Muriel Spark: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie & Autobiographical Elements

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark (For M.A. II Semester Students, Paper IV, Dept.of English) Prof. Gourhari Behera

Muriel Spark One of the most significant of the Post War British novelists known for her works like The Comforters, Robinson, The Ballad of Peckham Rye, The Driver s Seat etc. But The Prime of Miss jean Brodie is her most popular and critically acclaimed work. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, she was educated at the James Gillespie s School for Girls which has been fictionalized in the novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. The novel is set against the backdrop of Fascism and Spanish Civil War and narrates the story of a school teacher, Miss Jean Brodie, whose inclination towards Fascism results in her forced retirement. The novel has been adapted into a very successful film.

Autobiographical Elements Autobiographical Elements Muriel Spark s autobiography, Curriculum Vitae exhaustively recounts the days she spent at James Gillespie s School for Girls in Edinburgh where she spent 12 years of her life. This period forms the basis of the novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. The central figure of the novel, Miss Jean Brodie, is based on the figure of Miss Christina Kay, one of Spark s favourite teachers. But she borrows the name of the central character from a young American woman, Charlotte Brodie who taught her to read at the age of three. The character of Miss Jean Brodie has a lot of similarities with Miss Christina Kay who bore an impressive personality according to Spark s own account.

Autobiographical Elements (Contd.) Autobiographical Elements (Contd.) Both Miss Kay and Miss Brodie follow similar methods of instruction and had similar views regarding the purpose and goal of education. In the novel Miss Brodie sums up the goal of education as a leading out of what was there already instead of just putting in . constantly attempted to relate experience to education. In the novel the Brodie set (referring to the girls who were specially trained by Miss Brodie) are shown to be vastly informed on a lot of subjects irrelevant to the authorized curriculum . This interdisciplinary approach to education is seen both in Miss Kay and Miss Brodie. Both of them

Autobiographical Elements (Contd.) Autobiographical Elements (Contd.) Miss Brodie, like Miss Kay, attended lectures at various institutions on numerous disciplines such as theology, art, German poetry, health and beauty care and shared the knowledge with their students. In this manner they were able to impress their sympathy despite their radical and unorthodox views. Spark shows in the novel how this quality was Miss Brodie s greatest strength and weakness too. While on the one hand it generated in interests, on the other hand it was also responsible for circumstances like those leading to Emily Joyce s death in a train accident. students and gained the Brodie set diverse

Autobiographical Elements (Contd.) Autobiographical Elements (Contd.) Both Miss Kay and Miss Brodie provide fascinating accounts of their travels through Europe and Egypt to the girls. Also both admired Italian painters like Botticelli, Giotto and Fra Lippo Lippi. Miss Brodie s fascination for Mussolini as shown in the novel finds parallel in Miss Kay s fascination for Fascism. Like Miss Kay, Miss Brodie in the novel took her favourite girls to theatre, concerts, films and poetry reading sessions even paying for their visits. These they did because they believed that the parents of the girls were not concerned enough about the welfare of the girls.

Autobiographical Elements (Contd.) Autobiographical Elements (Contd.) The character of Mr. Lowther is based on Mr. Wishart, Spark s singing master and Mr. Gordon, her history teacher. The character of Mr. Lloyd is based on Arthur Couling, Spark s art master. The Sandy-Jenny association in the novel is based on Spark s own friendship with Daphne Porter and Francis Niven. Apart from these similarities the Edinburgh of the 1930s is vividly captured in the Depression, unemployment, poverty are all graphically portrayed in the novel. novel alcoholism, the violence Economic and

The Issue of Fascism in the Novel The Issue of Fascism in the Novel The novel has been read as a comment on Fascism, a political ideology that fascinated many people in the 1930s. Followers and admirers of this ideology are referred to as Fascists. Some of the popular historical figures associated with Fascism are Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. (Although they differ too in many respects.)

The Issue of Fascism in the Novel (Contd.) The Issue of Fascism in the Novel (Contd.) Fascists are opposed to political and cultural liberalism. They disregard the idea of the individual and focus on the idea of the greater good. Thus, they condemn individual thinkers and dissent. In the novel we see such a figure in Miss Jean Brodie. For her, education means a leading out . She says, To me education is a leading out of what is already there in pupil s soul . Thus her attempt to make the girls acquainted with all the wonderful things she herself enjoys like her love for Mussolini is actually her effort not to make them think for themselves but to think like her. Even when the girls are no longer her students (as they have been promoted to the senior School) they continue to remain and think like her. Her overpowering personality has identities. destroyed their individual

The Issue of Fascism in the Novel (Contd.) The Issue of Fascism in the Novel (Contd.) Fascists believe in a strong leader who claims to be the only one capable of saving the followers and lead them to greatness and glory. (Mussolini and Hitler). In the novel Miss Brodie feels that she is the only one among all teachers in the school who could make the girls special and stand out, the cr me de la cr me of society. She says, Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life . She considers herself as the ultimate source of all knowledge. She presents her conflict of interest with the Headmistress, Miss Mackay, as a fight for their future drawing sympathy and loyalty towards her. Moreover Miss Brodie s suspicion of Science and scientific temper and her privileging of Art, Religion and Philosophy over Science clearly exposes her Fascist mindset. Through her charm and charisma she is able to convince the girls that she alone is right and they should follow her.

