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A review by nicolaburton
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
5.0
[If I don't write in note form, I'll probably never get round to writing anything, so sorry about that!]
Absolutely bloody amazing.
Everyone has a Rebecca in their lives at some point; a nearly-entirely self-constructed ideal with which we compare and berate ourselves.
'Rebecca' has a great plot, particularly as it picks up pace and becomes increasingly intricate towards the end, but the psychology of the second Mrs de Winter is what fascinates the most.
e.g.
- Mirroring and juxtaposition between Rebecca and the unnamed narrator
- Narrator lacks the self-assertion to even reveal her name (I was partly expecting she might divulge her first name once she thinks she has triumphed over Rebecca, but then as the ending shows, perhaps she doesn't after all...)
- The 'madwoman in the attic' trope (Jane Eyre...)
- I haven't counted it up, but I would guess half or more of the narrator's musings are daydreams, projections, or dreams themselves (i.e the first chapter) - she lives very much within the confines of her mind, and is restrained by the barriers this constructs.
- Her desperation for patriarchal validation leads her to forego any moral compass she may previously have acted by
- Her attitude towards Rebecca, and her lack of self-belief or autonomy, never actually changes - and therefore neither does her marriage or her life (her situation as foretold in the opening chapters is not so different to her situation with Mrs Van Hopper)
I must add this to a 'to-reread' list for a couple of years time; with the knowledge of how it ends, it will be fascinating to look at exactly how much of the narrator's torment is self-inflicted.
Absolutely bloody amazing.
Everyone has a Rebecca in their lives at some point; a nearly-entirely self-constructed ideal with which we compare and berate ourselves.
'Rebecca' has a great plot, particularly as it picks up pace and becomes increasingly intricate towards the end, but the psychology of the second Mrs de Winter is what fascinates the most.
e.g.
- Mirroring and juxtaposition between Rebecca and the unnamed narrator
- Narrator lacks the self-assertion to even reveal her name (I was partly expecting she might divulge her first name once she thinks she has triumphed over Rebecca, but then as the ending shows, perhaps she doesn't after all...)
- The 'madwoman in the attic' trope (Jane Eyre...)
- I haven't counted it up, but I would guess half or more of the narrator's musings are daydreams, projections, or dreams themselves (i.e the first chapter) - she lives very much within the confines of her mind, and is restrained by the barriers this constructs.
- Her desperation for patriarchal validation leads her to forego any moral compass she may previously have acted by
- Her attitude towards Rebecca, and her lack of self-belief or autonomy, never actually changes - and therefore neither does her marriage or her life (her situation as foretold in the opening chapters is not so different to her situation with Mrs Van Hopper)
I must add this to a 'to-reread' list for a couple of years time; with the knowledge of how it ends, it will be fascinating to look at exactly how much of the narrator's torment is self-inflicted.