Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...

Working as a lady's companion, the heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Her future looks bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Max de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of marriage takes her by surprise. She accepts, but whisked from glamorous Monte Carlo to the ominous and brooding Manderley, the new Mrs de Winter finds Max a changed man. And the memory of his dead wife Rebecca is forever kept alive by the forbidding housekeeper, Mrs Danvers...

Not since Jane Eyre has a heroine faced such difficulty with the Other Woman. An international bestseller that has never gone out of print, Rebecca is the haunting story of a young girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity.

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This is a discussion thread for people who have read or are reading the book in question. With that in mind, there are likely to be spoilers throughout. However, in the event of major twists or “how it ends”, please wrap content in spoiler tags.

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[spoiler]Surprise!content here[/spoiler]

Discussion Questions:

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1. Du Maurier never gives the heroine a first name, and she later admitted it was because she couldn't think of one. What impact does this have on how much or little we come to care for the character?
   
2. With the final revelation of Rebecca's true character do we come to sympathise with Maxim de Winter? Or is the heroine blinded by her love and too eager to forgive him?
   
3. Is Rebecca de Winter the real villain of the story or is it someone, or something, else?
   
4. Is Rebecca a ghost story? A love against the odds story? A Gothic Romance? Why or why not in any case? And what other genres does it overlap with?
   
5. Many of du Maurier's novels are set in Cornwall and Rebecca is no exception though she was stationed abroad at the time of writing. What is the importance of the setting and does she project that love of home onto Maxim? Would Rebecca be as powerful elsewhere in the world?
   
6. The influence of Jane Eyre is unmistakable however what similarities and differences did you notice?
   

  

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oh MJ mama likes ;)

I will be answering my own questions once I've reread and then watched the Hitchcock film to revel in the intense queer coding of Mrs Danvers!

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oh MJ mama likes ;)

It's been 4 years since the last time I read this book so I kinda struggled to answer all of the questions.

Du Maurier never gives the heroine a first name, and she later admitted it was because she couldn't think of one. What impact does this have on how much or little we come to care for the character?
For me, the heroine not having a name works in two ways. First, it kind of lets us slip into her shoes and makes her a more blank slate sort of character.

I also think that her not having a name is really fitting, since she was always somewhat in the background, overshadowed by Rebecca.

Personally, I didn't care that the main character didn't have a name. Not once did I feel like it was needed for something, or that the story would change if she had a name.

I kinda wish I had something more deep and intelligent to say about that because it's a big thing about the book, but yeah that's what I got >.<


Many of du Maurier's novels are set in Cornwall and Rebecca is no exception though she was stationed abroad at the time of writing. What is the importance of the setting and does she project that love of home onto Maxim? Would Rebecca be as powerful elsewhere in the world?
I believe that a big part of Rebecca's story is the class struggle of Mrs. de Winter. It is my understanding that she has married up and while she enjoyed the benefits of getting a rich husband during her time in France and during her honeymoon, she is faced with how "hard work" it is once they return to Max's home. As someone who's Greek, the book had this "fancy British aristocracy" feel for me. I could see Rebecca in any part of the world, though, as the story of a woman who marries up and struggles in her new position. For me, it wasn't Rebecca's lingering presence that made Mrs. de Winter feel inadequate, but rather that she couldn't fit in in this new social position. The feelings Mrs. de Winter experienced are pretty universal, but the story itself wouldn't be quite the same in a different setting. It wouldn't have that fancy posh British feel to it. xD

  

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SET BY MJ

A similar disclaimer from me in that I last reread Rebecca (and Jane Eyre at the same time incidentally!) when I briefly studied English at uni in Cornwall, so like early 2014 xD Will revisit my thoughts if I get a chance to reread!

Du Maurier never gives the heroine a first name, and she later admitted it was because she couldn't think of one. What impact does this have on how much or little we come to care for the character?
I agree with Soph here! Accidental conceit or not, I think it works so cleverly, esp. when juxtaposed with the looming first-name "Rebecca" in the title, it kind of interrogates who's the main character and points neatly to those questions (and insecurities) of identity tied up in our main character, whilst also letting "Mrs de Winter" everywhere without any sense of her first name be continual commentary on the place of women as the possessions of a man/not worth anything alone.

