At first glance, Rebecca seems like a boring classic. It reads like one too, resembling a 20th century Jane Eyre. It also has slight, if unintended, references to Shaw’s Pygmalion. Although written in 1938, Rebecca retains its appeal, relating to a young 21st century audience.
The narrator of this novel was at first a girl fresh out of school, working as a personal assistant to a conceited lady, Mrs Van Hoppers. Mrs Van Hoppers prefers to associate with anyone rich or famous, even someone briefly mentioned in the papers would do. During their vacation in Monte Carlo, the narrator is introduced to a semi-aristocrat, Maximillian de Winter, owner of Manderley, a large estate in the country.
Despite the fact that Maxim is 20 years older than she is, the narrator falls in love with him, marries, and gets whisked off to Manderley. Life seems blissful for the narrator, until she learns of Rebecca, Maxim’s deceased wife. Because she does not know anything of running a large mansion, she leaves everything to the housekeeper, Mrs Danvers. Even the servants feel that she does not fit in; an uninitiated schoolgirl living the high life.
The servants seemed very fond of Rebecca, and they are unwelcome towards the narrator taking the place of Mrs de Winter, mistress of the house. As Maxim has to attend to estate matters for most of the day, the narrator is usually left to her own devices and hardly gets to spend time with her husband. She is constantly reminded of Rebecca through the scent she leaves on handkerchiefs, Rebecca’s handwriting in the morning room, and how visitors kept remarking that Rebecca was a charming, vivacious, sportswoman.
Rebecca has dark, gothic undertones, which contrast with the picturesque English countryside. Daphne du Maurier’s descriptions of the coast and valley are used effectively to convey the range of emotions the narrator feels and allows the reader to share her feelings of loneliness and despair. The narrator is deeply contemplative and slips into her daydreams when left with no one to share her thoughts with. Any young adult reader would be able to relate to the insecurities the narrator undergoes as she wrestles with self-doubt and anxiety in a life she has always yearned for; but yet is so foreign and radically different from the life she is used to.
Daphne du Maurier also explores the role of women in this novel, illustrating two women with wildly unique personalities: Rebecca and the narrator. Today’s readers are given an insight into the social expectations of women married into status. One cannot help but notice that only Maxim deals with the management of the estate, while the narrator is left in the mansion to knit, sketch, and go for walks. Just like Rebecca, upper class women in the 1930s were expected to be graceful, polite, charismatic, and nothing more. Ironically, the event of most consequence is the Manderley Ball, something which Rebecca was famous for arranging. Lives of English socialites had not changed much since the period of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Not many options were available to the narrator when she left school, and this may be partly why she accepted Maxim’s marriage proposal on impulse. His proposal was also made more appealing due to the fact that marriage was one of the quickest ways for women to ascend the social ladder.
Rebecca is highly recommended for teens seeking a readable introduction to Romantic novels. Readers attuned to thrilling mysteries might delight in Rebecca’s omnipresence and Mrs Danver’s hauntingly ghostlike appearance. Lastly, the narrator fulfils every youth’s dream of being transported from a dull, monotonous life straight into one of extravagance and luxury.
