Guide To The Classics - Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier - Gender, Gothic Haunting and Gaslighting - University of Southern Queensland

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Guide to the classics: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier — gender, gothic haunting and gaslighting
(https://usq.edu.au:443/news/2020/10/conversation-rebecca)
Guide to the classics: Rebecca by

Daphne du Maurier — gender,
gothic haunting and gaslighting
By Jessica Gildersleeve, Associate Professor (English Literature)
TAGS:
ARTS AND COMMUNICATION (HTTPS://USQ.EDU.AU:443/NEWS?TAGS=HUMANITIES AND
COMMUNICATION)
https://www.usq.edu.au/news/2020/10/conversation-rebecca 1/9
The article has been republished from The Conversation

(https://theconversation.com/au) under a Creative Commons license. Read the
original article (https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-rebecca-by-
daphne-du-maurier-gender-gothic-haunting-and-gaslighting-146573).
A small group of novels are famous for their first lines: Jane Austen’s Pride and
Prejudice (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1885.Pride_and_Prejudice?
from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=gfHh7geqrm&rank=1) (1813), Herman
Melville’s Moby Dick
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/153747.Moby_Dick_or_the_Whale?
from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=qCSb6QVie9&rank=1) (1851) and Leo
Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15823480-
anna-karenina?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=ifDzIA65zG&rank=1)
(1877). Rebecca (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17899948-rebecca?
ac=1&from_search=true&qid=2SJo7Fr5US&rank=1) by Daphne Du Maurier
(1938), belongs to this elite collection. Its opening line perfectly encapsulates the
narrative’s core theme.
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” the book begins — though it is not
Rebecca who speaks.
This is the strange paradox of Du Maurier’s novel: its characters are doomed to
refer (and defer) endlessly to Rebecca, who “always” did things, perfectly and
elegantly, a certain way, while Rebecca herself never appears.
Read more: Newly discovered Du Maurier poems shed light on a talented writer
honing her craft (https://theconversation.com/newly-discovered-du-maurier-poems-
shed-light-on-a-talented-writer-honing-her-craft-115659)
Two ghosts
It is the novel’s unnamed narrator who speaks that first line — the second Mrs de
Winter, a woman perpetually in her predecessor’s shadow. She is quite simply, not
Rebecca — her husband’s late first wife.
She is exceedingly young — shy, inexperienced, and under the thumb of a wealthy
lady who has employed her as a travel companion.
In Monte Carlo, our narrator meets Maxim de Winter, a tall, dark and handsome
aristocrat, recently widowed. He swiftly rescues her from drudgery, proposes
marriage, and takes her back to England to live in his beautiful and ancient estate,
Manderley.
The dual spectres of Rebecca and Manderley haunt de Winter and his bride but
the circularity of the narrative makes escape impossible.
The novel begins at the narrative’s end, retelling the events leading to the couple’s
nomadic life. Retrospection taints the novel with a pervasive sense of inevitable
doom and a desperate sympathy for the naïve young narrator. Now, night after
night, she must dream of Manderley again — of its beauty, to be sure, but also,
too, of its oppressiveness.
The name “Rebecca (https://www.behindthename.com/name/rebecca)” means

to tie or to bind, a further allusion to the first Mrs de Winter’s stranglehold on her
home and its inhabitants even after her death. She is imprinted on the house and
on its (housekeeper, the silent and sinister Mrs Danvers, whose passionate
obsession with her former employer is echoed
(https://www.jstor.org/stable/1395950?seq=1) in Carol Ann Duffy’s poem,
Warming Her Pearls (1987).
Mrs Danvers’ snide comments constitute Rebecca’s continuing manipulations,

even beyond the grave.
When Manderley hosts an annual costume ball, for instance, the second Mrs de
Winter is anxious to impress her new husband and his guests. Mrs Danvers
encourages her to dress as Caroline de Winter, one of her husband’s ancestors,
whose imposing portrait graces the mansion’s hall.
But when she makes her grand entrance, her husband angrily orders her to
change. Rebecca had worn an identical costume the year before. Mrs Danvers’
goal of humiliation is achieved.
A limited perspective
The novel’s use of first-person narration in some ways limits us to the

inexperienced worldview of the young narrator.
She stands in for the hordes of young women of the interwar period
(https://digscholarship.unco.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1023&context=honors), their families lost to the war while these young
women were left to navigate the world unchaperoned and alone, without
interested parties available to approve or consider their choice of husband.
But the reader does come to understand the narrator’s naivety, and to see what
she does not see, with increasing anxiety for her safety.
While she cannot see beyond Maxim’s charm, or conceptualise Mrs Danvers’
obsession with Rebecca, the reader looks on helplessly as she experiences what
we now recognise as “gaslighting (https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-
does-gaslighting-mean-107888)”.
Read more: Explainer: what does 'gaslighting' mean?

