The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie

The found of swing blue jean Brodie unfolds several dimensions of the young-bearing(prenominal) role. garb in Edinburgh in the 1930s, we ar presented with a protagonist whom is a striking fe manlike role model in her domineering, manipulating and knowledgeable powers, powers which we absorb her use to obtain her desired plans for her Brodie set, the creme de la creme. We chance upon flatten Brodie play a God like material body in the new(a), leading, teaching and imposing her opinions on them in hopes they leave become like her. She pie-eyedly echoes Mussolini the Italian fascist, and we excessively observe several contridictions in her point of reference in terms of accept education is to lead out but unquestionablely carrying out actions to mother them in and never let them go. This literature subverts accomplished ideas of grammatical g residualer; this all charr narrative fiction gives us groovy scope for interpreting it as a schoolbook with homo inner thematic implications, as her pupils are strangely obsessed with their glamourous drill teacher. There are as well several school texts referred to within the primary text which bring out ideas of charr. This essay dep dodge explore these ideas and go away speak the voice which unload Brodie is break away to say; look out oer Brodie, or essentially, the author, Muriel Spark.

Our protagonist spend Jean Brodie (immediately drawing attention to bunk; e very time her name is mentioned it promotes bring out on her unmarried status)is a repellent and omnipotent muliebrity of her time. This literature subverts a courtly idea of adult female because disparate many literature texts, the central purpose of char muliebrity does non focus around them serving men, but to be all-powerful and dominating. Miss Brodies characteristics are swallowed by the readers as shocking and bizarre; echoing that the text itself and its ideas of the authoritative woman are different and unusual. The idea of woman in this text is certainly non clean-handed or fragile. The glamourous yet classy school teacher mirrors a God like participate in the novel; she quotes; O where shall I find a virtuous woman, for her equipment casualty is above rubies.(The peak of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark,1961, The Penguin Group, USA, rapscallion6) This Bibilcal reference from the apply of proverbs identifies with Miss Brodie. Virtuous meaning strength and efficiency is ultimately what makes her so great, and in that respect is pictorial matterry in this quote of her being a rare gem, who dares to be different, as she is worth much than rubies. The parole is saying that the best woman are those who do non live by their accustomed position; that the rare ones who gamble being dangerous and free ( Safety does not come inaugural page 10) are the finest. We rouse regard a parallel betwixt the aspects of Miss Brodies character structure and the aspects of the texts structure-both go against the usual performer of the status quota of woman, stand out and make strong points. ruth Whittaker says in The Faith and Fiction of Muriel Spark: blond make up ones minds the set as a body with Miss Brodie for a head. There is, as David Lodge points out, a biblical parallel with the churches and the body of Christ. It shows an unmarried planning of peoples lives. It is an analysis of the temptation to play God in a world where his absence laves a dangerous void...one of the shipway in which Spark makes this increasingly secular statement is by transferring her attention from Gods patterning in the world to mens designs for one another.As an analogy, she concentrates reflexively on the clump design which constitutes a novel, her protagonists being aware of their roles as manipulators of characters and events, and the bank clerk commenting on the novels structure. (The Faith and Fiction of Muriel Spark, Ruth Whittaker, The Macmillan Press ltd, 1982, Hong Kong.page 106)Whittaker believes that Miss Brodie is attempting to play God in a dangerous and authoritative way; she is a feminist manipulator who uses her charm in a frightening manner; give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life.(page9) By taking in the girls as hers she is subjecting them to become what her effected idea of a woman should be on her terms and what will benefit her; for fashion model she uses bloody shame as a scapegoat and wishes to use Rose to fufil her wakenual fantasies which she cannot carry out herself.

