Notes on a Scandal Literary Elements

Fiction

Set in North London, during the 1990s

Barbara Covett is the narrator telling the story from her own point of view

Ranges from happy to sad, threatening and melancholy

Sheba Hart in the protagonist, society the antagonist

Conflict between what Sheba thinks of as acceptable behavior and what societal opinion is; conflict between Sheba and her husband over her visitation and access to their children

Connelly's mother finds our about the affair and finds her love letters; Sheba is now the most dislikes woman in England and about to go on trial for predatory sex with a minor

Connolly's distancing himself from Sheba foreshadows the end of the affair

Sheba sees her relationship as something that might be frowned upon or that people might not understand which understates the national outrage that ensues

Bangs alludes to the comedy series "Seinfeld" when Barbara asks him about his life and explains it is about all the little things that drive you mad in real life

"To visit Bangs' bathroom, I had to go through his bedroom. Here the fry-up smell gave way to another, equally strong scent of body - a sort of stale, hormonal mugginess. When I used to visit my father after my mother died his un-laundered dressing gown gave off a similar odor."
Barbara describes her first impressions of Bangs' living arrangements predominantly by describing its olfactory qualities.

Barbara wants Sheba to need her, whereas it is actually Barbara who needs to be needed

There is a parallel between Sheba, as a teacher, having a relationship with one of her students, and her husband doing the same, when she was the student and her husband the professor

The staff room is a phrase used frequently to represent the faculty as a whole or the individual teachers in it

Barbara wanted to sneak up on her new sandals and catch them unawares, as if the sandals were able to be surprised or to keep a look out for her