A selfish and bitter old woman. To what extent would you agree that this is a valid assessment of Barbara, as she is portrayed in Notes on a Scandal" by Zoe Heller?

 She then starts to focus in again on Sheba, introducing her to us, telling us that she is a new teacher at St. George’s and is from the upper class, “Sheba is the only genuinely upper-class person I’ve ever known”. We see here that Barbara doesn’t know many people and has only known one upper class person in her whole life. Though she generally looks like a middle class person, she seems to compare and think that she has characteristics which are better than Sheba’s and therefore counts herself, in a way, from the upper class, “Any objective comparison would have to rate me the more educated woman, I think”. This shows from her point of view, how envious and jealous she is of Sheba. She is such a self-obsessive person and so critical, she constantly compares other people and talks about them and their issues. She criticises people around her not knowing that she is more twisted than them.

She slowly starts studying Sheba and her every move as the days go by, seeing her ways, her personality and eventually, her lifestyle. She acts as if she is obsessed with her, and the reader starts to think – with Barbara unmarried at such an age and so masculine – that she might fancy Sheba, the way she describes her: “of course, I thought. She’s very good-looking”, in other words, she might be lesbian. She wouldn’t have wrote the diary if she weren’t so keen about Sheba, she mentions every single detail about her, the way Sheba thinks, the way she talks, her body-shape and texture, she basically studies her like she would study history.

Afterwards, Barbara starts getting very close to Sheba, but her main entry was when she helped Sheba discipline the two boys (one being Connolly): “Are these boys giving you trouble, Mrs Hart?”. Again, showing how obsessed she is with Sheba, she couldn’t resist but interfere with her problems. She talks about people behind their backs and criticises them more than ever: “Mary and Diane are two hippies from the maths department”. “Bill is the chief offender, a rather ghostly character – the sort of man who is always sitting with his legs aggressively akimbo, offering a clearer silhouette of his untidy crotch”. This also shows what a loner she is and the fact that she is a very tidy person. And she constantly has her cat, Portia by her side, “I took her into the bedroom and tried sitting cross-legged on the bed with her on my lap”. Once again she is going off Sheba and talking about herself.

She is very defensive of Sheba, she sticks with her all the time, through thick and thin, but it can get too much sometimes when she wants Sheba just for herself and doesn’t want anyone else to get her, “Sue resented my intrusion and she never missed an opportunity to distinguish her relationship with Sheba as the one of greater warmth and importance”. This shows how selfish and envious she is of other people as well as Sheba. It also shows how determined she is and how patiently she will wait for something till she gets it, no matter how long it takes, as we see from the countless visits with Sue and Sheba to La Traviata Café.

Slowly, slowly, she wins Sheba over despite how angry and jealous she feels when she sees that Sheba makes her son the main subject and the fact that Sheba is used to enjoying her family and life, whereas Barbara has no one other than the cat. “Back when I was first getting to know her, Sheba seemed invincibly happy; a modern wonder of contentment. Her life with Richard – the dinner parties, the French holidays, the house buzzing with colleagues and children and ex-wives and family friends. A picnic in Regent’s Park, a walk through Highgate Cemetery, a trip to the bethel Green children’s museum. It was rare for me to see Sheba alone.” This proves that she doesn’t have a great social life or even a family to enjoy her time with.

In conclusion, Barbara, a wicked old lady, got what she wanted; she won Sheba over and in a way, owned her. “And she knows, by now, not to go too far without me”.

Despite the feud Sheba had with her over the acknowledgment of the diary, Barbara found a way to keep her, she is so selfish that she won’t let go, she wants to be with someone; she doesn’t care about Sheba as much as she cares about being left alone, and worse, she lies to her every day, by writing that diary. “We don’t have secrets, Sheba and I”.