Navigation
•
Home
•
Members
•
Papers
•
Forums
•
Search
•
Signup
•
Links
•
Contact Us
•
About
Top 10
Popular Essays
Rated Essays
Newest Essays
Report
Print
Add to Favorites
Report
Messages
Rate
Similar Reports
Help
Rebecca (Click to select text)
"I dreamt I went to Manderley again." (Dumarier 2) is the famous opening line to the classic novel Rebecca. Right from the beginning Dumaurier builds up the mystery of Manderley by showing a conflict between the way the main characters live now verses how they remember the tragic events of the past. The narrator is an inexperienced young girl who is overwhelmed when she moves into Manderley. The husband, Maxim, is still troubled by the death of his last wife Rebecca, which happened almost a year before. Rebecca is "a heroine that we never see in the flesh, but whose spell is written through every page" (Weeks 163). Mrs. Danvers is Rebecca's former maid who has sinister intentions and remains loyal to the dead Rebecca and is even obsessed with her in some ways. "Mrs. Danvers' relationship to Rebecca, is such that she could never allow herself to believe that any human being could destroy her" (Kelly 60). As clues to the cause of Rebecca' death are uncovered, the story form of the story changes. Dumarier uses not only writing techniques such as foreshadowing and symbolism to make the novel more suspenseful, but she also uses the elements of greed, deception, and insecurity to change Rebecca from a Gothic Romance novel into a successful mystery. "The basic structure of Rebecca is that of the modern Gothic Romance" (Masterplots 3). The characters and the setting are similar to other books of the time. The narrator who goes un-named, is the "typical heroine of a Gothic Romance" (Masterplots 3). Her character is not very developed but the reader is able to relate to and sympathize with her. Rebecca also has the perfect setting for a Gothic Romance. Manderley is the isolated, beautiful, and mysterious place that is what really makes the story so engrossing. If the story took place anywhere else it would not have the same effect. There is a hint of the supernatural with the feeling that Rebecca still haunts the corridors of Manderley. "Rebecca is the demon that must be exercised from both Maxim and the narrorator's minds." (Kelly 55). In a way, Rebecca does still haunt Manderley through Mrs. Danvers. "Mrs. Danvers is the embodiment of Rebecca, who must be destroyed for the story to end" (Kelly 56). Maxim feels the presence of Rebecca and is haunted by his own past because of her. Rebecca is in many ways similar to the story of Cinderella, a classic Gothic Romance (Masterplots 3). The main character is a poor, inexperienced girl who falls in love with a wealthy, lonely, man. Mrs. Danvers is equivalent to the evil stepsisters, trying to destroy the main character. Both stories also have a ballroom scene in the middle that ends unexpectedly. Rebecca has a twist though, that changes the story dramatically. An investigation begins to find the cause of death of Maxim's former wife, Rebecca. At the beginning of the investigation Maxim admits to his wife that he murdered Rebecca and made it look like she drowned on accident. After that point the story becomes increasingly suspenseful as evidence leads closer and closer to the truth. The insecurity of the narrator drives the suspense and helps the reader relate to her. The narrator was a poor girl who worked as an assistant to Mrs. Van Hopper, a very dominating woman. "At first the narrorator appears to have no identity at all, only serving Mrs. Van Hopper." (Kelly 54). In most social situations she was not even allowed to speak. She also seems to be unbelievably stupid at times. All of the sudden she was thrust into the position of mistress of Manderley. People would talk about every little thing she does and she is all over the newspapers. She is constantly being compared to Rebecca and this makes her feel very uncomfortable. People would say things to her like "You're so different from Rebecca", and this would make her feel even more inferior to the great Rebecca. She would also do stupid things like taking the advise of Mrs. Danvers when she knows that Mrs. Danvers hates her (Davenport, 162). Many people would feel insecure in her position though, and that helps the reader relate to her and sympathize for her. The narrator does not believe that Maxim loves her. She thinks that he still loves Rebecca. This keeps the reader trying to figure out if Maxim really loves her or not. The insecurity of the narrator also shows how she evolves throughout the story. The narrator is a dynamic character that changes many times throughout the story. The biggest change comes when she finds out that Maxim never loved Rebecca. This gives her more confidence and she starts to take control of the things around her. She says "I had not thought it would be so easy to be severe. I wondered why it had seemed so hard for me before" (Dumaurier 289). She also starts to stick up for herself because she loses all fear of Mrs. Danvers and Rebecca. She also feels that she has finally grown up. Maxim also notices this when he says "Its gone forever, that