some obscure plans with them, to manipulate or abuse them. Thanks to her straight thinking, she is able to see that danger and that is what she wants to protect the girls from. Not only to protect the

“Brodie set” but also any future pupils of Miss Brodie. And if that entails to dismiss this

“influential” teacher, that is the price she pays.

The headmistress also believes in the slogan Safety first, the motto of the Prime

Minister Stanley Baldwin (“Past Prime Ministers”), which at the unstable interwar period of 1930s, when there was the economic crisis and the rumours of emerging

41 malignant ideologies were spreading, was certainly very apt and won much support among the voters. It may, however, also evoke stagnation and passive attitudes to life and it is perhaps the reason why the lively Miss Brodie does not approve of it, more so, despises it. It must be, however, obvious, that to keep peace in such a turbulent decade certainly has not to do with any kind of resignation or passivity, the contrary. It simply means to watch out, not to provoke unrest. That was incompatible with the would-be romantic and would-be heroic ideas of Miss Brodie, to fight for “goodness, truth and beauty” (Neame 00:09:27). Miss Brodie instructed her girls that they should always be ready to fight, if they were called for, and she meant it literally. Her image of warfare was certainly very naive. But still, she tried to impose it on her girls and in the case of

Mary Macgregor, she succeeded. That was what had to be prevented.

In the book, there are a few instances where also Miss Mackay calls for the girls to get the incriminating information to use against Miss Brodie. For example, when she is interviewing the girls about their choice of the branch in the senior school they were approaching, she also asks about Miss Brodie. Most of the girls applied for the Classical

Side, rather than the Modern one. It was because Miss Brodie preferred it.

Mary Macgregor was not admitted into the Classical Side because her grades did not match the standard. In the end, however, Miss Mackay allowed her at least to take a course in Latin, hoping, she will get from her some information in turn. In the film, there is just one such case, namely in the same scene with which we had already to do in the previous paragraphs (Neame 00:34:00). There she asks the girls about their fabulous

Miss Brodie and learns about their attendance at cultural events and their weekends at

Cramond.

But she is not a scandalmonger. She is a discreet woman. She does not want to do any harm to Miss Brodie’s reputation, to spread any malicious gossip. Even after

Miss Brodie gave out a scene, Miss Mackay advices Mr. Lowther to keep quiet about it

(Neame 01:09:02). Even at the third call of Miss Brodie to her office, when she finally succeeded in dismissing her, she remains objective: “It is not me, but the board of governors, who have pursued that investigation to its conclusion,” she replies to Miss

Brodie’s angry reaction that her dismissal was of personal character; a “personal vendetta,” she called it (Neame 01:40:50).

In such juxtaposition, it is certainly Miss Mackay, who wins. She is the normal, the calm and the relaxed one, not so Miss Brodie. Although she may seem boring and dry, she does not lack the sense of humour. Her opinions are sound; she does not impose any dangerous ideas on the students, nor does she manipulate them to achieve her own goals. As is shown in the story, it is certainly her, the conservative Miss

Mackay, who has the welfare of her pupils in her heart.

5.2 Sandy Stranger – An Assassin or an Ally

Sandy was “the clever” of the set. Also, much of the novel is her reminiscence, which gives her the outstanding position within the book. From the beginning, we can see that she was able to think independently. She never allowed her to be misled or enchanted by the charisma of Miss Brodie. When Miss Brodie was telling the girls a story of her lover Hugh, instead of teaching history, then lied to the unexpectedly visiting Miss Mackay and then praised a girl for not telling anything to the headmistress, Sandy swiftly reacted by confronting Miss Brodie: “You were in difficulty and you made up about Flodden,” (Neame 00:13:10) whereupon Miss Brodie hastily advised her: “Sandy, please try to do as I says, not as I do. Remember, you are still a child, Sandy, and far from her prime” (Neame 00:13:17). Then, when they were returning from their expedition around Edinburgh, Miss Brodie corrected their

43 deportment and said they should straighten their shoulders and hold their heads high.

Sandy found it ridiculous and started marching like a soldier, parodying the noble walk of Miss Brodie. This was when Miss Brodie realized that Sandy could pose a threat to her. She warned her that one day she will walk too far (Neame 00:23:12).

With her small eyes, her glasses and her insight she would make a “great spy,”

(Spark, Miss Brodie 109) at least that was the use Miss Brodie wanted to have of her.