Skipping Qs 2-4 for now because I can't remember well how I felt re: character, although my general response when reading anything period is "gurl LEAVE HIM". (Jane Eyre I'm also looking at u xoxo) Nevertheless I love anything with a ~gothic slant and that's also especially why gothic is such a good genre for interrogating the place of women.

Many of du Maurier's novels are set in Cornwall and Rebecca is no exception though she was stationed abroad at the time of writing. What is the importance of the setting and does she project that love of home onto Maxim? Would Rebecca be as powerful elsewhere in the world?
First off let me tell you a thing about Cornwall. Cornwall is a weird-ass place. This could be very subjective of me but I feel like it's often reflected/romanticised in literature about the place, all du Maurier's stuff included... but it has a bit of an otherworldly feel, like it's totally its own land, and I think once you've lived there it has a strange eternal hold on you. (I say this because I lived there for ~9 months ish and knew a lot of people who'd come from all over and very quickly you turn into this "Kernow Pride" person, even when you leave. i'm ignoring the ugly nationalists who live there and support ukip It's always had its own little culture and remains very heavily attached to its Celtic roots etc. Also Cornwall is very proud of du Maurier, one of the campus buildings was named after her lol.)

No, but I think - especially when you go back a little in time - Cornwall has this remote end-of-the-world feel about it, lots of cliff walks and land trailing off into nothing, kind of like the Florida at the bottom of Britain, only has one (1) official city, and it's also full of ~haunting things like abandoned tin mines and basically half the population were involved in smuggling at one point, and it has its own misty moor vibe which works well with how nicely du Maurier vibes with the Brontes and Yorkshire. (Moreso in Jamaica Inn probably but a lot of real places crop up/inspire her too.) Anyway this to say I think Cornwall works especially well for the setting because there's kind of a feel of impending self-destruction to the whole novel with shipwrecks and suicides and whatnot and you would not feel quite like so much of a hopeless castaway in the middle of London.

  

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Gonna spoiler the whole thing because I use the text liberally - it's been years since I last read Rebecca, it was nice getting a chance to read it again but I did touch on her briefly in my PhD, specifically in the context of women who were bad vrs mad.

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Du Maurier never gives the heroine a first name, and she later admitted it was because she couldn't think of one. What impact does this have on how much or little we come to care for the character?

Because the narrator doesn't have a name, you are sort of forced to focus on the characterisation of other characters, because the person of the narrator is almost irrelevant. She is irrelevant because all that matters is the ghost of who Rebecca was/is. Rebecca was perfect, Rebecca is missed, Rebecca mattered. That's apparently not what Du Maurier intended but it was the effect that I had from it.

With the final revelation of Rebecca's true character do we come to sympathise with Maxim de Winter? Or is the heroine blinded by her love and too eager to forgive him?
She is blinded!
Maxim: Oh hey I murdered my wife!
her: Oh phew! I thought you were gonna say you loved her!

I always wondered if she is as cracked as Rebecca but in a different way, like a mirror image of her, as obsessive as Rebecca appears to be heartless


Is Rebecca de Winter the real villain of the story or is it someone, or something, else?
I'm not sure if villain is entirely right, there are social forces in play on both of them, Maxim is apparently capable of murder after all, but it is important to note that a novel of the period which depicts the woman as a conscious, controlled abuser was pretty few and far between! Other novels with put upon husbands tend to depict the woman as animalistic or not in control of her abuse (Bertha Rochester for example). Rebecca knows she is being cruel and enjoys it.


Is Rebecca a ghost story? A love against the odds story? A Gothic Romance? Why or why not in any case? And what other genres does it overlap with?
It's again almost irrelevant. The 'ghost' of Rebecca, the idea, or memory of who she was known to be, turns out to be more important than the truth -
Much like the unravelling of the murder - which 'truth' is more important? - The truth of who Rebecca is? The truth that she was having affairs? The truth that Maxim killed her? The truth that she wasn't pregnant? The truth that she was dieing anyway? the truth that it was suicide by husband? There is no real answer because all of the truths are weighed and counter weighed by other 'truths' until you can't really tell which tipped the scales.


The influence of Jane Eyre is unmistakable however what similarities and differences did you notice?
I see differences in the presentation of the wife - but this is mostly based on the depiction - Bertha is uncontrolled, she cannot help being abusive and adulterous because she is batshit crazy and that isn't her fault. I see Rebecca as closer to someone like Lady Audley (Lady Audleys Secret), she knew exactly what she is doing, her malevolence is more cunning because it is more controlled and because she decides to do malevolent things.

