Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier . Like all great openings it captures our imagination and makes us want to read more. The rhythm is insistent, the mention of dreams intrigues us and the word . We are already in danger of falling under Daphne Du Maurier's hypnotic spell. Generally regarded as Daphne du Maurier's masterpiece, Rebecca has never been out of print since it was first published in 1. A tempestuous gothic romance, it was an immediate success, making its author into a household name. The story of the mysterious, glamorous ex- wife, the mousy replacement, the brooding and brusque Maxim de Winter and all the intrigue and drama which circle around these three characters is too well- known to need repeating in precis here. Rebecca captured the feel of the age, drawing on the glamour of country society and the feeling of impending catastrophe that permeated the pre- war years. Du Maurier knew this society well, having been born into a wealthy family in London in 1. She herself was a tomboy as a child however, and much preferred visiting the family's holiday home of Ferryside, to participating in London society. All these threads of her life, and many others, come together in this masterly novel. Many people love its high romanticism, but Daphne du Maurier became irritated over the years with people calling it a romantic novel. She insisted that it was in part . It is an ominous journey, laden with foreboding. Even the midday sun would not penetrate the interlacing of those green leaves, they were too thickly entwined, one with another. She has a far calmer view, describing. She looks through the window observing. Menabilly had been empty for 2. Du Maurier was determined to to live there one day. She had taken her three young children trespassing in the grounds a couple of years earlier, and apparently they all peered through the broken windows as she kissed the house and told them it was her favourite place. The family were living in . She did subsequently manage to lease Menabilly for 2. It came as a great shock to her when many years later as an old woman she was told to leave the house she loved. But that is another story. The actual setting of Manderley also mirrors the setting of Menabilly, which is hidden away in the woods by the Gribbin Head outside Fowey. Manderley has such presence in the novel that the reader senses it more as a character than a place. In fact in many of Du Maurier's works places are more important than people. While she was in Egypt, she had even confessed to missing Menabilly more than her two children. Her husband, a commanding officer in the Grenadier Guards, was stationed in Alexandria, and this is where she wrote the first rough draft of Rebecca. In 1. 93. 7 she returned home - not to Menabilly yet, but to . It was here she conceived the character of Mrs Danvers, after seeing a tall dark housekeeper there. The insidiously malevolent character of Mrs Danvers is an extraordinary creation, with her white . Another twisted, tortured and essentially broken character, who nevertheless exercises a powerful hold over weaker personalities. Born: Rebecca Alie Romijn (1972-11-06) November 6, 1972 (age 43) Berkeley, California, United States: Other names: Rebecca Romijn-Stamos: Occupation: Actress Model (former) Years active: 1991–2001, 2012 (model) 1997. Rebecca has 301,899 ratings and 13,178 reviews. Kelly said: This is it. THE delicious, curl up next to the fire under a blanket with tea book. Carries toys, party supplies, carnival supplies, cosmetics, and religious items. Rebecca Taylor Rebecca Taylor. La Vie Anais Denim Jean. Liane Floral Jaquard Bomber Jacket. Crepe Lace Sleeve Top. Born: Rebecca Maria Hall (1982-05-03) (age 34) London, England, UK: Citizenship: British - American: Occupation: Actress: Years active: 1992–present: Spouse(s) Morgan Spector (m. The face of an exulting devil. She stood there, smiling at me. The seed of the story lay in Daphne Du Maurier's jealousy of Jan Ricardo, the first fianc. And who apparently signed . She writes herself into the story as the unconfident narrator. The fact that this viewpoint character is nameless and almost anonymous has always intrigued readers of the novel. The most obvious interpretation is that the second timid Mrs de Winter had such a low self- image that she becomes a mere shadow. The truth is rather more prosaic. Du Maurier couldn't think what to call the character at first, and so she didn't call her anything. As the novel progressed it became a challenge. And at some point presumably, she realised that the lack of a name cleverly symbolised the character's lack of self- worth. We do know that the narrator is . We even have glimpses of the narrator's name, which tempts us to believe that at some point it may be revealed to us. There is a reference early on to her name on an envelope being spelled correctly; that it is a rare occurrence. His casting of Laurence Olivier, who immortalised the moody figure of Maxim, was perfect in Du Maurier's opinion. Her overall view of the film may not have been quite so favourable, however. Subsequent versions tend to stay closer to the plot, but in this initial film, Daphne Du Maurier's ending was considered far too shocking and . Olivier himself had originally wanted Vivien Leigh to play opposite him, but in the event, Joan Fontaine proved a much better choice as the na. Interestingly, in the Hitchcock