[226] Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

“I knew then that I was no longer afraid of Rebecca. I did not hate her anymore. Now that I knew her to have been evil and vicious and rotten I did not hate her any more. She could not hurt me. I could go to the morning-room and sit down at her desk and touch her pen and look at her writing on the pigeon-holes, and I should not mind. I could go to her room in the west wing, stand by the window even as I had done this morning, and I should not be afraid.” [289]

Other than the eerily surreal landscape of the isolated gray stone mansion whose atmosphere is charged with the memory of the late Rebecca du Winter, Rebecca is not so much a ghost story as a literary thriller. Daphne Du Maurier ushers readers into the nightmare of Mrs. du Winter, successor of Rebecca, who recalls the events that uncover the darkest secrets and truths about Rebecca’s death. The novel opens at a vacation resort in Monte Carlo, where the morose Maxim de Winter meets the young woman who will become his second wife. The couple’s happiness seems to exhaust after their honeymoon in Venice, as Maxim brings his young bride back to Manderley, where in every corner in every room are vestiges and testimonies of a time dead but not forgotten.

Fuels the mystery of Rebecca, whom everyone—from Maxim’s friends, social elites, to house servants—describe as beautiful, talented, is a past so devotedly and punctiliously preserved by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. A motherly figure to her former mistress, Mrs. Danvers keeps Rebecca’s suite immaculate and untouched since she was drowned a year ago. She treats the new Mrs. du Winter like an intruder, with an undercurrent of resentment. As the new Mrs. du Winter strives to expunge the past that is redolent of Rebecca, Maxim is trapped in it that a barrier exists between them. Her meager knowledge of her husband and Maxim’s paranoia transpire into a tension that separates them. Whereas the tension roots in Maxim’s lack of tenderness for her, Maxim’s own suffering is that of his soul, the scruple. Through the servants’ devotion, Maxim’s suffering, and the new Mrs. du Winter’s fear, Rebecca is made alive.

The fact is that empty house got on his nerves to such an extent he nearly went off his head. He admitted as much before you came into the room. He just can’t go on living there alone . . . [61]

Little things, meaningless and stupid in themselves, but they were there for me to see, for me to hear, for me to feel. Dear God, I did not want to think about Rebecca. [140]

As the events that lead to the resolution takes its ominous course with much twist and turns, Du Maurier masters one surprise after another before letting on the truth. The surreal setting and the presentiment of Rebecca’s possible appearance at the beginning of the novel somehow gives the impression that the newly-wed couple would perish at the evil power of the dead. But Rebecca asserts more than just a suspense thriller. The novel explores the meaning of love and the extent of mutual understanding in a relationship. Beneath the mystery of the death are deeper faults that are all too human: pride, vanity, and self-absorption.

Her shadow between us all the time . . . I remembered her eyes as she looked at me before she died. I remembered that slow treacherous smile. She knew this would happen even then. She knew she would win in the end. [270]

386 pp. [Read/Skim/Toss]