The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark renders the tale of a group of six young girls who are very close to their teacher Miss Brodie. The techniques like flashback, reminiscing, stream of consciousness and narrative-within-narrative help readers scrutinize the personality and character of Miss Brodie who has such an inexplicable hold over her students. Her ability to hypnotize is what the readers are trying to understand throughout.
There is no storyline as such as it is the portrayal of the subjects that Muriel Spark is more concerned about. Therefore, the interaction between these characters in the small world of Marcia Blaine School becomes more important than the plot. Miss Brodie is specially attached to the six young girls out of all her students and the way she grooms them has lifelong effects on their life. Readers will definitely note how the education Miss Brodie imparts in different from the orthodox system of education. This is the reason she is always found suspicious in a conventional setup like that of Marcia Blaine School. She describes her distressing love-life to the Brodie set, her susceptibility to art and music, her disobedience of social norms and is quite confident that none of the girls will betray her by exposing her style of teaching.
One of the Brodie girls named Sandy, however, finds how they were betrayed by Miss Brodie throughout. After finding that her teacher was in love with Mr. Lloyd and not Mr. Lowther as she would claim, she feels betrayed and decides not to conform to Miss Brodie's future plans. It is from here that Brodie's ill fate takes over as Sandy finally realizes that Miss Brodie was practicing the power of God over these girls and was directing their lives throughout. She even apprehends that Brodie was responsible for the death of Emily Joyce, another of her students, as she sent her to fight for General Franco in Spanish Civil War.
In the so called revolutionary methods of Miss Brodie that the girls were awed with, Sandy found distressing flaws. As a result, she betrays Brodie by apprising Miss Mackey about her fascination for fascism, something completely unacceptable in an era where Mussolini and Hitler were seen as evil forces of society. Miss Brodie was forced to retire and till the end of her life she is always engaged in finding her betrayer. It is Miss Brodie's negative impulses and the abuse of power that brings her fall.
