The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - The Book

Cranberry,

Here's something form Linda McLean's book;

"Patsy was always well prepared and liked to win as much as anyone. But she also helped others, willing to do anything to spark the team spirit.

That's straight out of TPOMJB.

If "Patsy" was for the team spirit, then she was against Jean Brodie.

Sandy was with Brodie for a while and hence against team spirit. After she betrayed Brodie she became a Catholic nun, very much a team member.

Psychologically, the pressure of being an individual was released in the betrayal of Brodie. Sandy became an individual by breaking up the set. Then lost it when she became Catholic. Her identity changed and she became Sister Helena of the Transfiguration.

Patsy's identity changed 12/25/'96 when Patsy/JonBenet-alive, became Patsy/JonBenet-Angel.

 

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 - The Last Chapter

“By the time their friendship with Miss Brodie was of sevens years’ standing, it had worked itself into their bones, so that they could not break away without, as it were, spitting their bones to do so.â€

Sandy (to Miss Mackay regarding Miss Brodie): “She doesn’t drink, except sherry on her birthday.â€

The Brodies girls, now seventeen, were able to detach Miss Brodie from her aspect of teacher.

Jenny: dramatic talent, always rehearsing, debating society.
Eunice: Nurse
Monica: Science
Sandy: Psychology
Rose: Art school

MJB: “I am his Muse but Rose shall take my place.â€

Sandy: She thinks she is God of Calvin - she sees the beginning and the end. Sandy thought Miss Brodie was an unconscious lesbian. Many theories in the psychology books categorized Miss Brodie, but failed to obliterate the image from the canvases of one-armed Teddy Lloyd.

Miss Jean Brodie was dedicated to the girls. Sandy realized it was not all theory or a Brodie game. Not a theory, Miss Brodie meant it.

Sandy: MJB was obsessed by the need for Rose to sleep with the man she herself was in love with; there was nothing new in the idea, it was the reality that was new.

Sandy became interested in the painter’s mind, so involved with Miss Brodie.

Sandy’s insolent blackmailing stare. Teddy Lloyd kissed Sandy.

Teddy reproduced Miss Brodie in his portrait painting of Sandy. Sandy: Curious about the mind that loved the woman. Deeply absorbed in his mind, from which she extracted, among other things, his religion. Her mind was full of his religion.

She left the man and took his religion and became a nun, in the course of time.

Miss Brodie was at first merely resigned to Sandy‘s liaison with Teddy, now exultant and wanted details, which she did not get. “Then all is well, said Miss Brodie. “And after all, Sandy, she said, “you are destined to be the great lover, although I would not have thought it. Truth is stranger than fiction. I wanted Rose for him, I admit.â€

Miss Brodie forms a new set.

Sandy to the probing Miss Mackay: “Have you thought of politics?†“Only putting a stop to Miss Brodie.â€

Sandy was fuming now, with Christian morals. Sandy enters the Catholic Church.

Miss Brodie writes to Sandy: You had no reason to betray me, after all, I gave you the best part of me in my confidences and in the man I love. Who would betray me? Miss Brodie reviews the Brodie set list:
Mary - Due to a grievance, in her stupidity?
Rose - For my always coming first with Mr. L?
Eunice - Bore a grudge because she wanted Team Spirit?
Jenny - Because I told her she’d never be a great actress?
Monica - With very little Soul; Beauty Truth and Goodness beyond her grasp?
Miss Brodie: “Who could it have been?â€

Sandy: “If you did not betray us, it is impossible that you could have been betrayed by us. The word betrayed does not apply…â€

Miss Brodie was an innocent in her way. It’s only possible to betray where loyalty is due.

Reporter to Sandy/Sister Helena: Who was the main influence of your school das?
Sandy: “There was a Miss Jean Brodie, in her prime.â€

 

It's interesting to see what you highlight Cranberry. Every time I read the book I see someting new. I thought I saw the "head" reference my last read but you had posted it already. TPOMJB is an autobiography by Spark using Sandy as Spark.

The Brodie/Sandy/Rose figure that relates sexually to the Lloyd/Lowther/artist/holyman hints at a libido loaded Patsy Paugh. As pathetic a man as John Ramsey is, I give fault him the most for not unlocking Patsy's secret vault.

 

Yes, onehanded too. I'll say anything to get people to read this book.

IMO at the beginning of the book I saw similar traits of people around PR but by the end of the book it looked more like traits that Patsy assumed herself.

