Miss Brodie and Betrayal

Do you think that Sandy’s ‘betrayal’ of Miss Jean Brodie is justified? Discuss with reference to the text.

I do think that Sandy’s betrayal of Miss Jean Brodie is justified because Miss Brodie used fascist views to educate the girls in the school which should be stopped. However it could be said that it is not justified for Sandy to betray Miss Brodie because it is mostly due to jealousy and revenge.

Miss Brodie teaches how she likes in the school. She does not like how you are supposed to teach. Also she teaches what she thinks and believes that the girls should know. Furthermore, she educates what she thinks the answer is whether it is true or not. In the classroom Miss Jean Brodie describes to the girls about her holidays in Egypt. She starts to talk about the Italian paintings she saw, and Miss Brodie asks who they thought was the greatest Italian painter when one of the girls thinks that it is Leonardo de Vinci. However Miss Brodie does not seem to think so. “That is incorrect. The answer is Giotto he is my favourite.” From this quotation you can see that she teaches what she thinks is right when sometimes it is a matter of opinion. This refers back to my opening statement. She uses the words “my favourite” which suggests that this is the only answer it could be.

Miss Brodie also did not believe in the way of having a curriculum. She would rather to teach how she liked, when she liked. Miss Brodie often took the girls out into the school gardens to have their lessons, here she would warn the girls of intruders. “‘Hold up your books,’ said Miss Brodie quite often that autumn, ‘prop them up in your hands, in case of intruders. If there are any intruders, we are doing our history lesson… our poetry… English grammar.’”

In this quotation we can see that, Miss Brodie is quite secretive. Sandy may not have liked this. Maybe she wanted to learn properly.
One reason why Sandy decided to betray Miss Jean Brodie may be due to Miss Brodie having different traits the girls were ‘famous for’. For example, Monica Douglas was famous for her mathematics. Rose Stanley was famous for sex, Eunice Gardiner was for her gymnastics and Sandy Stranger was known for her small eyes and her vowel sounds. However as you can see that Sandy is not ‘famous’ for a particular talent like everybody else, she was known for her nearly non existent eyes. She probably would not like to be known for this. She may have been sick of being known for practically nothing.

It could be said that Sandy is not necessarily ‘betraying’ Miss Brodie. She may only be acting how she has observed Miss Brodie through the years she has known her. The girls are taught to learn from Miss Brodie. She subtly makes the girls copy practically everything she does. It could be said that it was her own fault that she was dismissed from her job at the school.

In conclusion I think that the betrayal of Miss Brodie can be argued both ways to whether it was justified or not. It could be said that it was not justified because on the surface, it seemed that Miss Brodie taught the girls like her own children and shared things with them. Sandy may just have been jealous of her teacher.

However it could also be said that it was justified because Miss Brodie decided to go against the headmistress’ wishes and not teach the authorized and appropriate curriculum.