When under the elm tree having a picnic lunch Miss Brodie described to Mr. Lowther each of her girls, Sandy was the only one Miss Brodie had nothing to say about, she was impenetrable for the superficial and clouded judgement of the teacher. Luckily, Sandy promptly replied that her asset is to be dependable (Neame 00:50:30). Now Miss Brodie knew she needed to be careful to keep Sandy on her side. She used to invite her to tea to her own flat to get information from her, unconsciously revealing to the girl her vicious plans.

Sandy was not, however, an entirely good character. Being clever does not necessarily entail being nice. She was also calculating. She also bullied Mary, made fun of her and was looking down on her, with contempt. Once she tried to be nice to Mary and walked with her, but it was only because she thought of how it would be, for a change, to be nice to the girl and that it would give her self-satisfaction. She did not forget to inform her though, that she was only walking with her because Jenny was not there (Spark, Miss Brodie 30; Kemp 75). She also informed Miss Mackay of Miss

Brodie’s passionate interest in art, insinuating thus also her passionate interest in the art master. Finally, she tells her the truth about Miss Brodie’s political inclinations and her inciting of those ideas on her pupils, mainly about her encouragement of Mary to go to arms. In a case like this, however, such step would be hardly considered informing, rather a preventive act of responsibility. She did not do that out of ill will; as we see in

44 the final scene, she cried on the last day of school, when Miss Brodie was already not there anymore among the other teachers.

Sandy was the cleverest of the set but still Miss Brodie preferred Jenny. That was disappointing to the girl. She was disillusioned that Miss Brodie prefers Jenny’s instinct to her own insight, her intelligence. Miss Brodie aimed Jenny to become Teddy

Lloyd’s lover but it was Sandy who eventually became his lover and by that means, outdone Miss Brodie’s expectations of her. This was her first betrayal and a revenge, to take away Miss Brodie’s former lover. Later, however, when she realized Mr. Lloyd was still obsessed only with Miss Brodie, she ended that love affair.

It is again Sandy, who as the only one stands in the opposition to the rest of the girls, when Miss Brodie, this time no more fascinated with Mussolini but with another great leader, general Franco, encourages her new pupils to always be ready to fight for the cause, even to go to arms if necessary. She can now clearly see the vicious manipulation and is already aware of the danger it draws behind and when Miss Brodie receives a unanimous: “Yes, Miss Brodie,” in a reply to her encouragement to be ready to fight, she is the only one to oppose her, saying to herself: “No, Miss Brodie”

(Neame 01:29:27). But Mary is already gone to Spain and shortly afterwards gets killed.

This was the last straw; Sandy knows the dangerous Miss Brodie must be expelled.

She goes and tells the headmistress.

The impact Miss Brodie had on Sandy was quite the opposite to that she had on other girls. She gradually shook of the original awe with which Miss Brodie filled the students. She did not become a romantic heroine, on the contrary; in the book we learn that she went to a convent. Her role as a nun is, however, omitted in the film. She was sister Helena and everybody came to her for advice. She wrote a famous book,

The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, where she describes her own transfiguration.

When asked what was the greatest influence in her life, she replied: “there was a Miss

Brodie in her prime” (Spark, Miss Brodie 35). Thus, it could have been the independent, strong personality of the rational and confident student Sandy which was the reason why she did not yield to the role Miss Brodie predestined for her or, viewed from the opposite perspective, it might have been precisely for the sake of Miss Brodie, not to be like her, to differentiate, that the girl matured to develop her own independent personality.

5.3 Mary Macgregor – A Scapegoat

Mary Macgregor plays the role of a scapegoat in the Brodie group. This attitude to her is primarily imposed on her by the way Miss Brodie and her set treat her.

The typical signs of the narcissist personality disorder include admiration for the strong and powerful as well as contempt for the weak (Kemp 75). “Power fascinates him not for any values for which a specific power may stand, but just because it is power. Just as his ‘love’ is automatically aroused by power, so powerless people or institutions automatically arouse his contempt. The very sight of a powerless person makes him want to attack, dominate, humiliate him” (Fromm, Escape from Freedom 60).

Thus Mary admired Miss Brodie who admired dictators and by the same principle

Miss Brodie and the rest of the set condemned Mary. In the story, Mary is inevitably presented to us as the weak one. From the outset, she is described as silly and lump-like

(Spark, Miss Brodie 11). It is in part due to this specific manner, in which the whole narrative is presented, that we also tend to look upon Mary in such a way.

