Spark believed any good novel was an extension of poetry, and Alan Bold says she practices "extreme compression of her language" and an "elusive attitude towards plot." The narrative of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is not linear, and with it being all over the place, we are introduced to the charismatic but often overbearing Miss Jean Brodie. She had taken upon herself the responsibility to mold the lives of six teenage girls at Marcia Blaine School by being the ultimate truth for them. Much of her character is based on Christina Kay, Brodie's own school teacher, who was emblematic of multiple of the positive qualities Miss Brodie possessed. As Brodie says, "Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life" and she believed that years of her prime would produce a bunch of "crème de la crème."

Brodie's adapted Christ-like personality came with her very own Judas, a girl among her mentees who had supposedly betrayed her and gotten her fired. Her mode of teaching was far away from traditional, as she believed lessons about her personal love life and travels, promoting art history, classical studies, and fascism were more important than the school curriculum, and hence, it was not a hornet's nest to get her fired in conservative Edinburgh. 
 
Miss Brodie is of uncontrolled romantic taste, temperament and sensibility, which turns out to be the cause of her downfall. In all, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is the complicated relationship we share with the people who are expected to guide us and make us realize our opinions on the world. It is also a cautionary tale for those in positions of instruction as to the repercussions of an educator going beyond educating and aiming to inflict their personality on young people, which is a huge disservice to the institution of education.

In all respects, Miss Brodie can be the mother of Tartt's Julian Morrow in The Secret History. So if you love campus novels and convoluted characters, this one's the perfect read for you.