Notes on a scandle by zoe heller - How is the theme of obsession presented in the book?

Paul Gilbert

Notes on a Scandal by Zoë Heller

How is the theme of obsession presented in the book?

Notes on a scandal, written in the first person by Barbara Covette, a close friend and colleague of Sheba’s, is a story about Sheba Hart, a pottery teacher at St Georges school, who allows herself to become engaged in an affair with one of her fifteen year old pupils, Steven Connolly, who is one of her few pupils with an interest in her subject and not just disrupting lessons.

This story is very much about obsession, and not that only of Sheba and her lover. In fact a very large proportion of the novel is devoted to showing Barbara’s loneliness and obsession with Sheba. It is done in an almost subtle way so that Barbara as the narrator is not aware how clearly she is obsessed, yet we as the audience can see it. With this the plot becomes almost as much about Barbara as it is about Sheba.

From very early on in the novel we can see that Barbara has an obsession with Sheba, and that the obsession is likely to get bigger. This can be seen from the very beginning. The very fact that Barbara notes the exact clothes that Sheba is wearing and comments on them shows she has been paying a great amount of attention to Sheba from the very beginning. On the first page of chapter one Barbara says that Sheba is a fey person, she makes a point of saying this, which indicates possibly jealousy of Sheba. As we go on into chapter one Barbara’s jealousy is becoming more and more apparent, as everybody else is fussing about Sheba, Barbara chooses to stay out of the way, most likely due to her envy of Sheba. Barbara looks in on everybody fussing abut Sheba almost as a fly on the wall would, noting to herself who talks to Sheba and exactly what she does. She does not try herself in the beginning to socialise with her, but yet still seems very interested in her. This shows the beginning of obsession.

When in chapter one Elaine reached out to touch Sheba’s ears, Barbara remarks in her text about not shaving her armpits, and refers to Elaine as “Reaching out like a monkey”. This shows us that Barbara is irritated by anybody else fussing over Sheba, so she instantly insults them as if to make herself feel batter and more worthy of Sheba’s attention than them.

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At the beginning of chapter two Barbara says that she must maintain maximum accuracy, so therefore starts to put together a time line of Sheba’s year. This itself seems obsessive. She buys gold stars to stick on at important events. It appears to us that Barbara’s life at this stage is revolving around Sheba.

On page 32 Barbara writes:

“Throughout the first half of the winter term, I had been building up my confidence to tackle Sheba on the matter of class discipline.”

This indicates that Barbara is nervous about talking to Sheba for some reason; however we are almost certain by this stage in the novel that if it had been another one of the teachers at St George, Barbara would not have had a problem with it.

Also on page 32 is the realisation on Barbara’s part that Sheba had befriended Sue Hodge. Barbara was very envious of this friendship and begins to take a lot of interest in this friendship. Barbara continuously slags off Sue Hodge and calls her, “The most awful prig.” This suggests an element of obsession is here, as if Barbara was not interested in Sheba then she would not care who she was “chumming up with.”

At the beginning of chapter three, it is made very clear that Barbara was jealous of Sheba’s friendship with Sue. She writes:

“The irony of my having agonized over Sheba’s friendship of fatty Hodge.”

She used the word agonized which is quite a strong word, so Barbara was obviously deeply affected by this. She then goes on to say:

“If Sheba had made a wiser choice of girlfriend, if she had have chosen me from the start- it is possible that she might have avoided the Connolly imbroglio.”

We can see here that Barbara desperately wants Sheba as a friend, in an obsessive nature.

In the beginning of chapter five, Barbara says that if it makes Sheba happy it makes her happy. This very clearly indicates that Barbara is obsessed with Sheba. On page 83, Barbara contradicts herself, she say that she does not argue with the necessity for age bars, but then goes on to defend Sheba’s actions. She seems to think that there is one rule for one person and another for Sheba.

When Barbara is invited to Sheba’s house for dinner she panics very much about the way she is dressed, particularly about the heals thinking she may be too tarty. She is acting more like she is going on a date then to a friend’s house for dinner. This shows us that Barbara is very keen to impress Sheba, and doesn’t want her to think anything bad of her at all.

The first sentence of chapter ten says:

“By summer my connection with Sheba was well established.”

The way she says this is almost like a spy trying to infiltrate the government and not as you would expect somebody to say about their friend, this seems odd and almost stalker like.

In chapter thirteen Barbara decides to stay away from Sheba, and see how long Sheba can stick it. However it turns out to be Barbara who is the one who can’t stick it, she becomes rather depressed and confused. Here Barbara is acting more the way a lover would after a break up than a friend.

In Barbara’s lunch date with Bangs in chapter thirteen when Barbara realises someone else is interested in Sheba, she instantly tells him about her and Connolly’s relationship. Barbara may have done this as she doesn’t want anyone to come between her and Sheba’s friendship, and she feels threatened by others in Sheba’s life.

Towards the end of the book Barbara takes great joy in destroying the model of Sheba and Connolly, she begins by destroying the boy though; this shows that Barbara is trying to get rid of everything from Sheba’s life that is not centred on her.

All of these things suggest that Barbara is slowly becoming more and more obsessed with Sheba throughout the novel, and that she wants to take everything that is not centred around her away. She may even have been satisfied that Sheba has lost her family and now must depend on Barbara as she is her only remaining friend.