  

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I have now reread >D And I had forgotten many things since the last time but I absolutely had not forgotten the intensely painful second-hand embarrassment leading up to the fancy dress party, jfc. Anyway, the questions I haven't yet answered!

With the final revelation of Rebecca's true character do we come to sympathise with Maxim de Winter? Or is the heroine blinded by her love and too eager to forgive him?

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Yeaaaah, I don't know. The heroine is absolutely blinded by something, her desire to feel loved and needed and loyal to him. By the end I maybe sympathise with Maxim a little more than I ever did for, say, Rochester because Rebecca seems to genuinely delight in causing him suffering, but also... Dude's an idiot for marrying her at all, his fatal flaw is clearly his connection to Manderley and he invited this destruction upon himself, and yeah yeah maybe he didn't know any better at the time and was clearly no match for Rebecca but it's not my fault if he's attracted to unhinged ladies when he could have had a boring sane wife without trouble. (The heroine is absolutely an unhinged lady attracted to ~damage and I am 100% sure he recognised the vibe in her back in Monte Carlo when he nearly drove them off the cliff and she was like *heart eyes*.)

Is Rebecca de Winter the real villain of the story or is it someone, or something, else?

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IT'S ALL ABOUT MANDERLEY. I don't know exactly how to unpack that but it's also something to do with inheritance and memory and the weight of the past I think? They're all in thrall of it and can never just ~live in the present. Whether that's Maxim looking ahead to the future w/fears about succession and estate inheritance or Mrs. de Winter haunted by Rebecca, there's so much about ~preserving moments and bottling them up and the impermanence of the flowers and the cyclical idea of the past always coming back to haunt you. Like you can run, but there's literally no possibility of escape.

The influence of Jane Eyre is unmistakable however what similarities and differences did you notice?

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Agreed with Dante on the difference vis a vis Rebecca and Bertha's situation. Major difference to me is the character of the protagonist and that I expected Jane to be LESS BLINDED GAWD.

Unrelated, but: I had forgotten all about Frank Crawley. I am suuuuper interested in Frank Crawley, and how he knows a lot more than he lets on the whole time and pretends to be dull and is incredibly, eerily loyal to Max/Mrs. de Winter HI I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT FRANK'S INNER LIFE AND MOTIVATIONS PLEASE does anyone care about Frank like I care about Frank?

  

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Unrelated, but: I had forgotten all about Frank Crawley. I am suuuuper interested in Frank Crawley, and how he knows a lot more than he lets on the whole time and pretends to be dull and is incredibly, eerily loyal to Max/Mrs. de Winter HI I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT FRANK'S INNER LIFE AND MOTIVATIONS PLEASE does anyone care about Frank like I care about Frank?

I care far too much about the minor characters dude, I want to know a lot more about Beatrice and Rebecca's relationship and why the fuck she never mentions to 'I' that Rebecca was a stone cold bitch.

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fabulous set by Lady <3

Unrelated, but: I had forgotten all about Frank Crawley. I am suuuuper interested in Frank Crawley, and how he knows a lot more than he lets on the whole time and pretends to be dull and is incredibly, eerily loyal to Max/Mrs. de Winter HI I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT FRANK'S INNER LIFE AND MOTIVATIONS PLEASE does anyone care about Frank like I care about Frank?

I care far too much about the minor characters dude, I want to know a lot more about Beatrice and Rebecca's relationship and why the fuck she never mentions to 'I' that Rebecca was a stone cold bitch.

YES BEATRICE!!! RIGHT?

  

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look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3

Unrelated, but: I had forgotten all about Frank Crawley. I am suuuuper interested in Frank Crawley, and how he knows a lot more than he lets on the whole time and pretends to be dull and is incredibly, eerily loyal to Max/Mrs. de Winter HI I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT FRANK'S INNER LIFE AND MOTIVATIONS PLEASE does anyone care about Frank like I care about Frank?

I care far too much about the minor characters dude, I want to know a lot more about Beatrice and Rebecca's relationship and why the fuck she never mentions to 'I' that Rebecca was a stone cold bitch.

Oh my God this!!

  

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Bee's made a beautiful thing!