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Rebecca


 Rebecca (1938) was Daphne du Maurier's most popular novel, and the one that established her as a popular novelist. Hitchcock's film version, starring Laurence Olivier, consolidated the novel's popularity. Her other novels include Jamaica Inn, My Cousin Rachel, and short stories including 'The Birds' (which was also filmed by Hitchcock), in addition to a study of Charlotte and Emily Bronte's brother, The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte.
The "Bronte connection" is an interesting place to begin. One of the ways to approach the novel is to see it in the footsteps of Jane Eyre, in which a plain and ordinary governess eventually marries that Byronic-hero-with-a-secret, Mr Rochester. [It might also be worth noting the fact that Laurence Olive, who played Max de Winter in Hitchcock's film version, also played that other Bronte brooding hero, Heathcliff]. In what ways do you see Rebecca as successor to Jane Eyre, in terms of plot and character, themes and reading pleasures? Or do you see both novels as exemplary of that wider and archetypal tradition of "feminine romances", which leads from Jane Eyre to 'Mills and Boon'?

There are common characteristics: an apparently ordinary or "self-deprecating" heroine must undergo tests and challenges in order to attain romantic fulfilment, commonly through serving the male in some way, and securing his affections under the shadow of a rival; an emphasis on the internal, psychological reactions and actions of the female heroine (often achieved through focus on her point of view or through first person narration); exploration of themes and issues such as "female heroism", duty and desire, and the "natural" and the "cultural", and the value of relationship, feelings and the family;

finally, what is the appeal of novels such as this, what is the pleasure gained from reading them? Your answers might take account of the work we have done on the "masculine romance", and you might also think of ways in which we can describe Rebecca as a "feminine romance".

 In seminars I'd like us to look at the novel in more detail, and to bring out some of the wider issues which are raised by the novel. I've had to rely on chapter numbers rather than pages because of the various editions you might be using, so note the page number you use.
 
  1. Chapter 1. Why begin here, looking backwards, when "Manderley is no more"? What does this tell us about the focus of the novel, in that the unnamed heroine is remembering the house as though in a dream? What do you notice about the description of the house itself, particularly its imagery of "Nature ..[coming] into her own again" with perhaps the suggestion of repressed or withered sexuality? [you might also note that houses frequently stand for the personality in dreams]. What do we learn (or what ways are we being cued to think about) the relationship between heroine and husband?

  1. Chapter 2. A revealing chapter, possibly confirming the clues suggested in Ch 1, in terms of what it shows about the relationship between heroine and husband. What, essentially, do you think of the relationship between heroine and Max? What do we learn of the character and values of the "ordinary" heroine? What does this chapter have to say about the heroine's notions of "Englishness" - one of the other "agendas" for this course. The novel also raises more specific questions about femininity and class. Alison Light, in her study Forever England, (and in an abridged version of her argument presented in Peter Humm's Popular Fictions), shows the extent to which Rebecca belongs to a more specific tradition of inter-War explorations of middle class women's popular fiction and film. I would recommend this work to you as a basis for further study of the novel, but it's worth noting here that, just as Rogue Male and The Thirty-Nine Steps present one version of (masculine) Englishness, here we have a feminine counterpart (e.g. "...but I breathe the air of England as I read, and can face this glittering sky with greater courage").

  1. Chapters 3-4. Through Mrs van Hopper's "snobbery" the heroine meets Max. What do you notice about the relationship between Mrs van Hopper, Max and the heroine? What do you notice about the way Max is introduced, and what the heroine notices about him (e.g., her description of him as "the brother I had never possessed") and her sense of his mysteriousness, (e.g. para: "I wondered what had driven him...").

  1. Chapters 5-6. The car ride and a marriage proposal. What do you notice about the developing relationship between Max and heroine, and the basis for the relationship? To what extent is the heroine "naturally" falling into the role of "ego-rescuer", and what do we learn of the heroine's own ego - e.g. her shyness, diffidence, and the budding sense of inferiority to Max's first wife, Rebecca. Various paras. are particularly revealing, "I am glad it cannot happen twice...", "Not for me the languor...", "Is that meant to be a compliment... (and passim) (Ch 5), and "In love... (and passim) (Ch 6). You might also look at the proposal itself, "No, I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool" or her reference to him as a "mocking brother".

  1. Settling into Manderley. How does the novel present the heroine's first days at Manderley (Ch 7) and the changes in the Max-heroine relationship? What do you notice about the way that Mrs Danvers is introduced (Ch 7 para: "I can close my eyes now..." (and passim), or "He did not look at me..."). What comes across in terms of the "competing femininity" between heroine and Rebecca? Is she jealous, resentful or gratuitously aroused by the memory of Rebecca? Is the heroine almost masochistic in her responses to herself, her situation, and her inferiority to Rebecca (look at Ch 11, paras: "I was during cheese..." and "I did not want to see them again...". How do you respond to Chapter 12, and the airing of the first marital difficulties between Max and heroine, (e.g. paras: "He stared at me moodily..." (and passim) and "He did not answer me")? What is indicated by the discussion of the ideal husband here (and in Ch 16, para: "Well then, a husband is not so very different from a father after all..."? How do you respond to Chapter 14, when Mrs Danvers shows the heroine Rebecca's room and "things".

  1. The Ball. This is one of the dramatic centre-pieces of the novel, culminating in the heroine's humiliation and near-suicide, averted only by the shipwreck which brings Rebecca back into the novel (and do you find this significant, that Rebecca comes back "to life" like this?). What do you make of the heroine's preparations, and the ways in which we are encouraged to identify with her (Ch 16, para: "The dance was being given for me...", and her references to her "dull personality being submerged at last")? How do you respond to the heroine's sense of failure (Ch 18, para: "It seemed to me...") and her confrontation with Mrs Danvers, Ch 18, para: "She shook herself clear of me..."? How also do you respond to the heroine's sense of the "moment of crisis", her big test, when Rebecca's body is discovered (Ch 19, para: "I went and stood in the hall by the front door."

  1. Rebecca. Much of the rest of the novel is given over to the exhumation of Rebecca and her significance within the novel. How do you respond to Max's declaration that he hated Rebecca (Ch 20, para: He whipped round and looked at me...") and subsequent disclosures about their married life (e.g. para: "And so we lived..."). How, from this point onwards, is Rebecca presented, and is there any way in which she can be seen as a sympathetic character (e.g. a lively and beautiful woman married to moody Max, a spirited and life-loving woman who has cancer and is bludgeoned to death!)? Or does the novel present her as a demoniac character, "unnatural", vile and perverse? The novelist, Jean Rhys, has written a fascinating novel based on the life of the first Mrs Rochester (The Wide Sargasso Sea): what would a novel about the first Mrs de Winter be like, if told from her point of view? Does Rebecca "naturalise" or legitimate the death of Rebecca and, if so, to what effect?

(viii) The ending. How do you respond to the ending of the novel, and to the heroine's new sense of what life will now be like (Ch 27, para: "It was going to be very different in the future.") and her final dream of "Happy Valley" (Ch27, paras: We climbed back into the car" (and passim). Does the ending represent fulfilment for Max and heroine, with Max now "healed" through the heroine's interventions and heroism, or is there something disturbing, insecure and neurotic in their relationship - you'll need to refer back to Chapter 2 to fully answer this question.

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