Robert Brown in his essay suggests that the curious thing about the narrative is, that it somehow presupposes Mary’s being a silly girl and, by that means, leads readers into such conception of the character, without, however, any previous evidence for that:

“we read the narrator’s description of Mary before we read other characters’ response to her and before we see her behave in ways that lead others to identify her as stupid”

(236). Only after her description of being silly we encounter her in various situations that support this image. If we take for example, her cracking of a container in the chemistry laboratory, an accident that could happen to anybody, then, with this previously planted description in mind, we tend to think that it was clearly her fault.

Thus, Brown claims, the narrative strengthens the conviction that Mary in fact deserved her reputation and, in a sense, justifies the victimization of Mary by the other characters, mainly by Miss Brodie and the set.

Mary was a new pupil in Miss Brodie’s class. It is never easy to adapt in a new environment, especially in adolescence when children tend to make fun of how somebody looks: “We are painfully familiar with the ways in which a person’s appearance and manner are sometimes mistaken for ethical attributes, especially among schoolchildren; in fact, the narrator’s description of Mary resembles that which we might expect from a school bully,” claims Brown (236). She, however, struggles to win the other girls’ approval. And in that age it is really important to have friends; “It goes without saying that for most youngsters the groups they belong to give them a sense of their own identity,” comments Kizilaslan (280). She was bullied by the other girls but she always did what they wanted to be accepted within the narrow circle of the Brodie girls. She wanted to be interesting to them in any way possible and she tried to achieve this goal by any feeble means. Thus, for instance, she boasted about her brother and his being expelled from different schools, making him a hero in the eyes of the rest of the girls, Sandy being the only one who seemed not to having been astonished by those shocking and slanderous stories (Neame 00:53:53).

Mary was also an orphan. She did not have anyone to gain the approval from.

Miss Brodie was a motherly figure to her. And she assures her of her affiliation:

“Mary…our Mary is alone in this world. Her needs are great but she has me”

(Neame 00:49:59). When on her first day in the new school Miss Brodie assures her that she is here for her, to “provide her with interests,” (Neame 00:07:16) her eyes sparkle and her adulation of Miss Brodie took its start. If we consider the tragicomic resemblance of the Brodie group to the fascists, then Erich Fromm’s explanation of the reasons why the fascist ideology appealed to so massive an audience (namely the lower middle class in Germany after World War I) may also explain why the pupils, mainly unconfident Mary, wanted to belong to the Brodie group: “The authority of the monarchy was undisputed, and by leaning on it and identifying with it, the member of the lower middle class acquired a feeling of security and narcissistic pride”

(Fromm, Escape from Freedom 76). Thus, Mary sought shelter there; she saw a certain kind of safety and stability within the Brodie group and she was proud that she was its member, however unfortunate her position was. She clung to Miss Brodie and would do everything to please her, to grow in her eyes. She was totally submissive and, above all, unaware of what was going on around her and thus very easy to manipulate.

Miss Brodie always shone in Mary’s eyes but not the vice versa. In fact, Miss Brodie hardly remembered the girl’s name and therefore always called her by her full name, as

Sandy remarks in the confrontation scene (Neame 01:49:24). Mary was suggested to think that she needed Miss Brodie. In fact, it was Miss Brodie and the set who needed

Mary to be their victim.

Paradoxically, the set really needed someone like Mary. Ridiculing Mary united them. Of course, they could have laughed at anybody else but when there was nobody else, Mary was always there. They needed her to feel better in comparison. If in a larger

48 number they would be just average, beside Mary they would excel at all times.

When compared to the rest of the set, Mary was the only one, who was characterized not by her particular traits but by the role she played within the group (Brown, 241).

If we think of the Brodie group as of a strange equivalent of fascists, they needed her in the same sense as fascists needed Jews, as victims. And also, Kemp describes her as

“the Brodie Jew” (74). In fact, Mary’s reputation was a consequence of the way the wicked-minded Miss Brodie treated her and thus established her as such. And, in fact, the set was really very close to an organized unit. Brown recalls an example when Mary was expelled from the art class by Miss Brodie, who acknowledged her guilty for the giggling, Sandy views that act as “official,” (Spark, Miss Brodie 50) the word official indicating the institutional character of the Brodie set (Brown 246). Also another author,

Judy Suh, confirms the systemic character of the group (93).

