In The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel, the charismatic and eccentric Miss Brodie selects six girls. She picks these girls to be her “crème de la crème.” She teaches them all about the arts, her fascist believes, and she even goes as far as to inform them about her private life. It isn’t long until they are actually involved in it. She is in her “prime” as she mentions time after time in the novel, in which she is referring to the prime of her charisma, influence, and effectiveness with men. She decides to take these girls under her wing and show them her ways. The story begins when the girls are just 10 years-old, but it follows them all throughout their adolescent years. What makes this story all the more interesting is that the author actually lets his readers know that Sandy, one of the “Brodie girls” as they are known, will betray her later on. It gives us this information prior to this event actually happening in a sudden flash forward, very subtle but very important nonetheless. Novels usually have a route of wanting us to solve that mystery, very rarely do they “spoil” a key moment which will happen years later. Rather than leaving the readers to wonder what will play out in the novel, they are given key information about the end point they are heading towards. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie throws the premonition of a “spoil-free” ending out of the window, because the readers know a betrayal is coming. Rather, this novel gives readers key information and works towards it, forcing readers to pick out moments of suspicion and possible reason as to why Sandy would come to betray Miss Brodie in the first place.
This novel plays with the idea of predestination. As the readers find that Sandy will eventually betray Miss Brodie, all the rest of the novel is just build up into this moment. What is the betrayal in this case? Well the betrayal is Sandy passing information along to Miss Mackay about Miss Brodie’s fascist ways. Miss Brodie and her admiration of fascism would be responsible for convincing Joyce Emily to run away and fight in the Spanish Civil War. At the time, Miss Brodie didn’t know she would be sending Emily to her death but it happens nonetheless. This information alone would be enough for Miss Mackay to finally dismiss Miss Brodie from the school, forcing her into retirement but this wouldn’t come until years later. Miss Mackay wasn’t able to retire Miss Brodie until one of these girls had provided her enough information to do so, which makes the reader wonder what drove Sandy to betray Miss Brodie? Miss Brodie very much trusts these girls, telling them in-depth looks into her private life. She instills in them a sense of trust unlike any other, almost testing them to see just how far this trust goes. It was bound to blow up in her face eventually, which is putting it quite frank. The numbers were against her favor. Miss Brodie trusted six of these girls and it only takes one to say something about this inappropriate relationship for it to cause problems. From Miss Brodie’s view, she is doing these girls a service by making them her “crème de la crème.” By the reader’s view, she is taking on a role of influence more powerful than any other in the girl’s lives. She is molding them to think a certain way, which is something Miss Brodie fails to consider. Though she probably didn’t mean to, she eventually moves on from simply telling the girls of her love life, to actually involving them in it. Though in Miss Brodie’s plans, it was supposed to be Rose to be the one in the affair with with Mr. Lloyd, but instead it would be Sandy who would commence this love affair.
What brought Sandy to betray Miss Brodie? Well, the relationship between the two was too close for comfort. Miss Brodie trusted them with the details of her love life from the start, and it’s important to remember that the girls were only 10 years-old when they were taken under the wing by Miss Brodie herself. In this time, Miss Brodie sparked an interest in Sandy that would lead to an obsession in sex and more specifically, Miss Brodie’s love life. The early chapters of the novel do heavy foreshadowing into Sandy’s eventual betrayal of Miss Brodie. One particular day when Sandy was to meet up with Miss Brodie and the girls for some tea, she goes on to dismiss herself from this, only to have second thoughts about not going. “… she rather wished she had gone to tea at Miss Brodie’s after all. She took out her secret notebook from between the sheets of music and added a chapter to “The Mountain Eyrie,” the true love story of Miss Jean Brodie” (41). What is so harmful about skipping tea and having second thoughts about it? Well this quote only shows that Sandy is developing a particular obsession with Miss Brodie’s love life, as mentioned before. Sandy skips tea in favor of her time alone, but the problem is her time alone is spent pondering about her teacher’s love life. This is problematic in that it shouldn’t be this way for a 10-year-old girl. What’s more interesting, this eventual betrayal isn’t seen as a betrayal at all, because in Sandy’s words: “’It’s only possible to betray where loyalty is due’” (136). Of course, these words from Sandy wouldn’t come until she was an adult with a life of her own, but it shows that Sandy realizes there wasn’t any loyalty due to Miss Brodie. Why exactly is it betrayal? What does Sandy owe to Miss Brodie anyway? Sandy has outgrown this unhealthy obsession with Miss Brodie and gone on with her life, so it seems fit that she doesn’t feel any guilt about his “so-called” betrayal.
Miss Brodie doesn’t see this betrayal coming because she’s too wrapped up in teaching them about her life and her ways, she doesn’t stop to consider this might be too much for a group of 10-year-old girls to hear. In other words, Miss Brodie doesn’t consider the possibility that she might be doing something wrong. Miss Brodie’s influence is ever-present in this novel, so putting ideas in the heads of the girls was not past her. The ideas that Miss Brodie filled the heads of these girls with would lead one to her death and one to an affair with a much younger man. It seems Miss Brodie is doing these girls more harm than good, but she doesn’t think this to be the case. Eventually, Sandy will want to put a “stop” to Miss Brodie. As mentioned before, it would be Sandy who goes to Miss Mackay with the information of Miss Brodie’s politics and the evidence that she is teaching Fascism, which will be enough to retire Miss Brodie. Miss Mackay also doesn’t hesitate to tell Miss Brodie it was one of her own girls that betrayed her. In a letter to the girls informing them of her retirement, she resists the notion that one of her set would ever betray her: “What hurts and amazes me most of all is the fact, if Miss Mackay is to believed, that it was one of my own set who betrayed me and put the enquiry in motion” (135). Miss Brodie simply can’t believe that it was one of her own set that would force her into retirement. What’s more ironic, she singles out Sandy saying “You, Sandy, as you see, I exempt from suspicion, since you had no reason to betray me” (135).
In the end, it is Miss Brodie who is responsible her for her own demise and that is to put it lightly. The Brodie set of girls was much too involved in her personal affairs, but Miss Brodie didn’t ever come to this conclusion. From the beginning of the novel, the readers know this betrayal is coming so rather than trying to come to a logical guess about what the book will end with, the readers are forced to analyze the build up and try to see which moments in particular drove Sandy to betray Miss Brodie. This is certainly different in the sense that novels don’t usually work this way, so this novel tests the notion that all conclusions should be saved until the end. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie centralizes around the idea that trust and influence are not to be taken lightly. This novel takes these ideas and allows readers to see it all play out with the information already in their minds: Miss Brodie will be betrayed, it’s all a matter of how and why.