And so she engages in machinations involving her students to create a sort of relationship-by-proxy which is inevitably destined to go horribly wrong. Lloyd for herself may have been easily enough overcome, but he is a virus that has infected Jean’s sense of being in her prime. This fact collides not only with Brodie’s sense of propriety and morality, but also her rejection of predestined fates and it is on the crux of this collision that the issue of spinsterhood takes a perverse turn. There is a problem, of course: Teddy Lloyd is married. We never became lovers, not even after you left Edinburgh, when the temptation was strongest.” Miss Jean Brodie “Teddy Lloyd was greatly in love with me, as you know, and I with him. Though it may seem her reply is evasive, it is in fact right to the point because Miss Jean Brodie’s philosophy of life is so antithetical to the concept of a predestined fate as to be almost a religion in itself. Specifically, she is asked if the religious doctrine of Calvinism (with its weighty tenet of predestination) was a great influence. Sandy’s statement is a reply to a question about the strongest influences in her life. Miss Jean Brodie’s “set” of girls are the crème de la crème of the school (at least in Brodie’s eyes) and Sandy is the crème de la crème of the set. This quote occurs twice in the narrative once in the second chapter and then again much later. “There was a Miss Jean Brodie in her prime.” Sandy Stranger From another perspective, however, she is just an unmarried woman quickly moving past her prime as an object of interest for men. Jean Brodie-it goes without saying that she is a Miss, of course-views herself as something of a rebellious figure who is not only in control of her own destiny but wields considerable influence over the fate of her girls. Spinsterhood is a very important aspect of the novel. There were legions of her kind during the nineteen-thirties, women from the age of thirty and up- ward, who crowded their war-bereaved spinsterhood with voyages of discovery into new ideas and energetic practices in art or social welfare, education or religion. She was alone, merely, in that she taught in a school like Marcia Blaine’s. It is not to be supposed that Miss Brodie was unique at this point of her prime or that (since such things are relative) she was in any way off her head. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

The crime of miss jean brodie