Rebecca

 

"Tall and dark she was...She gave you the feeling of a snake. I seen her there with my own eyes. By night she'd come. I seen her" (157).

My first experience with Rebecca was actually through the film of the same name, which I watched one night while scrolling through movie options and landing on one that I believed I could use to wind down for sleep. Little did I know, the storyline was not at all what I expected, and I also would not be sleeping soundly that night.

I was not aware of this book until after college, when I was so struck by the film adaptation, and then proceeded to go down a black hole of internet research. From the very first chapter, I knew that Rebecca was an extraordinary publication. There are many classics that I have read for a respect of their cultural or historical importance, but Rebecca is a novel that I can recommend without caveat or hesitation.

1. "'Rebecca,' that tall sloping R dwarfing its fellows" (88).

Raw characterization. Daphne du Maurier chose not to name the main character; in contrast, the book itself carries the name of her dead rival. That in itself provides a window into the work that du Maurier was trying to do. She presents her characters so vividly, investigating the psyche of the protagonist while she crafts a personality for the Rebecca that she has never met. It is through hints from conversations, the behavior of her husband, leftover trappings of a once lively household, and the machinations of her own imagination that she develops an idea of who Rebecca may have been.

Through it all, Rebecca becomes a haunting specter who drifts through the halls and demands attention, even as her husband tries to erase any memory of her. Slowly, the truth of her hold on the house and its inhabitants is revealed. The way that the author unfolds each layer of characterization is masterful. The protagonist struggles with self-abasement and misinterprets the actions of those around her. She descends into a pseudo-madness through obsessing over this mercurial dead woman whose influence looms larger than any living character. All of the people living at Manderley House are thrown together in a battle against the unseen ghost crafted delicately within their own minds. Who are they really fighting? Certainly not the memory of Rebecca. Rather, their own insecurities, traumas, and most fatal flaws are revealed.

2. ...in a moment the dark trees had thinned, the nameless shrubs had disappeared, and on either side of us was a wall of colour, blood-red, reaching far above our heads. We were amongst the rhododendrons. There was something bewildering, even shocking, about the suddenness of their discovery" (66).

Striking descriptive language. Rebecca is written with such painstaking detail, and the descriptions don't merely float at the top of chapters before the reader dives into the more serious plotwork. The figurative language plays an important role in developing the characterization of the setting, which is featured prominently as the metaphorical existence of the dead Rebecca within the text. Manderley is more than just a beautiful and mysterious mansion on the seaside--it reflects the inner emotional state, longings, desires, and motivations of its inhabitants. The house harkens the past, foreshadows the future, and eventually represents the aftermath of the story's events.

I recently read a book that attempted to personify the house in which the story took place. In a book review, someone had commented that the final effect felt very much like a high school creative writing prompt. Rebecca exemplifies how one can utilize this tactic to perfection. The result is eerie, achingly beautiful, and terrifyingly bizarre.

3. "The sky above our heads was an inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea (386).

The quality of a living nightmare. Rebecca is categorized as a romantic psychological thriller, a very interesting intersection between two genres, neither of which entirely fit the novels true character. There is a nightmarish and shocking quality to the writing and the plot, and the elements of psychopathy, murder, and arson all contribute to the categorization of the book. It is the psychological torture of the main characters, particularly by their perception of the deceased Rebecca, that truly identifies the text with this department of literature. 

And then we must address the romance between the unnamed protagonist and the widowed Maxim de Winter. The book begins by describing a future time when they are together, away from the destructive qualities of Manderley's unerasable memories, happy in whatever way is possible after the trauma of their experiences. The rest of the story is told in flashback, and as the reader sees the intrepid couple suffer through brutal misunderstandings that threaten to drown them, there are still glimpses of their true love for one another. Eventually, we know, they must conquer this strife and persevere, but so much of the story revolves around their parallel and intersecting conflicts that it is hard to view the novel as a true romance.

Rebecca is one of the best classics that I have read in some time, and although I found myself marking and highlighting page and after page of memorable language, I wanted to read without interruption. There are times when you read a book and know that it will come back into your life at some near point in the future, and that is how I feel about Rebecca. I am only disappointed in one thing: that I did not encounter it sooner.