 

One of girls in the Brodie set was Mary Macgregor. Described as clumsy, stupid, with slow bewilderment and always to blame. Miss Brodie constantly berated her in front of the other girls, and Sandy, not wanting to separate herself or make herself blameable, in turn, often spoke down to clueless Mary. IMO, a line in the ransom note, 'Don't try to grown a brain, John,' sounds like something Sandy would say to poor Mary.

Sandy was a creative writer, often inserting herself and acquaintances into her fictional, over the top stories. IMO, it would be in Sandy's style to put people like Mr Lowther and Mr. Lloyd, her two gentlemen teachers, ala Leopold & Loebesque, in a fake ransom note, as in: 'two gentlemen watching over your daughter.'

Much has been written about movie character lines appearing in the ransom note. I would like to know your thoughts on whether there could also be a TPOMJB book character influence?

 

There are a lot of poor little Mary McGregors in this world, Cranberry, berated by the prettier girls at school or dancing schools; wherever you have a group of young girls. Sad but true.

Wearing the very same uniforms as those in the Edinburgh school, I remember hating the two girls who sat in the top two seats of my class. In my school days, the brightest sparks were at the top of the class, working down to the least intelligent. It was the most humiliating state of affairs.

These two braggarts at the top would have been classified as "pains-in-the-butt today. No one liked them, because they looked down on the rest of us who were below them. I was three rows from the back, and I was determined to knock one of these two out of their haughty position. I was almost into the the second row from the back.

These two girls were quite well shaped for their age, while I was a very slow developer. This was another plus they held over the rest of us. To cut a long story short, I loved math and I worked very hard at my homework and I did end up knocking the one with the biggest boobs out of the first position.
The two of them ended up at the end of the top row. Quite a few of us were determined to knock them both out. Three cheers :toast: we did it!

 

Talking down to John (Mr. Ramsey) and laying responsiblity onto John does sound like something Sandy would do to Mary. She was also said to have the capabilities of a spy and hence could scan, monitor and be aware of law enforcement countermeasures. Sandy was also very observant and could scrutinize. She would also identify herself as part of a group of individuals as that is stressed in the book. Individualism is prized over team spirit by Brodie. The Brodie set was sort of a small foreign faction. The author of the rn thought it was important to mention the number of men watching over JonBenet and that number just happens to match the number of male main characters in the book.

I think a regressed Patsy in the image of Sandy wrote the note. The mocking tone is typical of Sandy. I think the sign-off is not an attempt to claim anything by the author but is also part of the mocking tone of the note, i.e. the sign-off mocks John's religiosity.

 

Thank you Elle

Thanks Elle for that personal story. It was your self confidence and alot of hard work that beat the odds, when the rankings were stacked against you, so to speak. I'm thankful it has carried you through, even to today.

The thing with Mary, it seemed her sole purpose in the set was to be kicked around, as per Miss Brodie, used as an example of how not to be, without the encouragement/guidance that she needed since she lacked her own self worth and self confidence. She was oblivious to the beat down, and it wasn't subtle. The saddest part being that she looked back on those years as the happiest of her life, eventually dying, at the age of 24, from a fire running up and down the hallways, with no direction.

In the story, Sandy took cheap shots at Mary whenever she could, much like the line in the ransom note, to me anyway.

 

Thank you Paradox, I agree with you on all of Sandy's traits. In addition Sandy led a double life of her own in order never to be bored, Miss Brodie observed a frivolous nature in her, Sandy recites and composed the fake formal invitation to Alan w/8:00. It would be interesting to make a complete list of all of Sandy's traits.

In chapter 4, when the Brodie set is threatened to be broken up into 4 different competing 'team spirits', via the housing units, Miss Brodie had perhaps forseen this event and prepared them to not cave to the team spirit: "this, the first test of her strength, she had the victory." I read this as victory relating to her deliberate prior planning to keep the set together, as they grew older and more individualized. I would like to know your thoughts on this, since 'victory' is used at the end of the ransom note. Thank you.

 

Thank you, Cranberry. I do have an inner strength that pushes me on when I need it, Poor Mary was kicked around as you stated above, and it's a sad story. and unfortunately a true one, as far as the Mary McGregors of the world being treated badly in their young days.

I know the Sandy's and the Mary's from long ago. Another sad state of affairs was when some of the girls in my class couldn't afford to buy school uniforms, and this was when the Catholic Parish stepped in. Their Gym tunics could be spotted a mile away, and everyone knew they were wearing Parish clothes. Oh how children can be so cruel. I had a friend who was always in tears because she had to wear one, and was taunted by some of the stuck-up Sandy's. Is it any wonder I couldn't wait to leave and never turn back?