Miss Brodie is also compared to Joan of venting (a interior(a) heroine and patron saint of France) : Staring out of the window like Joan of Arc as she spoke.(page 11)Like Joan of Arc, Miss Brodie is opinionated and dominating. She defies the girls opinions and drills into heir heads that her opinions are actual facts:Who is the greatest Italian painter?Leonardo da Vinchi, Miss Brodie.That is incorrect. The cause is Giotto, he is my favorite. (page 11.)Like Joan of Arc, in many shipway Miss Brodie is very masculine, despite her alluring fashion and teaching the girls to be maam like.(This simply echoes many of her contradictions) flaxen, her chosen golden pupil, observes:Some days it seemed to Sandy that Miss Brodies chest was flat, no bulges at all, but as straight as her back. (page 11)Sandy presents us with a masculine image of Miss Brodie here, and we see it not unless in her appearance but her personality too. She mirrors Mussolini the Italian fascist, and we learn Miss Brodie admires him greatly. She uses delivery such as intruders for school teachers interrupting a class, as if her creme de la creme are chosen treaties, or in a biblical sense, her disciples. The Brodie set did not for a moment doubt she would prevail.(page9) Prevail has connotations of a highly authoritative leader like Mussolini, and we see the cry assassinated used by the author when talking about refusing to move from the school she is teaching at.She says you are mine to the girls and even echoes quotes which Mussolini himself said; in a speech he claimed Who betrays, perishes. (Fascism in Italy, Bolton King, London, Williams and Norgate ltd, 1931) Miss Brodie tells her girls, where there is no vision, people perish, which is similar to Mussolini in her beliefs of loyalty and vision.Not only does this quote convey the political themes within the novel, but it also echoes the Bible,again highlighting her God like figure.However, it signifies her hypocritical side because fascism was in fact degrading to woman and did not give woman much purpose or any graphic symbolicular strong role. Therefore by imposing fascism ideas on the girls we can see that although she is trying to subvert conventional ideas of her gender, she is actually degrading her girls rather of giving them a chance to be domineering.It is also world-shattering in the way that much of the vision that we see is through the belittled eyes of Sandy, her being the one who betrays her. However, Sandy is a domain of Miss Brodie as we will later expand on, and so ultimately it is Miss Brodie that perishes, in the way that her girls go against her and she is odd in mystery as to who betrayed her.

We see the potent having a dependency on a woman and this shows this literature has subverted conventional ideas of gender. The male is normally seen as the authoritive figure yet in the novel Mr Lowther is inferior to Miss Brodie: ?He always looked at Miss Brodie for approval before he touched anything or opened a cupboard?? Miss Brodie is seen in upsurge of her men, and her set and so when she loses both, after Sandy betrays her, she is unable to gift a conforting life because all of her plans, political and sexual, have been ruined.

Patricia Duncker brings a very interesting perspective of the portayal of woman in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; the theme of lesbianism. At first, thinking this may seem odd, however when looking at the text more closely we can see reason to believe this. It is the character of Sandy who brings out this theme. Although we learn that Sandy is in the end only interested in putting a wait to Miss Brodie, we see her mirror her teacher in several ways and even learn of hints of jealousy with trip Loyds obession with Miss Brodie. She says cant you see shes ridiculous? and when she learns of their kiss she becomes intrigued in a viscious and envious manner, inquire intimate details of what Monica witnessed;what part of the room were they standing in?Were you inside or outside the room when you saw them? Was it a long and lingering kiss? Sandy demanded.(page 51)She is jealous that she has not been chosen to take Miss Brodies place as berth Loyds lover and that Rose has been designated the position, and so she steals him from her and ends up becoming the art masters mistress, essentially acting out Miss Brodies partiality for her. She is also fasctinated by her method of making patterns with facts (page 44)and, despite pure tone guilty when being mean to Mary, she still does so becasue she loves Miss Brodie. The conventional idea of the young girl has been totally subverted by the author here; Sandy is supposed to be a young girl with an innocent mind, yet she obsessing over her teachers sex life and knows things like brownies and girls guides are not things she should associate with.We can also view Miss Brodie herself as a lesbian, and her positron emission tomography pupil realises the extent of her megalomanice. Sandy fancy, the woman is an unconscious lesbian.(page 120) Mis Brodie cannot sleep with work shift Loyd, so she send her girls to do so. She cannot sleep with her girls, so she sends them to Teddy Loyd.



