'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' by Muriel Spark is a novel in which the protagonist is a school teacher who has a very strong influence over her "girls." It can be seen that her leadership skills are similar to those of the dictators she admires so much. However Miss Brodie is also a leader who prefers not to lead from the front. She prefers to 'substitute' her girls into situations she'd like to be in but is too afraid to be. However Miss Brodie is proved to have contradictory views and the ultimate lack of success in her leadership skills is revealed when the girls end up rejecting her and go their own way in life.

The title comes from the protagonist of the novel and the belief that she has reached the prime of her life at thirty-nine. The reader can see that Miss Brodie wished to share this with her chosen favourite pupils. She tells her girls that they should recognise their prime as she has and live it to the full. Miss Brodie believes that this is the moment you are bor

Another indication of Miss Brodies contradictory views is during a walk she lets her girls know that she is against the Brownies and Guides for their team spirit and discipline. However she keeps her girls well disciplined, and she has great admiration for Mussolini and the Fascisti, who were a highly organised and well-disciplined group of people. The reader feels that Miss Brodies fascination with fascism mirrors her own style of teaching and her own attitude towards life. Sandy Stranger, one of Miss Brodies pupils, thought "that the Brodie set was Miss Brodies Fascisti."

"Mussolini has performed feats of magnitude and unemployment is even further abolished under him than it was last year."

However the reader sees that the irony is that none of her girls are actually designed to reach their prime. It is proved to the reader the Miss Brodies influence on her set, though great while they are young, is short-lived and they all come to reject her beliefs. One of the girls, Rose Stanley "shook off Miss Brodies influences a dog shakes pond water from its coat." Meanwhile Sandy Stranger's rejection was the most hurtful, since she became a Catholic and then a nun. This was the very Religion that is hated by Brodie. The reader feels that Miss Brodies influence as a teacher has failed because none of her set actually reaches their prime as she had. Rose Stanley never had the affair with Teddy Lloyd and eventually made a good marriage. Mary McGregor died young in a fire, Sandy Stranger became a nun and the others seemed to retain control over their own preferences.

Muriel Spark adopts an unusual narrative style by using flashbacks and flash forwards in the novel that allows the reader to understand why certain characters have developed in certain ways. Flashbacks give the reader brief glances of the past that help the reader to understand the present. However Spark's use of flashforwards is the more interesting device because it allows the reader to understand the consequences of the character's actions. On one level the time-scale of the novel embraces the years when the girls are at school under Miss Brodies influence. On another level, though, the use of flashforwards allows the reader to understand at an early age that Sandy betrayed Miss Brodie, converted to Catholicism and later, bec

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Approximate Word count = 1560
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)