Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

[Isa]

I finished reading this book last night and I couldn't find a thread for it even though it seems to be a fairly popular novel so I decided to start one

I mostly wanted to discuss all the similarities between Rebecca and Jane Eyre: I thought the quiet and subdued Mrs. de Winter had a lot in common with Jane Eyre, and it seems to me like the two of them followed a similar path. In due time, they both learned to assert themselves in their new role as wife and mistress of the house. Mr. de Winter, with his shady past and awkward manners, reminded me very much of Mr. Rochester. I thought Mrs. Danvers was sort of a mix between Bertha Mason (aka the mad woman in the attic) and her faithful servant Grace Poole, especially because of the way she spent all her time in the west wing and scared the heck out of the new Mrs. de Winter. The overbearing and gothic-like presence of the first wife was also similar in both stories, and Manderley goes up in flames at the end, just like Thornfield. Do you guys agree/disagree?

I also thought Manderley sounded somewhat similar to Pemberley, anybody else picked up on that? What are your thoughts on this novel as a whole?

[bluejay765]

First: I absolutely loved this book. It was written in a very classical way that made me love England during the 1930s and want life to be like it was back then.
I, unfortunately, haven't read Jane Eyre, but I have seen the film and I agree with your connections between the characters, especially Mr. Rochester and Mr. de Winter. They were both so secretive but (and I'm not sure if this is true for Jane Eyre) both loved the heroine so much that it was slightly impossible to dislike the character.
Manderley as Pemberley is also a good reference. They were both places of longing and disturbance (Mr. Darcy after Elizabeth refused him) and were very proud old houses.

[Sunflower]

~ I love Jane Eyre. It's one of my favorite classic novels. As for Rebecca by Dephne du Maurier. I have heard of it but never read it.

[pageturner37]

its on my TBR list

[Isa]

It's true that you end up liking Mr. de Winter - I think in both cases (meaning he and Mr. Rochester), they are described in a sort of mysteriously sexy way that is meant to strike a chorld with female readers, don't you think? It's like the fact that they are so strongly affected by something from the past shows that they have the potential to become caring, loving men.

I think that before I read Pride & Prejudice, I had never read a book in which a house had so much importance - everybody knows what Pemberley is and what it stands for. Lizzy practically falls in love with Darcy right after she sees how beautiful Pemberley is because its untamed beauty seems to reflect the soul of its owner. I thought it was interesting that the same kind of importance, we could almost say the same kind of personality, was bestowed on Manderley. To me, Manderley symbolized the power Rebecca still had over Maxim (a bit like Thornfield, by becoming Bertha Mason's prison, also makes a prisoner out of Rochester) so I guess it made sense that the house burned down at the end of the novel, it was like the last remnant of Rebecca's life...

[Juliet]

i love both novel and i have to say i never really though about the similarities, so thank you jefie ;D
i agree with the connections between manderlay- thornfield and mr. de winter-mr.rochester;mrs.danvers and mrs.de winter were the most complex characters,mrs de winter reminds a lot of jane eyre but i always saw mrs. danvers like an image of rebecca: i don't really know how to explain but it was like rebecca never really died because mrs.danvers was still there keeping her alive through manderlay, i never saw grace pool as a faithful servant (she was interested just to money and drinking after all) but mrs. danvers was even more than a faithful servant(if you think about it apart from her love for rebecca there is nothing in this woman)

after reading it i also read "mrs. de winter" by susan hill but i didn't really liked even if it was interesting to see how she imagined the rest of the story...

have you ever seen the movie "rebecca" by hitchcock?it's very old but really good, i saw a long time ago and the first thing that really surprised me was the fact that the heroine had no name!i watched it a second time very carefully trying to catch the name!!!!

[Isa]

lol, I was using the word "faithful" in an ironical way but I forget that irony doesn't always come across in writing I agree, I also saw a lot of Rebecca in Mrs. Danvers, which is why to me she's sort of a mix between Grace Pool (the weird, scary servant) and Bertha Mason (the first wife).

I've never seen the movie, I should look for it at the library. I'm glad I didn't see the movie before reading the novel because I think it would have killed all the suspense... yeah, the main character doesn't have a name in the novel either (other than Mrs. de Winter), I thought that was quite interesting. It's as though we are not meant to know who she is before she becomes Mrs. de Winter, and even when she does take on that new name, it takes almost the entire the novel before it truly becomes hers and hers alone.

I wonder what happens to Mrs. Danvers... I've got a feeling she might have been the one who set the house on fire, but what would she do next? Drown herself in the cove? Because you're right Juliet, she only lived for Rebecca so I don't see how she could go on living after Rebecca and Manderley are gone...

[Juliet]

you are right about the name thing Jefie!and i think that the author also wanted to underline how even though this is the story of mrs. de winter (and it is narrated in first person) the main character remains rebecca,who we never actually meet...she is stronger than everyone else in the novel because her presence is everywhere so the new mrs. de winter (who is the opposite of rebecca) has to fight to assert her identity.

usually i prefer reading the novel before seeing the movie as well but i have to say that the novel was so well written that even if i already knew everything i enjoyed it very much...

i agree with your theory about mrs. danvers, i think she set the house on fire and that she died somehow, in the sequel i've read she was still alive and this was one of the thing i didn't like at all!
i also wonder what happened to mr and mrs de winter, i guess that to them the distraction of manderlay was almost a liberation but what did they do after?where did they go?

