Book review
Book report/film report 'Notes On A Scandal'
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Book/film report of Zoë Heller's 'Notes On A Scandal'. Contents: author, main characters, themes, title explanation, setting, genre, summary, my opinion, sources.
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Notes on a ScandalAuthor: Zoë Heller
Publication date: June 5, 2003 (UK)
Film version released in 2006
Film report by Sara Hoogakker (V5b)
2017-2018
About Zoë Heller
, Zoë Kate Hinde Heller (born 7 July 1965) is an English journalist and novelist. She has
published three novels, Everything You Know (1999), Notes on a Scandal (2003), and The
Believers (2008). Notes on a Scandal was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and was made
into a feature film in 2006.
Heller began her career in journalism, as a feature writer for the Independent on Sunday in
the UK. She later returned to New York to write for Vanity Fair and then The New Yorker.
She wrote a weekly column for the Sunday Times magazine in the UK, and was a columnist
for the Daily Telegraph, for which she won the British Press Awards' "Columnist of the Year"
in 2002. She co-wrote the screenplay for the 1991 independent film, Twenty-One.
Main characters
Barbara Covett
Barbara is the main character of the story and therefore the only character the reader gets to
meet first-hand. It is ironically fitting that her last name is Covett as she is a very covetous
person and envies Sheba’s personality and her busy life. Barbara is very passive-aggressive
and under the camouflage of being Sheba's friend actually creates a fair bit of trouble for
her.
Barbara has been a teacher for thirty years and is good at it, but also good at keeping
discipline and keeping the pupils at arms length. She dislikes the new progressive education
that is creeping in, not because she dislikes change on principal but because she can see
how it is actually bringing down educational standards. This creates conflict in the workplace
with the school principal who is about as progressive as an educator can be. Teaching is
one area where Barbara knows she is more gifted than Sheba but does envy those teachers
who are looked at as attractive on the school or in the staff room.
Barbara believes Sheba needs her presence in her life in order to function but it is actually
completely the other way around and although Barbara is assumed to be straight she seems
to conduct her friendship with Sheba as she would a romantic relationship; when Sheba is
on vacation in France, Barbara is obsessively trying to contact her and waits to receive a call
from Sheba, much as a young girl waits by the telephone for her boyfriend to call; in fact,
Sheba's obsession with Connolly and Barbara's obsession with Sheba result in very similar
patterns of behavior. Barbara reacts to being upset with Sheba by getting revenge and
telling Bangs about the relationship, knowing full well he will not keep it a secret. Barbara
actually thrives on being needed by Sheba and so the resulting alienation of Sheba from all
family and friends actually plays into Barbara's hands and gives her sole access to Sheba.
Although Barbara implies that Sheba might have some emotional or mental issues, it is
Barbara who seems unhinged.
Sheba Hart
Sheba is an art teacher, new to St George's, and is the archetypal art teacher with floaty,
colorful clothing and hair that won't behave; her clothes are all rather flimsy and transparent
which causes a stir in the staff room and catches the eye of Steven Connolly as well.
Although Sheba is completely in the wrong for both having an affair and having an affair with
one of her students, she is not the predator depicted in the media and in fact is more like the
person who is subordinate in the relationship. When Steven grows bored of the affair and
cuts ties with her she is distraught and behaves like a dumped teenager and not at all like a
dangerous sexual predator. Sheba married so young that she has forgotten what it was like
to be pursued or even the most important part of somebody's day.
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