film, the whole crew called her . Hitchcock's was the start of many dramatisations and adaptations of the novel; its popularity continues even now. There has even, perhaps surprisingly, been a musical, an overblown pantomime- styled adaptation by all accounts, where Mrs Danvers was . He is portrayed much on the lines of Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy in . In fact Rebecca is heavily in debt to . Maxim de Winter has all the desirable features of a typical masculine Victorian hero; he is handsome, heroic, but also very irritable. His proposal of marriage to his second wife consists in him snapping out the words, . Essentially he is a haunted and very private character. The narrator despairs, as he calls her . On one occasion she notes gloomily, . Like a pat on the head for Jasper. Good dog then, lie down, don't worry me any more. Not the right sort of knowledge.. There is a certain type of knowledge I prefer you not to have. Actually, such jarring notes are much more noticable in Du Maurier's novels where the viewpoint character is female. The author said herself that she felt much more comfortable writing male characters. She even went so far as to say that she felt herself to be a man in a woman's body. Nevertheless, even though in general female characters are possibly not portrayed as convincingly as male ones in Du Maurier's stories, in this particular case it does work. Rebecca is a highly charged novel, and such portrayals and attitudes need to be viewed as being within the mores and context of this type of novel, observing its conventions. It is essentially a gothic melodrama, redolent with grotesque characters such as Mrs Danvers, and to a lesser degree the appalling Mrs Van Hopper, the shallow spoilt wealthy woman to whom the second Mrs de Winter was a companion at the start of the novel. And as such, it also contains as a counter- weight, the sort of heroes and heroines we might also associate with a previous century, . It is very uneven and exaggerated, with the viewpoint character being completely tongue- tied with him, and increasingly cowed and made neurotic by her perception of her predecessor. She could talk to his legal advisor Frank Crawley, or his sister Beatrice, about Rebecca, with no such qualms. But not with her husband. He still thought about Rebecca. He would never love me because of Rebecca. She was in the house still.. Rebecca was still mistress of Manderley. Rebecca was still Mrs de Winter. I had no business here at all.. Rebecca, always Rebecca. Rebecca would always be the same. And her I could not fight. She was too strong for me. Sometimes the threat is such as this, a sense of Rebecca; sometimes Mrs Danvers. Other times it is Manderley itself. And sometimes the sensations are blended, so that Manderley and Mrs Danvers almost become one. At other times, the narrator has moments of happiness, such as this time, shortly before a fancy dress ball, full of optimism at the exciting forthcoming event. She describes Manderley thus. Manderley had come alive in a fashion I would not have believed possible. It was not the still quiet Manderley I knew. There was a certain significance about it now that had not been before. A reckless air, rather triumphant, rather pleasing. It was as if the house remembered other days, long long ago. A fog was rolling up from the sea and I could not see the woods beyond the bank. It was very hot, very oppressive.. The sun had gone in now beyond a wall of mist. It was as though a blight had fallen upon Manderley taking the sky away and the light of day.. The dark trees loomed thin and indistinct.. The mist in the trees had turned to moisture and dripped upon my bare head like a thin rain. The clammy oppression of the day.. The overwhelming aura of, . Yet Rebecca never appears. It is unique of its kind. Not only because of that, but also because . She makes her presence felt solely through the narrator - who had never even met her. It is a book which can be read on many levels, and is open to different interpretations, as many great works are. Take the opening sentence, whose hypnotic rhythm I referred to at the start of this review. Have you noticed the structure? It is an iambic hexameter (there are 6 lengths - 6 . For a moment I wondered if the author's own name, . To echo that would perfectly demonstrate to me how much of herself she puts into her novels. But in fact it becomes a dactylic tetrameter (the dactylic poetic foot being one stressed followed by two unstressed ie . The are myriads of details which can be analysed and seen as portents. Take the instance of Beatrice's wedding present to the new bride - a set of books. They fall, due to the viewpoint character's clumsiness, thus breaking a small cupid ornament - which itself was a wedding present to the first Mrs de Winter. Here the symbolism is overt. That tangle of shrubs there should be cut down to bring light to the path. It was dark much too dark. That naked eucalyptus tree stifled by branches looked like the white bleached limb of a skeleton, and there was a black earthy stream running beneath it, choked with the muddied rains of years, trickling silently to the beach below. The birds did not sing here as they did in the valley. It was quiet in a different way. Handbags, Clothing, Shoes, & Accessories. Recently added item(s) You have no items in your shopping cart.
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