 

Brodie had a team of her own, of which she was the center. And that is the point. If Brodie were to become part of another team she would have to find her place with others around a common center or "head". Brodie as narcissist needed to be the center with it's own sphere of influence. In this respect Brodie plays God. This is why she had a rota (rotation) of Christian denominations. Likewise, Patsy attended different denominations through her life. The movie makes it very clear, through Mary, how Brodie is attracted to people's weaknesses that allow her to bring them into her sphere.

I think the ways Brodie and Mary died were metaphors for how a person is consumed by life. Mary was easily influenced and had no direction of her own, she was consumed by an act of nature from without. While Brodie, who was all about control, was consumed from within by cancer. Brodie was such a control freak she could control her sex libido and thought she could control other's as well (Lloyd's and Rose's). Patsy's cancer HAD to be a link between her and Brodie in Patsy's unconscious.

Brodie's victory was a validation of her as center of the set and a defeat of the "head" mistress McKay and her school team spirit.

 

"I would like to know your thoughts on this, since 'victory' is used at the end of the ransom note."

Here you are getting into esoterica and one of the main connections between TPOMJB and The Psalms. The other is the line "The gang who oppose me shall not succeed."

The Victory according to Depth Psychology is the maturation process where the mature ego (ego/persona/self identity) gives up it's infantile illusion of superiority and bows to, and relates consciously to that which is greater than it; nature proper and the archetypal psyche within: i.e. The Self.

Brodie's Victory is personal and local, but like a narcissist, she blows that up to Mythic stature where she is God. She overplays her hand and eventually loses to local politics. She exposes her identification with Christ by insisting she was betrayed. Sandy undercuts that with a technicality about loyalty.

Brodie did not understand what true victory was. Neither did Patsy.

 

Didn't mean to interrupt the flow of your discussion with Paradox, Cranberry, but that movie "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" doesn't half remind me of my school days. Press on!

 

Thank you for that explanation Paradox. Yes, Miss Brodie (narcissist) felt cut down in her prime of life, reaction: betrayed, like Christ. Patsy (with IMO identity disorder) may have felt the same way, her life cut short due to the cancer and threat of re-occurrence, reaction: ? How does the Self react emotionally if there are identity issues involved? That is a stupid question, I know, but I think I am close to understanding most of it, but missing a part of the equation.

 

"How does the Self react emotionally if there are identity issues involved?"

Actually that's a good question, if the word emotionally is properly attributed. "The Self" includes the unconscious and conscious both. Emotions would involve the conscious ego/persona and the unconscious would act as a compensation to a wayward ego. The compensation would not come with emotions per say.

I look at TPOMJB as a story about one psyche, one person that battles their narcissism. I think Patsy's attraction to the story IS a compensation for her own narcissism or for the influence of Nedra. The attraction to the story could be an attempt by the unconscious to put lessons in front of Patsy. Since a person with a dissociative identity disorder is estranged from parts of themselves (not integrated), the avenue for compensation might seem to come from somewhere far away from the conscious ego such as voices and visions. Dissociation in a child can be seen as a coping mechanism with splitting and segregation of the persona the unfortunate result.

I think Patsy was attracted to the story because it mirrored what was going on inside her. She could not deal with those things directly so she participated with them indirectly through the story. Her repeated pageant performances of the soliloquey were an attempt to get all that recognized by a substitute parental figure "the audience" or better yet the judges. Patsy ran that by again by using JonBenet in the pageants. Even that was not satisfactory so the ultimate "recognition" was attained by sending part of herself to a God through the use of JonBenet as Angel.

 

I have just started reading the book. Manipulative Miss Brodie already gives me the creeps.
Was this one of Patsy Ramsey's favorite books? Where does she talk about it - in DOI (I haven't read it yet)?

 

I would need to check out DOI rashomon but here's Steve's take on it.

Miss West Virginia title (1977).

 

Hi rashomon, I think the only mention in DOI of TPOMJB is when Steve Thomas and LE interviewed PR's high school teacher, Linda McLean about the book. I believe she wrote a book also which I haven't read yet.

Please share your thoughts, what do you think about the book so far?

 

I enjoyed the exchange between you and Paradox on the book, Cranberry, Your posts were excellent.

I'll need to send away for the DVD and watch it again. Haven't seen it in any of the stores. Don't need the book right now. I'll just read over your posts again.

 

Patsy told her housekeeper that her sex life with John suffered since her cancer treatment. Imo this is something else than never having been interested in sex.