Notebook Entry - Sharon Osbourne Journals, Passage 4

Passage #4: P. 33 Paragraph 3
“Shampoo didn’t exist in our house. I would wash my hair with dish soap. The leftover soap in the basin would be cracked and slimy at the same time. You could never find a hairbrush that wasn’t covered with dog hairs. We’d run out of toothpaste. There’d be no toilet paper. There was no attempt to make anything nice. In my bedroom, for example, there was a chest of drawers, a wardrobe, and a bed and that’s all. My only decoration was a picture of a little ballet dance that Dixie had embroided and framed when I was about five or six, and I used to have it hanging very close to my face so I could see it when I was in bed.”

Response:
In Sharon’s earlier life her father was an entertainer and then he started managing bands. They were always made to seem like they had money in order to hold on up Don Arden’s, her father’s, reputation but the money was just a façade. Often times they didn’t have a lot of the things they needed, and I think the way Sharon reacts to that is important, because right away it sets her apart from her family. No one else in her family seemed bothered by the way they were living, including the dishonest aspects of how Don conducted business. This is important because, while Sharon does go on to be a part of her father’s business you can tell it was never really her style. She was a true, honest person and she just kind of put up with it because she had nothing else, and it was her family. This passage really foreshadows a lot of Sharon’s reactions and feelings toward her family and the business that will appear later in the book.