About this episode

This episode explores the themes and characters of 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie', focusing on the titular character's influence and eventual betrayal.

Published in 1961, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie tells the story of a charismatic and narcissistic teacher in a girl’s private school in Edinburgh during the 1930s. Miss Brodie, who insists repeatedly that she is in the prime of her life - aka middle-aged - cultivates a ‘set’ of impressionable young girls who she can use as proxies to act out her own desires. On at least one occasion, when she encourages an impressionable young girl to fight for the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, this has fatal consequences. In the end, it is one of her own set who ‘betrays’ her to the headmistress Miss Mackay, providing the necessary intel to ensure her sacking.  The character of Miss Brodie isn’t the only thing memorable about this book. The prose is - as you would expect from a writer called Spark - electric. That is to say, both poetic and incredibly funny. She also manages to write an avant-garde non-linear account of Brodie’s supposed ‘prime’ that has its own propulsion. The novel darts around over a thirty year time period with an effortlessness and accessibility that even the greatest writers struggle to achieve.  The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was published first in the New…

People in this episode

Hosts: Sophie Gee, Jonty Claypole

Topics covered

• literature
• education
• character analysis
• historical context
• adaptations
• fascism
• betrayal

Keywords

• Miss Jean Brodie
• literary analysis
• Scottish literature
• fascism
• betrayal
• 1930s
• Dame Maggie Smith
• Ronald Neame
• New Yorker
• non-linear narrative

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: New Yorker

Books & works: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Poseidon Adventure

Places: Edinburgh

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