The Issue of Fascism in the Novel (Contd.) The Issue of Fascism in the Novel (Contd.) Fascists promote an unwavering devotion to their own group at the expense of others by encouraging an us versus them outlook. A typical fascist leader always has a scapegoat to blame for all the problems bringing out, in turn, fear in the people. This fear and insecurity prompts the people to follow and do what the leader wishes. Fascists convince people to give up their individual identities, to distrust rationality and scientific temper and evidence and have complete and unwavering faith in their leader to provide answers to all their problems. In the novel Miss Brodie resembles one such leader who dissuades the girls to participate in competitions, criticizes such activities obstructs love and personal loyalties. She constantly brands other teachers as enemies and delegitimizes what other teachers have taught them. She projects herself as well as the girls as victims fighting against tyranny and forces them to stay together as a group. because to her this spirit

The Issue of Fascism in the Novel (Contd.) The Issue of Fascism in the Novel (Contd.) The novel comments on how fascists abuse power by not only misusing positions of power but in more subtle ways like psychologically moulding the nascent minds of the people they govern. The novel also throws light on how Fascism often meets its end by betrayal from within by those who are able to see through the dangerous designs and exposing them at the pertinent moment. Sandy s betrayal of Miss Brodie at the end of the novel allegorizes this aspect of Fascism. The betrayal of Miss Brodie coincides with the fall of Fascism in Europe.

Religion and Faith Religion and Faith The novel critically comments on the diverse strands of Christianity especially in the figures of Miss Brodie and Sandy. Miss Brodie represents Calvinism, a major branch of Protestantism, founded by John Calvin, a Swiss religious reformer in the 16th Century. Calvinism is opposed to Roman Catholicism and emphasizes simplicity and austerity in life. It believes that individuals do not have a choice in who obtains salvation because it is predestined. Miss Brodie s religious inclinations are disapproves of the Roman Catholic Church and calls it church of superstition . She associates intellectuality and distances herself from it. She becomes, as Sandy says, the God of Calvin who decides the fate of others. Spark writes, She was not in any doubt that God was on her side and this blurred her moral perceptions. At the end of her life she encounters loneliness and alienation which was brought about by her sense of omnipotence and a weakened sense of morality. clearly Calvinistic. First she Roman Catholicism with anti-

Religion and Faith (Contd.) Religion and Faith (Contd.) Miss Brodie s educational thought is also Calvinistic. She holds sway over the Brodie set like a God expecting each of them to fulfil her expectations. psychological approach by portraying herself as a victim of the system that puts obstacles in her path of realizing high ideals. She hates being questioned about her method of instruction. She promises her set of students an academic salvation by assuring them that they shall be the best among their fellow students if they followed her advice. This aspect inclination that believed that only few are chosen by God for salvation. She adopts a too reflects her Calvinistic

Religion and Faith (Contd.) Religion and Faith (Contd.) Miss Brodie, instead of living by doctrine and theory lives by personal insight and experience. Spark suggests that had Miss Brodie lived by the limits of doctrine and theory she might have avoided the dangers and drawbacks of personal judgement. Instead she imposes her personal ideology on others which, as Sandy realizes, could have dangerous outcome on the girls. Sandy also realizes that Miss Brodie has emerged as a symbol of power that ruled the lives of other lesser beings. When Sandy converts to Roman Catholicism she not only rejects Calvin s doctrine of determinism but also the doctrine that professed that the human soul was blindly enslaved. accepts Roman Catholicism which she thought was more redemptive and inclusive. Her betrayal of Miss Brodie can be seen as her rejection of Calvinism and acceptance of the Roman Catholic Church. Muriel Spark also in her personal life rejected the determinism of Calvin in favour of the inclusiveness of the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, Sandy

Narrative Style Spark makes use of an omniscient narrator who probes into the minds of the characters. The novel is almost a psychological novel in this sense. Spark uses both Analepsis (flash backs) and Prolepsis (flash forwards) to make the narrative non-linear. Narrative suspense is employed, but unlike detective fiction where the culprit is identified in the end here the motive for betrayal is revealed at the end of the novel and not the person who betrays. A number of internal monologues are used in the novel. The novel can be read as a metafiction where Spark tries to show the constructedness of authority in the figure of Miss Brodie.

Contd. Miss Brodie is like an author who tries to write the lives of her students like an authority but fails. Sandy is the errant character who subverts the author-like authority of Miss Brodie. Thus the novel is an example of a metafiction a fiction about the process of writing fiction. It points to the way a fiction is constructed and the authorial intention subverted at the end. Apart from these, the novel also deals with the theme of transfiguration (how various characters are transfigured at the end of the novel) and betrayal (the various levels of betrayals) in the novel. Finally the novel is also about ideological deceptions how human beings are deceived by the power of ideologies.

References Ansari, Amina. Muriel Spark: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. (IGNOU Study Material). Ninth Block MEG -03. 2001. Damon, Michael. The Fascist Tendencies in the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie . left-ish.com/2018/11/13/jean-Brodie/ Spark, Muriel. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Penguin Books. 2000. Suh, Judy. The Familiar Attractions of Fascism in Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Journal of Modern Literature, Volume 30, Number 2, Winter 2007. Muriel Spark: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. e.pathshala. (You tube lecture) MHRD. New Delhi. http://youtu.be/wfrLcfbgRCw