Диотима с Безуминкой

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) : Differences in the movie and the book

MARY MacGREGOR - in the book, she does not join the war in Spain where she dies soon after; she joins the Wrens (the female branch of the Royal Navy) and is killed in a fire sometime during her early 20s. Also, Mary is described by everyone in the book as simply "stupid" and seemingly lacking any redeemable trait, and everyone including Miss Brodie is mean to her. The film presents her somewhat more sympathetically as as a naive but sweet girl. There is another girl, however, who is introduced quite late in the novel who does in fact leave for the Spanish war and is killed in a train attack. It appears that Mary MacGregor in the film is a composite of Mary MacGregor in the novel plus the girl I just discussed.

MR. LLOYD - in the book, Miss Brodie does not have a physical affair with him because he is married but she does love him deeply; her attempt to substitute her student in her place (as his lover) makes more sense in the book because to me, she is living vicariously through the student. She won't bed a man who wears a ring, but she'd like to live out that fantasy through someone else. In the film, she does sleep with him so the student transference seems to suggest that she is just tired of him and wants to pass him off to another. This does not seem to work as plausibly as the vicarious fantasy angle found in the book. Also, in the novel, Mr. Lloyd has only one arm (the other was lost in WWI). In the novel he is blond, in the film he has dark brown or black hair.

SANDY - in the novel, she joins a nunnery and is visited later in life by a couple of her old classmates as well as Miss Brodie herself. Sandy seems to be very much more interested in Miss Brodie's romantic life in the novel, and at times downright obsessed by it, constantly speculating on her private life with Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Lowther with typical prepubescent curiosity. The "love letter" she writes does not, however, end up in Miss MacKay's hand but remains hidden in a cave. As a nun, Sandy writes a popular book on psychology.

SANDY'S BETRAYAL OF MISS BRODIE - In the novel Miss Brodie does not ever find out that it was Sandy who betrayed her; when she visits Sandy years later at the convent, she asks her "I wonder who it was that betrayed me." In the film, the main reason for Sandy blabbing to Miss MacKay is because of Mary MacGregor's death but in the novel, it is certainly due to the realization that Miss Brodie's plans for making young Rose the lover of Mr. Lloyd were not idle daydreaming but a methodic scheme that she had every intention of putting into place. It was this realization that prompts Sandy to feel that Miss Brodie must be stopped.

MR. LOWTHER - he and Miss Brodie are lovers in both the film and novel. He is described in the novel as having very short legs and generally not attractive at all. Miss Brodie sets about to fatten him up, obstensibly because his housekeepers are not providing him sufficient nourishment but perhaps truly because doing so would make him unattractive and would become a good reason for ending her affair with him.

MISS MacKAY - in the novel, she is younger than Miss Brodie. Also, there are no confrontations between MacKay and Brodie directly mentioned in the novel.

MISS BRODIE - she seems to be a few years older in the novel; when she tells of her lover dying at Flodden in 1918 she says that he was 22 and she was 6 years older, making her 28 at the time and thus born in or around 1890. So when the girls begin their term with her in 1930 she is 40 and she ages 6 years with them, dying in a nursing home shortly after WWII.

THE BRODIE GIRLS - there are six in the novel. In the film, Mary MacGregor is a combination of Mary MacGregor in the novel plus another minor character. Jenny in the film is a combination of Jenny in the novel plus Rose, the character in the novel who Miss Brodie tries to make the lover of Mr. Lloyd.

I have not yet read the play...does anyone know if or how the play differs from the novel and/or film?

There are, for all intents and purposes, six-and-a-half girls in the novel. All of the girls in the movie, save Sandy, are composites, bringing the number down to four. Jenny in the movie is a composite of Jenny (a beauty) and Rose (who would be famous for sex and was Jean's choice to share Teddy's bed). Monica is a composite of two rather colorless characters, Monica (a math whiz with a temper) and Eunice (who becomes a nurse). Mary is a composite of Mary (a very stupid girl who dies in a hotel fire) and Joyce Emily (who has a delinquent brother and dies on her way to fight for Franco in Spain). Joyce Emily isn't a true "Brodie Girl" but rather a wannabe who is all too eager to be persuaded to head for Spain to join her brother; she would be the "-and-a-half."