(Theorizing Muriel Spark, Patricia Dunker,Palrave, New York, 2002, page 69)However Sandy is a creation of Miss Brodie, and so what she does not realise according to Dunker, is her own lesbianism. We see several charactersicts of Sandy similar to Miss Brodie; she realsies that Miss Brodie will stop at nothing to fufill her desire for power. However, Sandy is on the nose the same; she makes sure that Miss Brodie is fired by betraying her to Miss Mackay, her only interest in putting a stop to her. Miss Brodie says several times throughout that there moldiness be a leaven in the lump (referring to herself)and then later on says to Sandy I am surprised at YOU Sandy. I thought you were the leaven in the lump, conveying the idea that Sandy is in fact a part of Miss Brodie. Even when Sandy is a nun and has betrayed her, she is not comforted or relieved by the end to her teacher, which suggests that she is and always has been in love with her. She clutched the interdict of the grille as if she wanted to escape from the dim living-room beyond.(page 43) Patricia Dunker says schoolgirl stories set in womanonly institutions lend themselves to lesbian ambigutities and to the extension of conventional gender roles for girls. In women-only narratives the usual mens roles of explorer, adventurer, rescuer, are shared out out among the girls. Women are permittted to have adventures and ask nasty questions. They are also permitted to know things. ( Theorizing Muriel Spark, Patricia Dunker, Palgrave, New York, 2002, page 68) This idea of the female taking on parts of what usually a male role would be puts an interesting take on the novel in terms of the usual conventional ideas of woman. The woman does not only take on a feminine role, for example learning of the advantages to the skin of cleansing cream and witch hazel over honest soap and water but also the conventional ideas of the male; of taking control, of playing God like figures, and of sexual fantasies and knowledge.

A third aspect which is relevent to explore when looking at the conventional ideas of woman is one of the outside texts mentioned often within the text itself; The Lady Of Shalott. Miss Brodie receits stanzas of this poem to her class throughout the novel:She left the web, she left the loom,She made three paces thro the room,She saw the water-lily bloom,She saw the helmet and the plume,She lookd down to Camelot. (page 7)This poem exemplifies the unattanible woman, and deals with themes of tragic love. Artists such as Rosetti (who Miss Brodie also mentions) emphasised tragic aspects of the Ladys love and her place as an object of desire. ( http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/tennyson/frauenhofer.html) This part of the poem is from the third variance of the poem, where the lady sees the world directly, and therefore must die. The image of blush water-lily, the first bite of life the lady directly gazes upon out her window, may represent the Lady herself, interacting with the natural world for the first time. However, the cursed lady cannot exist as a part of this life. The Ladys moment of sexual daring in the poem is also the moment f her downfall. The fact that Miss Brodie quotes this interlinks with her views that a woman should be daring and be exposed to her sexuality, and by knowledge this to the girls in class conveys that she wishes to impose this idea on her girls. therefrom we are presented with a conventional idea of the free, independent, daring woman who is allowed to know things outwith the restrictions of Society ( in the book society is stand for by the Marcia Blaine School for girls) and that they should stand virtous and dominating.

This text subverts the conventional ideas of gender as we are presented with young girls who know of things they shouldnt at their innocent age. We also see a powerful woman figure instead of it being the male. Miss Brodie is in control of all the males in the book and even mirrors Mussolini. We see a woman who talks about men but is unconsciously a lesbian in love with her girls, and as she is able to pass water her girls, we see them too have aspects of lesbianism within them. In the text we have a clear understanding of the type of woman the author is trying to create and it is certainly a get around from the norm.BIBLIOGRAPHYFascism in Italy, Bolton King, London, Williams and Norgate LTD, 1931The Faith and Fiction of Muriel Spark, Ruth Whittaker, The Macmillan Press LTD, 1982, Hong KongThe Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark,1961, The Penguin Group, USATheorizing Muriel Spark, Patricia Dunker. Palrave, New York, 2002http://victorianweb.org/authors/tennyson/frauenhofer.html)

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