The eponymous heroine in Muriel Spark's 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' is an influential schoolteacher at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls 1930s Edinburgh. Spark's plot charts the decline of Miss Brodie's influence over a group of her favourite pupils known as her 'Set'. This decline parallels the growing independence of thought and intellectual maturing of Sandy Stranger, a key member of the Set. The narrative is developed from a decisive moment where Sandy is seen to react against the Brodie influence.
             Within the Set, Mary Macgregor is employed as a foil to the others. Where they are graceful, artistic and intelligent, Mary is '...a silent lump, a nobody whom everybody could blame.' (p8) Nevertheless, Mary is an integral member. During a walk, Sandy reacts against Set and Brodie thinking by wanting to be nice to Mary:
             The sound of Miss Brodie's presence, just when it was on the tip of Sandy's tongue to be nice to Mary Macgregor, arrested the urge ... She perceived herself, the absent Jenny, the ever-blamed Mary, Rose, Eunice and Monica, all in a frightening little moment, in unified compliance to the destiny of Miss Brodie, as if God had willed them to birth for that purpose. (p30)
             Prior to this point, Sandy, like the others in the Set, is impressionable and happy to comply with the influence of her charismatic teacher. The thought that she might act against accepted group behaviour highlights the fact that Sandy is beginning to think for herself. She recognises that she and her fellow pupils are destined to think and act as Brodie dictates. Spark's use of the word 'frightened', alerts us to the fact that Sandy does not relish the prospect.
             This decisive moment is the keystone in the decline of Miss Brodie. From this moment on, Spark depicts in Sandy, a character who begins to react against her mentor, firstly in thought, and ultimately in action. ...