Mary had the misfortune of always being at the wrong time at the wrong place.

Eventually, it was the hotel-room where she died in the fire, “running hither and thither,” (Spark, Miss Brodie 127) as is described in the book. This cruel description of her death is only another link to her being a silly girl who once got frightened when witnessed the experimental explosion as in the chemistry class and was running

“hither and tither” (Spark, Miss Brodie 76). As Brown notices, being more intelligent would not safe her life and her “running hither and thither” was just common reaction of a person in life-threatening situation (240).

In the famous passage of the book, we encounter Jenny as an adult, when meeting a stranger, she takes his fancy and she starts thinking of the

“hidden possibilities,” (Spark, Miss Brodie 81) meaning, she starts to weave erotic fantasies. Nobody would consider Mary to think of such fantasies (Brown 247). In fact, nobody would ever suspect Mary of having any fantasies. She had a love affair, it did

49 not end up happily but the narrator never fails to inform us of that (Brown 244).

Surely the other girls also had similar experience in life but we never hear of them.

She was not to be a romantic heroine in Miss Brodie’s eyes. In Miss Brodie’s words she

“illumined her life” by dying a heroine but, in fact, she “died a fool” and “for nothing,” as Sandy says in the key scene (Neame 01:48:50). She, therefore, even by her death, annoyed her beloved Miss Brodie who describes her death in the hotel-room fire as a just punishment for Mary’s assumed betraying of her (Suh 89; Spark,

Miss Brodie 107).

Miss Brodie claimed she was here to inspire her girls. If we asked Mary before her death what influence she had on her, she would certainly praise her. But we probably would not be interested in her opinion because nobody ever was. Mary was silent for the most part of the narrative, we encounter her very frequently throughout the story, though. Those notions of her were, however, always to Mary’s disfavour. She did not defend herself nor was there anybody else to take up her cause. She had Miss

Brodie, for that matter, but that was rather “her misfortune,” (Neame 01:48:26) as

Sandy says in the confrontation scene. But, as the truth reveals, it was rather Miss

Brodie who had Mary, and her famous saying: “Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life,” (Spark, Miss Brodie 9) came to be ominous for the girl.

Conclusion

In the novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark convinces her readers that a charismatic personality and original ideas of a person do not necessarily always indicate their good intentions and ambitions to improve things, as well as verbal assurances of one’s disinterested devotion and attachment do not have to mean true interest in another, the true care for them. In fact, they may well mean person’s haughty and egocentric disposition, a self-seeking ambition or manipulation.

The director of the film version, Ronald Neame, together with the Dame Maggie

Smith as the embodiment of Miss Brodie further emphasise this point by pinpointing the most striking examples of this principle. The film shows Miss Brodie’s charismatic personality but simultaneously it discloses her entirely blinded judgement of reality and utterly narcissistic personality. At the same time, the conservative approach is presented in a rather favourable light – although appearing to be grey and boring, the overall impression of it is far more natural and relaxed.

The novel of Miss Brodie is a perfect example confirming the principle of the old saying all that glitters is not gold by gradual turning of the course of action from the initial presenting of the key figure of the teacher Miss Brodie in a favourable light, later to her disadvantage. However sequential this process may be, the reader still cannot believe the shocking outcomes to which the storyline leads. It is well visible on Miss

Brodie’s malicious influence on her students, one of them dying, the other first becoming a teacher’s lover, later a nun.

The aim of this bachelor’ thesis was, in accordance with its topic and the saying all that glitters is not gold, to illustrate the principle of the saying on the example of the character study of Miss Jean Brodie. It was performed by comparing and contrasting the

51 two attitudes presented in the novel, the would-be progressive approach of Miss Brodie and conservatism of the rest of the school where she taught. As could be seen on various examples picked form Muriel Spark’s most famous work and its film version, what initially seemed as progressive, modern and fervent approach, turned out to be a self-seeking manipulation of a narcissistic, frustrated person, unfortunately in the authoritative and therefore, until certain extent, powerful position of a primary school teacher. On the other hand, the conservative approach which often seems as the less popular, the less attractive option, in such juxtaposition turned out to be the one that is a lot more stable, a lot more realistic and therefore also the preferable one.