funny, young, lost look that I loved. I killed that too, when I killed Rebecca. In 24 hours you look so much older" (Dumarier 289). She realizes that she would have been much happier if would have had this confidence all along. She even wonders how many people live their whole lives behind the fear and shyness that she lived, never knowing how much better life is when you are confident and express yourself. Foreshadowing also adds to the suspense near the end of the novel. Throughout the story there are clues that hint toward the truth. The way that Maxim got so upset whenever Rebecca was mentioned gave the reader the feeling that something terrible must have happened. When the narrator first meets Mrs. Danvers, she gets the chills when she shakes Mrs. Danvers' cold and heavy hand. This foreshadows the evil intentions of Mrs. Danvers. Another major foreshadowing is the way Ben, the mentally handicapped man talked about Rebecca. He said that she was mean and that she was going to have him put in the asylum. The reader later discovers that Rebecca was mean like Ben had said, and not the great person everyone believed her to be. The final foreshadowing is at the end of story when Maxim and the narrator are on their way back to Manderley and Maxim becomes very uncomfortable. He wants to get back to Manderley as soon as possible because he feels that something terrible is going to happen. He was right because when they get back, they find Manderley burning down. Symbolism is also used to foreshadow some of the important events in the story. Rebecca's boat which was also the one she sank in, was called Je Revienss, which means "I come back". The name is symbolic in that the boat was risen from the bottom of the bay and physically did come back. It was also symbolic in that Rebecca came back to haunt the present (Kelly 58). Another symbol that reoccured throughout the story was the big slanting R. Whenever the narrator saw an R that Rebecca had written, she immediatly thought of how incredible Rebecca must have been and how she herself was so inferior. Many of the characters in the story are deceptive, which adds to the mystery and suspense. The deception starts right from the beginning when the narrator is told that Rebecca had drowned accidentally. That makes it even more shocking when the truth is finally revealed. The narrator was not the only one deceived though, Maxim was able to deceive everyone about the death of Rebecca. Nobody even suspected him slightly for murdering Rebecca. Mrs. Danvers tried to deceive the narrator by saying "What's the point of you staying at Manderley? You're not happy. Mr. De Winter doesn't love you." (Dumaurier 246). Mrs. Danvers was trying to trick the narrator into killing herself by jumping out of a window. Maxim was deceived by Rebecca. First Rebecca tricked him into marrying her, just after they were married, Rebecca revealed her true intentions and told Maxim that she did not like him. Then Rebecca tricked Maxim into killing her. She told him that she was pregnant with someone else child, knowing that Maxim was going to shoot her. She did not tell him that she was going to die anyway because she had cancer. This is not found out until the very end of the story and is one of the final twists that solves the mystery of the death of Rebecca. The presence of greed in the story heightened the tension at the end of the story. The main conflict was started when Rebecca married Maxim out of greed. She did not love him, she just married him for his wealth and popularity. After the inquisition of Maxim it seems that the conflict is finally resolved and the story will end. Just then, Jack Favell enters and tries to threaten Maxim with blackmail. He wants Maixim to pay him to keep quiet, and when Maxim refuses, the investigation starts all over. Favell's greed pushes the investigation toward the truth and as each clue is found, the tension builds. Dumaurier starts off her novel with elements of a classic Gothic Romance, and ends the story in mystery and suspense. She uses the writing techniques of symbolism and foreshadowing to build up suspense throughout the story, and elements of insecurity, deception and greed to transform the story into a mystery. At the end of the story Dumaurier proves that she has transformed the story by completely contradicting the standard of the Gothic Romance ending. There is a twist on the last page of the book that shatters the dreams of the two main characters. The burning down of Manderley seems to finally be the end of Rebecca and Mrs. Danvers. Instead of living happily ever after, the characters are shown many years later still being haunted by their experiences at Manderley. As the story evolves from a Gothic Romance to a mystery, the narrator also evolves. By including all of these elements Dumaurier creates even more than a simple thriller or mystery. She creates a "profound and fascinating study of an obsessive personality, of human identity, and of the liberation of the hidden self." (Kelly 54).
Recent Board Topics
Please drop by and sign up.
[
Submit Essay
] - [
Privacy
] - [
Disclaimer
] - [
Email Us
]
Copyright 2003 EssayFarm.com