How would you describe the main characters of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie?

The Brodie set and their teacher Miss Jean Brodie are arguably Muriel Spark’s most famous and well-developed characters in the author’s oeuvre. The Brodie set is led by the undeniably charismatic Miss Jean Brodie, an independent, progressive, unmarried woman who is in touch with her sensuality and idolizes fascist ideas. Throughout the novel, Brodie is constantly equated with fascism in part because she imposes her will upon the set and lives vicariously through them, and also because she considers her ideology infallible. She has an interesting pedagogical approach in that she treats her students more like peers than children, but her methodology is flawed because she imposes her own overbearing opinions on the girls. Indeed, she emphasizes the importance of art over science, and in doing so, she disenfranchises Sandy Stranger:

“I can’t have my girls going up and down to the science room like this. We must keep our good name…. Art is greater than science. Art comes first, and then science” (24).

The main character among the Brodie set is Sandy Stranger. She is a foil to Miss Jean Brodie. She is strong-willed much like Brodie, but she rejects Brodie's restrictive tenets while simultaneously acknowledging and respecting Brodie’s allure. She is the member who betrays Brodie, and later goes on to become a Catholic nun. Interestingly, she runs from one oppressive force to another structured hierarchy in the form of the Catholic Church. She strives to become the opposite of what Brodie expects; for Sandy, Miss Jean Brodie represents predetermination and fascism, and she potently compares her to Calvinism:

“She thinks she is Providence, thought Sandy, she thinks she is the God of Calvin, she sees the beginning and the end. And Sandy thought too, the woman is an unconscious Lesbian” (129).

The rest of the Brodie set is not as fleshed out as Sandy or Miss Jean Brodie, and they are defined somewhat superficially. These superficial designations reflect their position within the Brodie set, and how they’ve allowed themselves to be defined. Rose Stanley is defined by her sensuality, as she was “famous for sex” (3). Brodie describes her as having “instinct”:

“Rose… is like a heroine from a novel by D.H. Lawrence. She has got instinct” (117).

Mary Macgregor is noted as a dimwit, and is the Brodie set’s punching bag:

“Along came Mary Macgregor, the last member of the set, whose fame rested on her being a silent lump, a nobody whom everybody could blame” (4).

She ends up dying in a fire later in her brief life.

Eunice Gardner is “famous for her spritely gymnastics and glamorous swimming” (3). Likewise, Monica Douglas is superficially sketched as famous for her anger and being good at mathematics. Finally, Jenny Gray is the beauty of the group, and she aspires to be an actress. While the rest of the group is not as well-defined as Sandy and Brodie, they are important in serving as vessels for Brodie to store her unorthodox teachings.