Teachers have not always fared well in literature. Consider the
lanky, superstitious ambitious schoolmaster of “The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow,” Ichabod Crane. Remember all those grotesque
incompetents who pass themselves off as teachers in the
novels of Charles Dickens and who succeed only in terrifying
their pupils. Think of those incurably romantic, often neurotic,
love-lorn governesses so dear to the hearts of 19th century
writers and readers. Nor do matters improve much when we
come to the 20th century. James Hilton’s Mr. Chips and Frances
Gray Patton’s Miss dove are fine teachers and good human
beings, but they are also overly sentimentalized, insufferably
saint-like, and not terribly believable.

That is why Miss Jean Brodie in both Muriel Sparks’ novel and
Jay Presson Allen’s play based on the novel is a fascinating
character. As teachers of literature like to say about such
characters, she is a round, not a flat, figure. Miss Brodie is
most stimulating as a teacher, igniting the imaginations of her
girls with stories about Giotto, La Traviata, and the Stuart
Succession. Yet she is also not a liar, telling her girls to do as:
she tells them, not as she does herself. She is both nobly
heroic and foolishly ridiculous. We approve her rebellious
nature but we wince and draw back at her support of fascism.
Is Miss Brodie’s influence on the girls at Marcia Blaine school
“excessive and baneful” as Miss Mackay, the headmistress,
claims, or is Miss Brodie their friend and patron, influencing
them “to be aware of all the possibilities of life,” as Miss Brodie
counters? Is she a threat or a benefactor? Is she guilty or
innocent? Whatever your final judgment, you will agree that
she is a woman of unusual depth. We are not likely to forget
Miss Brodie and what she means and does to her girls – “Give
me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.”

Richard Gidez