(https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-gaslighting-mean-107888)
Rebecca can be recognised as part of the genre of the “female gothic

(https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/melodramaresearchgroup/tag/female-gothic/)”, critic
Ellen Moers’ term for works that derive their terror from women’s domestic
entrapment and manipulation, as in the Bluebeard folktale
(https://interestingliterature.com/2018/05/a-summary-and-analysis-of-the-
bluebeard-fairy-tale/).
Female gothic narratives seek to expose the psychological manipulations and

abuse of power disguised as romance. This alone explains the narrator’s
continued sympathy for her “wronged” husband, even at the novel’s end.
This use of the female gothic also constitutes a critique of the novel’s source text:
Du Maurier’s Rebecca is a reimagining
(https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/1774?lang=en) of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane
Eyre (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10210.Jane_Eyre?
from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=sMIZYEaZnM&rank=1) (1847), in which
Jane is disturbed by the looming presence of Mr Rochester’s first wife, the
infamous “madwoman in the attic”.
Whereas Jane’s ultimate devotion to her husband is celebrated in that novel, Du

Maurier encourages her reader to recognise her narrator’s powerlessness
Read more: Emily Brontë's fierce, flawed women: not your usual Gothic female
characters (https://theconversation.com/emily-brontes-fierce-flawed-women-not-
your-usual-gothic-female-characters-100744)
(https://theconversation.com/emily-brontes-fierce-flawed-
women-not-your-usual-gothic-female-characters-100744)Birds,
horror and adaptation
Du Maurier’s writing has always lent itself to cinematic adaptation, particularly as

horror. Perhaps most famously, Alfred Hitchcock adapted her short story to make
The Birds (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18869985-the-birds-and-
other-stories?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=r1xkoBtvGP&rank=20), his
1963 film (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056869/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1), while

Nicholas Roeg’s adaptation of her story Don’t Look Now
(https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv13841pn) (1971) was screened in 1973
(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069995/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0).
Rebecca’s psychological suspense drew Hitchcock’s attention, and he swiftly

adapted it as a film, released in 1940 (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032976/?
ref_=fn_al_tt_2) starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine.
Hitchcock’s Rebecca won the Academy Award for Best Picture that same year. It
also spawned a range of commercial products such as the “Rebecca Luxury
Wardrobe” and the “Rebecca Makeup Kit”
(https://www.jstor.org/stable/3877748?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents),
one of the first films to do so.
Read more: Psycho turns 60 – Hitchcock's famous fright film broke all the rules
(https://theconversation.com/psycho-turns-60-hitchcocks-famous-fright-film-broke-
all-the-rules-140175)
Strangely, however, these beauty and fashion products were all associated with
Rebecca, a woman who never appears on screen.
Hitchcock’s adaptation diverges from Du Maurier’s novel at its conclusion and in

the way in which each narrative explains Rebecca’s death. Whereas Du Maurier
lays a foundation for Maxim’s capacity for violence, Hitchcock positions him, like
the narrator, as a victim of Rebecca’s cruel manipulations.
A new Netflix adaptation (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2235695/?

ref_=fn_al_tt_1) of Rebecca stars Lily James, Armie Hammer and Kristen Scott
Thomas. This follows recent adaptations of Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89717.The_Haunting_of_Hill_House) The
Haunting of Hill House (2018) (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6763664/) and its
second season, The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)

(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10970552/), a reworking of Henry James’ The
Turn of The Screw (1898)
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12948.The_Turn_of_the_Screw).
Together, these constitute a series of gothic hauntings that draw attention not
only to the psychological trauma inherent in those earlier works, but the way in
which that trauma and its terrors are profoundly gendered.
Rebecca’s capacity to haunt the second Mrs de Winter, Mrs Danvers’ maintenance
of her place in Manderley, Maxim’s power over his new bride, and the narrator’s
cowing acceptance of all of this, point to the gendered power structures of both
the gothic and the marriage plot.
Rebecca screens on Netflix from October 21.
A small group of novels are famous for their first lines.
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26/06/2021 Guide to the classics: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier — gender, gothic haunting and gaslighting - University of Southern Queensl…

Guide to the classics: Rebecca by

The article has been republished from The Conversation

The name “Rebecca (https://www.behindthename.com/name/rebecca)” means

Mrs Danvers’ snide comments constitute Rebecca’s continuing manipulations,

The novel’s use of first-person narration in some ways limits us to the

Read more: Explainer: what does 'gaslighting' mean?

Rebecca can be recognised as part of the genre of the “female gothic

Female gothic narratives seek to expose the psychological manipulations and

Whereas Jane’s ultimate devotion to her husband is celebrated in that novel, Du

Du Maurier’s writing has always lent itself to cinematic adaptation, particularly as

1963 film (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056869/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1), while

Rebecca’s psychological suspense drew Hitchcock’s attention, and he swiftly

Hitchcock’s adaptation diverges from Du Maurier’s novel at its conclusion and in

A new Netflix adaptation (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2235695/?

second season, The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020)

Rebecca screens on Netflix from October 21.

A small group of novels are famous for their first lines.

Vale Eric Carle: creator of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a story of 

© University of Southern Queensland 2021

CRICOS: QLD 00244B, NSW 02225M

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