Notes on a Scandal Essay

The title of the book offers to us an understanding what as to may be to going happen in the story. The story is written with a first person narrator and so we know that the story will be just one person’s way of thinking. Also as a reader we must ask, is the whole story unreliable when written in this diary form because it is one person’s view point? Through the involvement of Barbara in this story we do get a participant and narrator in one person, so we are invited to believe everything that this person is going to tell us about everybody relating to her. But Barbara also uses the power of control, because she does not tell as what we would like to know about her relationship with Jennifer. Her comments hint that Barbara has been obsessed in the past. From Barbara’s viewpoint we can understand that she is been too intense in the relationship with Jennifer. Barbara wept in a train station after seeing Jennifer with her new friend. This suggests that Barbara’s feelings go beyond friendship. Barbara tells as that, â€Å"From time to time one of my colleagues will call me ‘Barb’ or, even less desirably, ‘Babs’ but I discourage it.† But who would call her ‘Babs’? Everyone is scared to talk to her; she seems an unpopular person. Heller also hints to us about the similarity in age between Polly (seventeen years old and still a girl without boyfriend) and Connolly (fifteen years old, Sheba’s lover). Sheba is a forty-two-year old pottery teacher at St George’s school. After Sheba fell in love with Connolly she feels much younger and her feelings seem adolescent to the reader. Sheba’s husband is nearly the same age as Barbara around sixty years old, and both of them feel younger by having a relationship with Sheba. Barbara thinks, after the loss of Jennifer, that she has got a kindred spirit in Sheba. Barbara and her diary are inseparable; even when visiting her sister she spends more time with her diary than with the family; suggesting the diary itself has become an obsession. There are also advantages of the first person narrator, because we get the best insight into Barbara’s character. She shows the reader aspects of her private life, like when she is standing on a chair and talking into the mirror. She also describes her relationships to other people in her diary, so that the reader of the diary has really got a view of her mind. This is a device Heller uses to good effect. Barbara is describing Sheba’s character â€Å"Sheba was so pitifully alone†, but she was really describing herself and her character, so here Zoà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ Heller uses irony. Barbara also writes a lot about the sexual affair between Sheba and the Connolly boy and that the public do not accept relations like this one. It seems really she could be referring to her relationship to Jennifer and the fact that the public would not accept a lesbian sexual affair between two teachers. Barbara confuses the reader with writing such things like: â€Å"I am presumptuous enough to believe that I am the person best qualified to write this small history† and â€Å"I rely upon detailed accounts provided by Sheba herself†, because we have to question Barbara’s reliability as she herself is hearing Sheba’s story â€Å"second hand.† It may be that Sheba herself is not entirely honest with Barbara and some elements of truth are lost along the way. An example could be the first kiss between Sheba and the Connolly boy, because there being few aspects of the Connolly business that Sheba has not described to Barbara. In the imagination of the first kiss it has to be the peak of the affair, because this first kiss has got so much energy and satisfaction which can allow every possibility with our feelings in this particular moment. It is situation like this that makes the reader question Barbara’s reliability. She talks with authority about situations she has not witnessed. â€Å"Certainly, there is no other friend or relative of Sheba’s who has been so intimately involved in the day-to-day business of her affair with Connolly†. The use of the â€Å"intimately† suggests a relationship not a friendship and it’s not true – Sheba didn’t tell her until she has to. â€Å"With my second blow I took the top of the boy’s head off cleanly, like an egg†. This is an example of symbolism – by breaking the sculpture, Barbara destroys the relationship. She thinks this will bring Sheba to her – showing the depth of her obsession. The affair actually ends already before it was discovered through Barbara. Heller shows us this in following sentences: â€Å"They made love rather quickly and – at Connolly’s behest – on the floor†. Also is shown Connolly’s loss of feelings: â€Å"‘Nothing like one afterwards is there?’ he said. Sheba remembers having to suppress a smile at this studied, post-coital nonchalance†. Connolly did become interested in girls his age: â€Å"Sheba remarked that her daughter liked to do the same thing when she was smoking and Connolly seemed interested by this†. From this moment on Sheba was scared to lose Connolly: â€Å"Sheba interrupted his questioning to kiss him and tell him how handsome he was†. Heller also shows us that Connolly is still a boy, even after this affair: â€Å"Connolly grimaced†. Barbara, this old lady with an unstable psyche, bites the hook which Sheba readied for her and marks this event with two gold stars in her diary: â€Å"For a split second we both looked at the boy. Then she looked back at me. There was fear in her expression but also something else – a kind of glee or amusement†. It is at this point in the novel the two obsessions collide also it’s almost as if, Sheba wants to share her experience. As well as the main two obsessions, there are also minor ones: Jennifer acquires a restraining in order against Barbara; Marcia still sees Richard at family occasions after twenty years of divorce. Sheba is fixated with Polly’s wardrobe which links in to the latter’s obsession with boys. Finally Brian uncovers the affair to the public, because it was intolerable for him to imagine Sheba being intimate with Connolly. Sheba seems to want to â€Å"share† her affair with others. This is confirmed by Sheba coming back home, after intimate contact with Steven; Sheba wants to shout at Richard, because she was feeling younger also she was absolutely proud of this affair: â€Å"Guess what, you complacent old fart? I’ve been out on the heath, getting fucked by a sixteen-year-old! What do you think of that?† In spite of her immoral behaviour Sheba oddly wants others to know. At the end Steven Connolly was her target of obsession and Sheba did achieve her aim. She had an affair with a young boy and she was his first lady. â€Å"You’re my first old lady if that’s what you mean†. Sheba was infatuated by Connolly’s sex appeal and flattered by his attention. We are told by Heller that Barbara is the winner of this novel, but by closely contemplation; what did Barbara get at the end? The burned out wreck of Sheba! Barbara has to look after Sheba, like she is a child: â€Å"‘Oh?’ she said. Her tone was dreamily neutral† also â€Å"Then I sat her down and I made us some lunch†. So in my opinion Sheba is the winner of this novel, because of her affair with Connolly and after that she got, Barbara as a replacement for Richard: someone to look after her burned-out body without spirit or life. Sheba has fooled everyone, but she didn’t expect to end up with broken heart and weaker mind. In appealing to the public for understanding of this non-orthodox relationship, Barbara and Sheba are really appealing to a society who would find a close relationship between them laughable.