[Isa]

juliet said:

and i think that the author also wanted to underline how even though this is the story of mrs. de winter (and it is narrated in first person) the main character remains rebecca,who we never actually meet...she is stronger than everyone else in the novel because her presence is everywhere so the new mrs. de winter (who is the opposite of rebecca) has to fight to assert her identity.

That's an excellent point you make, I totally agree with you! In fact, it stands out even more when you think about the fact that Charlotte Brontë called her novel "Jane Eyre" whereas du Maurier called hers "Rebecca". It gives you a pretty good idea of who the two authors believed was the most important in the story.

As soon as I finished the novel, I went back to read the first chapter - it says the de Winters are traveling from place to place, but instead of being free and happy they seem to be running away from something. I would have thought they would be glad not to return to Manderley and all the memories it holds, but the novel does begin with the phrase "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" (what a great opening line, by the way!) and the way she talks about it, it's as though they long to go back and wish it still existed. She writes "We can never go back to Manderley again", which makes it sound like they would go back if they could, and they seem lost without it. I would wish for them to build a new home, one that belongs entirely to Mr. de Winter and his new wife, but I don't know if that's possible...

[Juliet]

admin said:

juliet said:

and i think that the author also wanted to underline how even though this is the story of mrs. de winter (and it is narrated in first person) the main character remains rebecca,who we never actually meet...she is stronger than everyone else in the novel because her presence is everywhere so the new mrs. de winter (who is the opposite of rebecca) has to fight to assert her identity.

That's an excellent point you make, I totally agree with you! In fact, it stands out even more when you think about the fact that Charlotte Brontë called her novel "Jane Eyre" whereas du Maurier called hers "Rebecca". It gives you a pretty good idea of who the two authors believed was the most important in the story.

As soon as I finished the novel, I went back to read the first chapter - it says the de Winters are traveling from place to place, but instead of being free and happy they seem to be running away from something. I would have thought they would be glad not to return to Manderley and all the memories it holds, but the novel does begin with the phrase "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" (what a great opening line, by the way!) and the way she talks about it, it's as though they long to go back and wish it still existed. She writes "We can never go back to Manderley again", which makes it sound like they would go back if they could, and they seem lost without it. I would wish for them to build a new home, one that belongs entirely to Mr. de Winter and his new wife, but I don't know if that's possible...

you are right! i don't know either if for them was really possible to build a new life and they probably would love to go back to manderlay for what it represented.i guess that a part of them felt relieved when manderlay burned because they were partially free from the past and from rebecca but another part of them regretted what manderlay represented :as you said before manderlay, like pemberley in pride and prejudice, reprented the status and the family of mr de winter and during the novel he doesn't really hate the place, he hates the memories of rebecca...if he hated the place in itself he would never have brought his new wife there.

i think that the fact that they can't find a new home like manderlay was, means that what happened in the past was still very painful and in a sense they could not built something new...on the other hand when thornefield burned in "jane eyre" it was a real liberation to jane and mr rochester, they build a new life somewhere else and let the past go.it sounds sad but maybe in the end rebecca really won...

[Isa]

juliet said:

if he hated the place in itself he would never have brought his new wife there.

That's right, I think he might have been hoping that his new wife would somehow "purify" Manderley from its past, but it didn't work. I think you're right, Rebecca does seem to win after all - du Maurier could have gone with a happy ending the way Brontë does in "Jane Eyre", but in the first chapter the characters still seem to be tormented by the past. The more I think of it, Rebecca's got to be one of the worst villains in the history of literature!

[Juliet]

admin said:

juliet said:

if he hated the place in itself he would never have brought his new wife there.

That's right, I think he might have been hoping that his new wife would somehow "purify" Manderley from its past, but it didn't work. I think you're right, Rebecca does seem to win after all - du Maurier could have gone with a happy ending the way Brontë does in "Jane Eyre", but in the first chapter the characters still seem to be tormented by the past. The more I think of it, Rebecca's got to be one of the worst villains in the history of literature!

I agree! i think that max was really in love with her when he married and hoped that this was the chance to "erase" the past but in the end he realised that he could't pretend that his life with rebecca didn't happen and that she was too strong...in a way mrs davers was just a part of the problem, rebecca herself had done all the work when she was still alive and even without mrs danvers max could not forget what happened...you are right Jefie:rebecca is evil!

[sagedautumn]

Rebecca truely is an amazing book! What did you guys think of the fact that the Heroine's identity is completely hidden from us. I mean we have her abstract thoughts but no concrete details such as her name or even her physical appearance (i.e tall, thin, blonde, brunette, pale, tan...) where as with Rebecca we have a minute description of her alarming beauty and charms??? I think it just goes to show that with all her external good graces and visages Rebecca truely was not solid internally. She was cruel and she was evil and I think she was a little lost. I can't imagine why a woman like her for example would end up falling in love with her cousin!!!! In my opinion she became self destructive!

[Juliet]

yeah...in the end she was self-destructive and also destructive:she was so selfish that she destroyed everything and everyone around her!

[Isa]

I think I see her as more destructive than self-destructive, though I'll admit she became so sure of herself that she became careless - but who knows how long she would have pulled that off if she hadn't found out she was sick? She was determined not to waste away and she managed to die with a bang, the way she had always wanted, and managed to get Maxim involved at the same time and practically ruined all his chances at future happiness. Remember that smile when she dies? That was soooo creepy but so characteristic of what we know of Rebecca.

I'm not sure why she fell for Favell, though of course we mostly hear his side of the story. For all we know, he might have been only a toy for her because it does seem like there were more than one lover in the story...