A review by naiapard
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

4.0

A first-person narration. (We don`t know the name of the protagonist, only that it is a she).

The plot in Big Lines:

A young woman marries a man twice her senior.

She is brought to an impressive estate with sea sight.

She learns about the previous wife –Rebecca—who dies one year before her arrival.

The presence of Rebecca is still felt, not only by the staff members but also in the air.

The protagonist has to come to terms with her place in this new world where she seems to play the role of “the replacement”.

How she describes herself in comparison to Rebecca:

“What must I have seemed like after Rebecca? I can see myself now, memory spanning the years like a bridge, with straight, bobbed hair and youthful, unpowdered face, dressed in an ill-fitting coat and skirt and a jumper of my creation, trailing in the wake of Mrs. Van Hopper like a shy, uneasy colt. She would precede me into lunch, her short body ill-balanced upon tottering, high heels, her fussy, frilly blouse a complement to her large bosom and swinging hips, her new hat pierced with a monster quill aslant upon her head, exposing a wide expanse of forehead bare as a schoolboy’s knee.”

The writing style tilts towards the outward poetic— only sometimes— the metaphors are just falling into the right place. Take for example this description of Mr. de Winter, the male protagonist (a.k.a. the love interest):

“He belonged to a walled city of the fifteenth century, a city of narrow, cobbled streets, and thin spires, where the inhabitants wore pointed shoes and worsted hose.”

(I could have taken any GIF with one of the many actors that have played a Mr. de Winter through all the multiple adaptations that have been made on this book).

Overall, there are quite a few misogynistic tropes in it. I mean, the villain is villainized through the perspective of these faults.

Spoiler

Rebecca`s murder tries to be justified. The reason for her killing should absolve the murderer of any fault because she had been a bad wife. I hated that so very much. Why did she deserve to be killed? Because it was rumored that she had had some affairs? Or that she may have been pregnant with another`s kid??—which was proven to be false, but by that time she was dead.

The way the book is written it wants the readers to be convinced of the love between the narrator and Mr. de Winter. I could not swallow that. Because of that, I could barely finish the book after a certain point onwards.

For me,

Their love is a sham.

But that it is not that important in the scheme of the novel. The book should be read not for the romance, per see, but for the narrator and this sordid relation that she unwillingly had with Rebecca and her memory.

I swear, I want the next adaptation to concoct a love story between the narrator and Rebecca.

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