The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie:
Chapter 1
Questions to help you prepare your presentations
1 What is the time / setting / who is the narrator, what is the perspective? What does the title mean? Give various meanings of “prime”.
2 What do we learn about Marcia Blane School?
3 What do the hats signify?
4 What do we learn about the Brodie set? What does “set” mean? How would you translate it into Hungarian?
5 Define these: Buchmanites, Mussolini, witch-hazel, menarche, Battle of Flodden, Garibaldi, the Lady of Shalott,
Pentland Hills, Stanley Baldwin, Giotto, Joan of Arc, “carpe diem”, Flanders, Armistice, Ayrshire, Kaiser, “Flowers of the Forest”
6 What does “loiter” mean?
7 How could those girls be “famous”?
8 Who comprise the Brodie set? What do we learn about them – as individuals and as a group?
9 What information is given about Miss Brodie?
10 What narrative techniques / devices are used extensively? Bring examples. What’s their functions?
Chapter 2
Questions to help you prepare your presentation
1. Define the following terms and phrases and identify their significance in the novel: the Wrens; Dean Bridge;
Tennyson; Mona Lisa; “ The babe leapt in her womb”; Sea maiden of the Hebrides; Lord Lyon King of Arms; Sybil
Thorndike; tussore; box-pleated tweed; capers; Ariel; Festival; the Walk; Forth; Meccanos; Kidnapped; the Cause;
Leith, Portobello, Musselburgh, Dalkeith; the song of the sword of Alan; League of Nations; Girl Guides; Brownies;
Old Town; Mary Queen of Scots and Rizzio; John Knox; St Giles Cathedral; John Buchan; James Hogg, Kilmeny;
Auden, Eliot, Spanish Civil War.
2.Find Scots words and phrases: explain them and account for the ways their use influences the tone / register of the narrative
3. Find words from different registers (literary, dialectal , children’s language) and explain their effects on the narrative.
4. Provide a summary of religion in Scotland with special attention to the Scottish Presbyterian Church: its past, ideology and habits. Which characters introduce / represent the theme of religion? What kind of religious issues and contradictions are raised in the narrative?
5. Explain Mary MacGregor’s character and her role in the narrative.
6. Describe Sandy and Jenny Gray’s friendship, their aims and ambitions.
7.Describe Miss Brodie as a teacher / educator. Do you think she is a good teacher? What do you think about her methods? Is she right? On what basis does she select her favourites? Is she right to pick favourite disciples?
What issues are raised by that?
8. Describe Miss Brodie’s political views and how she tries to use her views in the classroom to influence the girls.
To what extent does she carry political discourse / vocabulary over to the classroom, and why?
9. What is Miss Lockhart like as a teacher? How does she compare to Miss Brodie? Which of the two women could be a witch?
10. How does life in the senior class compare to life in Miss Brodie’s class?
11. Explain the time shifts (back and forward) in the narrative.
Chapter 3
Questions to help you prepare your presentation
1 What other information do we learn about Miss Brodie: her character and position, political views and religion, and her early life?
2 Define the following words and explain their significance to the plot: Marie Carmiachael Stopes; Scottish
Nationalist Movement; Elders; Sir Donald Francis Tovey; Cimabue; James Ramsay MacDonald; mantilla; flying colours; “Come autumn sae pensive”; “Discretion is the better part of valour”; “Leaven in the lump”; “How sweet is…”; Anna Pavlova; Corstorphine
3 Explain and describe
Teddy Lloyd’s character.
4 Summarize the plot development and how the relationships between characters change.
Chapter 4
Questions to help you prepare your presentation
1 What other information do we learn about Miss Brodie: her character and position, political views and religion, and her early life? Explain the motif of “betrayal”.
2 Define the following words and explain their significance to the plot: “Modern Side”; Houses; Florence
Nightingale; exact subject; J.S: Mill; Samuel Pepys; pale; March, mar ch, Ettrick and Teviotdale”; Willie Brodie; “O mother, mother, make my bed”; Norma Shearer; Elizabeth Bergner; folly-turret; Venetian blinds; All people that on earth”
3 Explain and describe Miss Lockhart’s character.4 Summarize the plot development and how the relationships between characters change. Explain the relationship between Miss Brodie and Mr Lowther.
5 Identify and explain narrative devices.

Chapter 5
Questions to help you prepare your presentation:
1 Define the following words and explain their significance to the plot: Silver Jubilee, St Giles Cathedral, Tolbooth,
Morningside, Merchiston, whiff of sulphur, DH Lawrence, The Scotsman [a newspaper]
2 Explain the relationship between Mr Lloyd, Miss Brodie, Rose and Sandy. What’s Sandy’s impression of Mr
Lloyd’s portraits of Miss Brodie and her girls?
3 What new information is given about Mr Lloyd and his relationship with Miss Brodie?
4 Summarize the conversation made by Miss Brodie and Sandy during the golf game.
5 What’s Sandy’s opinion of Calvinism?
6 What is Miss Brodie’s opinion of the school? What is his motivation to stay at the school?
7 Whom does Mr Lowther marry, and in your opinion why?
Chapter 6
Questions to help you prepare your presentation:
1 Define the following words and explain the ir significance to the plot: “What canna be cured maun be endured”,
“Why don’t they eat cake?”, Spanish Civil War,
2 Analyze the conversation with Miss Mackay at the beginning of the chapter.
3 What are the set like at the age of seventeen?
4 Who’s Joyce Emily and what’s her significance?
5 What has Sandy come to think of Miss Brodie? Explain.
6 What turned out to be the reason for firing Miss Brodie?
7 Explain the relationship between Mr Lloyd and Sandy.
8 In your opinion, why did Sandy convert to Catholicism and become a nun?
9 What does Miss Brodie think the real reason of her firing was? Is she right? What does she think about the possibility of having been betrayed by Sandy?
10 Why did she betray Miss Brodie?