Bibliography

Primary sources:

Spark, Muriel. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965. Print.

Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The. Dir. Ronald Neame. Perf. Maggie Smith, Robert

Stephens, Pamela Franklin, Gordon Jackson and Celia Johnson. 20th Century

Fox Film Corporation, 1969. Film.

Secondary sources:

Acorn TV. “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” Online videoclip. YouTube. YuoTube, 11

May 2015. Web. 1 Apr. 2017.

“Awards.” IMDb: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969). IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 24

Apr. 2017.

Baumlin, James S., and Margaret E. Weaver. “Teaching, Classroom, Authority, and the

Psychology of Transference.” The Journal of General Education, vol. 49, no. 2,

2000, pp. 75-87. Web. 04 Apr. 2017.

Best, Jason. “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – The Crème de la Crème or Prime

Ham?” What’s on TV. Time Inc., 15 July 2016. Web. 08 Apr. 2017.

Biography.com Editors. “Muriel Spark.” Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 08

July 2014. Web. 09 Apr. 2017.

Brown, Peter Robert. “‘There’s Something about Mary’: Narrative and Ethics in ‘The

Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.’” Journal of Narrative Theory, vol. 36, no. 2, 2006,

pp. 228-253. Web. 08 Apr. 2017.

Diamond, Naomi. “Review: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.” Books

Abroad, vol. 36, no. 3, 1962, pp. 323-324. Web. 08 Apr. 2017.

EDN, et al. “Booksearch: Teachers and Teaching in Novels, Biographies, Film, and

Song.” The English Journal, vol. 82, no. 5, 1993, pp. 96-98. Web. 04 Apr.

2017.

Farber, Stephen. “Review: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” Film Quarterly, vol. 22, no.

3, 1969, pp. 62-63. Web. 1 Apr. 2017.

“50 Greatest British Writers since 1945, The.” The Times. Times Newspapers, 5 Jan.

2008. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.

Franková, Milada. “Britské spisovatelky na konci tisíciletí.” Informační systém

Masarykovy univerzity. Masarykova univerzita v Brně, n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2017.

Fromm, Erich. Escape from Freedom. New York: Avon Books, 1965. Print.

Fromm, Erich. Lidské srdce: Jeho nadání k dobru a zlu. Praha: Mladá fronta, 1969.

Print.

Fromm, Erich. The Art of Loving. Unwin Paperbacks. London: George Allen & Unwin,

1975. Print.

Glavin, John. “Muriel Spark’s Unknowing Fiction.” Women’s Studies, vol. 15, no. 1-3,

Sept. 1988, p. 221. Web. 1 Apr. 2017.

Heilman, Robert B. “Dead Poets Society.” American Scholar, vol. 60, Summer91, pp.

417-423. Web. 1 Apr. 2017.

Holloway, John. “Narrative Structure and Text Structure: Isherwood’s ‘A Meeting by

the River,’ and Muriel Spark’s ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.’” Critical

Inquiry, vol. 1, no. 3, 1975, pp. 581-604. Web. 04 Apr. 2017.

Hosmer, Robert. “An Interview with Dame Muriel Spark.” Salmagundi, no.

146/147, 2005, pp. 127-158. Web. 1 Apr. 2017.

Katz, Michael S. “The Role of Trustworthiness in Teaching: An Examination of The

Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” SpringerLink. Springer Netherlands, 23 May 2014.

Web. 04 Apr. 2017.

Kemp, Peter. Muriel Spark. London: Paul Elek, 1974. Print.

Kennell, Vicki R. “‘Pygmalion’ as Narrative Bridge Between the Centuries.” Shaw, vol.

25, 2005, pp. 73-81. Web. 04 Apr. 2017.

Kızılaslan, İrem. “The Essence of Group Dynamics in Miss Brodie’s Classroom.”

Journal of the Cukurova University Institute of Social Sciences, vol. 17, no. 1,

May 2008, pp. 279-284. Web. 1 Apr. 2017.

Levy, Emanuel. “Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The (1969).” Emanuel Levy. N.p., n.d.

Web. 08 Apr. 2017.

Montgomery, Benilde. “Spark and Newman: Jean Brodie Reconsidered.” Twentieth

Century Literature, vol. 43, no. 1, 1997, pp. 94–106. Web. 1 Apr. 2017.

“Past Prime Ministers.” Past Prime Ministers – GOV.UK. Government Digital Service,

n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.

Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The. 1968. British Film Institute, London, n.d. Web. 20 Apr.

2017.

Rahim, Sameer. “Muriel Spark: The Author as Dictator.” The Telegraph. Telegraph

Media Group, 18 May 2014. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.

Smith, Sarah. “Columbia Talks with Muriel Spark.” Columbia: A Journal of

Literature and Art, no. 30, 1998, pp. 199-214. Web. 04 Apr. 2017.

Spark, Muriel. Curriculum Vitae: Autobiography. London: Penguin, 1993. Print.

Steven, Alasdair. “Obituary: Rona Anderson, Actress and Wife of Gordon

Jackson.” Obituaries. The Scotsman, 28 July 2013. Web. 24 Apr. 2017.

Suh, Judy. “The Familiar Attractions of Fascism in Muriel Spark’s ‘The Prime of Miss

Jean Brodie.’” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 30, no. 2, 2007, pp. 86–102.

Web. 08 Apr. 2017.

Resumé (English)

This thesis provides a character analysis of the primary school teacher, Miss

Jean Brodie, the main heroine of Muriel Spark’s most famous novel, The Prime of Miss

Jean Brodie and the film of the same title directed by Ronald Neame. It focuses on the comparison of the two attitudes present in the Marcia Blaine school; the major conservative current, represented by the headmistress Miss Mackay, and Miss Brodie’s approach which seem to be progressive but in fact is malevolent, manipulative and selfish.

The thesis is divided into five major chapters. First three chapters give us some basic information about the author and her life and work, the novel of Miss Brodie and its film adaptation. Then follows the main chapter, which is dedicated to the key character of Miss Jean Brodie and the analysis of her character in the four most prominent areas of the story, being the overall impression which she creates by her appearance and manners, the suspicious teaching methods, her love affairs and her dismissal. Further comes one big chapter comprising three subchapters, each of which deals with one of the other female characters, Miss Mackay, Sandy Stranger and Mary

Macgregor and their relation to Miss Jean Brodie, the clash of values and the influence she had on them, depicted on the particular passages from the film and the book.

The conclusion of the thesis confirms the validity of the old saying all that glitters is not gold, presenting various arguments against the seemingly progressive but in fact ill and egocentric approach of Miss Brodie and in favour of the conservative approach of the school, which is, in such comparison, the preferable one.

Resumé (Czech)

Tato práce poskytuje analýzu postavy učitelky základní školy, slečny Jean

Brodieové, hlavní hrdinky nejslavnějšího románu Muriel Sparkové, The Prime of Miss

Jean Brodie a stejnojmenného filmu režírovaného Ronaldem Neamem. Práce se zaměřuje na srovnání dvou přístupů zastoupených na škole Marcia Blaine – hlavním, konzervativním proudem reprezentovaným v bakalářské práci postavou ředitelky slečny

Mackayové a přístupem slečny Brodieové, který se zdá být progresivním, ve skutečnosti je to však přístup zlovolný, manipulativní a sobecký.

Práce je rozdělena do pěti hlavních kapitol. První tři kapitoly nám poskytují základní informace o autorce a jejím životě a díle, o románu The Prime of Miss Jean

Brodie a o jeho filmovém ztvárnění. Poté následuje hlavní kapitola, která je věnována klíčové postavě slečny Jean Brodieové a rozboru jejího charakteru ve čtyřech stěžejních oblastech příběhu, kterými jsou celkový dojem, který slečna Brodieová tvoří svým vzezřením a vystupováním, její podezřelé vyučovací metody, její milostné románky a její vyloučení. Dále pak přichází jedna velká kapitola zastřešující tři podkapitoly; každá jedna z nich pojednává o jedné z dalších ženských postav: slečně Mackayové, Sandy

Strangerové a Mary Macgregorové a jejich vztahu ke slečně Brodieové, o střetu hodnot a o vlivu, jaký na ně měla – vše znázorněno na konkrétních příkladech z filmu a knihy.

Závěr této práce potvrzuje platnost starého přísloví, není všechno zlato, co se třpytí, tím, že prezentuje rozličné argumenty proti zdánlivě progresivnímu, ale ve skutečnosti neblahému a egocentrickému přístupu slečny Brodieové a ve prospěch tradičního přístupu školy, který vychází – v takovémto srovnání – jako ten vhodnější.