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rensuzugamori 's review for:
Rebecca
by Daphne du Maurier
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.
This iconic opening preludes possibly one of my favourite gothic novels that I've read so far. If a deeply mysterious and unsettling atmosphere is what du Maurier attempted to create, than she has vastly succeeded and every twist felt like a shock, even though I could equally look back and see that there were seeds planted all along.
It is Rebecca who shines in this story, without uttering a single word. It is Rebecca who haunts the narrative, whose death both allows for every event in the novel to have occurred in the first place, and whose death threatens to bring our main characters to ruin. Rebecca lingers like the tell-tale heart beating underneath Edgar Allan Poe's floorboards.
One of the things that I found the most fascinating was the hardening our our unnamed 'heroine'. She starts as a well-meaning, nervous wreck who fully believes that she is unworthy of taking Rebecca's place, but the woman that we find ourselves with at the end of the story is not the same as the woman we met at the beginning. Her heart has hardened, or perhaps it was that way from the beginning - has she been corrupted by Maxim's sin, or was this type of character who would defend such a thing buried within her under her shy disposition all along? To have run away with Maxim in the first place definitely betrays a kind of impulsivity that did not seem to suit her.
There are so many questions left unanswered for me. Maybe it is for the best.
(I want to remark that, like pretty much any classical text written by a white author, there is racism/colourism in the text that, although doesn't underpin the novel in any way (it is brief and in one scene that has no bearings on the story), definitely needs to be commented upon - the normalisation of brownface during this time period should not be swept under the rug no matter how remarkable the writing otherwise is. This is my only gripe with a text that is otherwise flawless, but nonetheless bears commenting on).
This iconic opening preludes possibly one of my favourite gothic novels that I've read so far. If a deeply mysterious and unsettling atmosphere is what du Maurier attempted to create, than she has vastly succeeded and every twist felt like a shock, even though I could equally look back and see that there were seeds planted all along.
It is Rebecca who shines in this story, without uttering a single word. It is Rebecca who haunts the narrative, whose death both allows for every event in the novel to have occurred in the first place, and whose death threatens to bring our main characters to ruin. Rebecca lingers like the tell-tale heart beating underneath Edgar Allan Poe's floorboards.
One of the things that I found the most fascinating was the hardening our our unnamed 'heroine'. She starts as a well-meaning, nervous wreck who fully believes that she is unworthy of taking Rebecca's place, but the woman that we find ourselves with at the end of the story is not the same as the woman we met at the beginning. Her heart has hardened, or perhaps it was that way from the beginning - has she been corrupted by Maxim's sin, or was this type of character who would defend such a thing buried within her under her shy disposition all along? To have run away with Maxim in the first place definitely betrays a kind of impulsivity that did not seem to suit her.
There are so many questions left unanswered for me. Maybe it is for the best.
(I want to remark that, like pretty much any classical text written by a white author, there is racism/colourism in the text that, although doesn't underpin the novel in any way (it is brief and in one scene that has no bearings on the story), definitely needs to be commented upon - the normalisation of brownface during this time period should not be swept under the rug no matter how remarkable the writing otherwise is. This is my only gripe with a text that is otherwise flawless, but nonetheless bears commenting on).
Content Warnings
Minor: Racism