Conflict Between Mrs Danvers And Rebecca

Moreover, the narrator manifests signs of transgression as she comes to identify with Rebecca and comes to terms with her adult sexuality. For most of the narrative, the narrator displays a plain shy, innocent, docile character. However, Blackford points at the erotic nature of the narrator’s post as a female companion to Mrs. Van Hopper (234). The same post is suggested again by the narrator with Maxim “I’ll be your friend and your companion, a sort of boy” (du Maurier 269). Horner and Zlosnik emphasize this prospect through declaring that the narrator’s identity is more complex than it might appear and more importantly that in writing her tale she hints at the “most mysterious secret of all: the nature of female identity” (Daphne du

Maurier 125).
The housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers becomes another focal point of analysis because of her unusual obsession with her late lady.

In fact, the feminine triangle formed between the narrator, Mrs. Danvers, and Rebecca fuels the queer sexuality subtext of the novel. In spite of the fact that no actual physical relation takes place between any of them, but Horner and Zlosnik refer to the sexually suggestive scene where the narrator explores Rebecca’s bedroom (Daphne du Maurier 121). The narrator feels the clothes and accessories as Mrs. Danvers creating a highly sensual atmosphere with her encouraging whispers. The narrator combines intimation and fear in her description of Mrs. Danvers’ voice “her voice ingratiating and sweet as honey, horrible, false” , and she comments elsewhere “ and her voice was low and intimate, a voice I hated and feared” (du Maurier 170-71). Mrs. Danvers is a siren call for the narrator rendering her both tempted and afraid. Furthermore, the authors describe Mrs. Danvers as a character that acts to blur the lines between life/death, darkness/light, heterosexuality / homosexuality, femininity/ masculinity which gives rise to the intense position that this character occupies (Daphne du Maurier 122). Indeed, Mrs. Danvers is part of an all-female

triangle that alienates the patriarch and renders the relationship between her, the narrator, and Rebecca much more important than the narrator’s relation to Maxim (Horner and Zlosnik, Daphne du Maurier 122). Not only that, but Mrs. Danvers’ obvious and undisputable devotion and adoration to Rebecca expand upon Rebecca’s mentioned aura of sexual queerness. Mair Rigby applies the queer theory to Frankenstein and provides an interesting and quite insightful approach to Justine’s attachment to Elizabeth Lavenza and Caroline Frankenstein. The article points at a surge in female homoerotic desire as Caroline nurses Justine to recovery. The trope of nursing and caring for the ill is especially significant and important when directed towards another female not a male. Considered as a breach in the general rule of a female giving herself entirely to the male comfort and pleasure, this scenario serves to highly expose the female same-sex desires and bond (Rigby 481). In addition to Rebecca’s established queerness and defiance of the patriarchal boundaries, Mrs. Danvers acts to further challenge these boundaries through her position first and her level of adoration second. Mrs. Danvers is a housekeeper; therefore she is neither a part nor member of the family nor fits the ranks of servants. She attends to Rebecca and has her own account of her which shows Rebecca as a rather intriguing, charismatic, and strong character opposite to that of Maxim. She is able to exercise more power over the narrator than Maxim is. She is the “keeper of the keys” who opens the realm of feminine sexuality for the narrator to behold and actually locks Maxim and his second wife up to ensure they do not escape the inquisition. As the keeper of secrets and the “guardian of the threshold to knowledge”, Mrs. Danvers is a figure “more potent than Maxim” (Horner and Zlosnik, Daphne du Maurier 121). The power that Mrs. Danvers seems to inherit from Rebecca and her ability to keep Rebecca alive throughout the narrative upsets the balance that the male tries to maintain.
Another triangle is formed between Rebecca, the narrator, and Maxim which demonstrates another instant of Maxim’s alienation.

Despite the fact that Maxim is an essential part of this triangle, he is objectified and acts as a mediator between Rebecca and the narrator (Wallace 50). Moreover, the tension between Rebecca and the narrator comes into play in different faces. Adoration, rivalry, sympathy, a slippage into a latent desire, and a longing to identify with Rebecca can be perceived as well as the relation between the women morphs throughout the narrative. However, the relation between them from a queer perspective can be summarized with the terms of the narrator’s desire for Rebecca or to identify with and be Rebecca. The ‘or’ here is necessitated by Judith Butler who proclaims that the two desires are exclusive terms (Rigby 481). When one of these desires exists in a person, it automatically erases the other desire. However, Butler claims that they can co-exist because in their “mutually exclusive relation” the desires “serve a heterosexual agenda” (Rigby 481). In addition, Rigby’s analysis stipulates that “Justine cannot want both to be Caroline and have Caroline” (481). Nevertheless, Frankenstein’s Justine raises the proposition that the desires coexist in the text (Rigby 481). This is quite applicable in the argument at hand. Rebecca’s narrator struggles with these desires, the desire to be Rebecca and the desire to have Rebecca. It also happens that one

is the result of the other. Due to thinking herself constantly being compared to Rebecca, the narrator makes it clear that she desires to ‘be’ in order to supposedly satisfy Maxim. As the novel progresses, the narrator’s reactions to Rebecca harbor the desire to have the woman that she thinks haunts her and whom she feels she knows very well (du Maurier 237). In fact, the narrator’s rivalry with Rebecca comes to fuel both desires and diminish the patriarchal hold.
In brief, Rebecca provides a more pronounced account of queer sexuality than Jane Eyre. It is namely intended to weaken the patriarchal hold that the Victorian novels reinforce including Jane Eyre. Bronte’s novel seem to regret the established feminine independence it sets from the beginning and presents a way to redeem the domineering patriarch at the end, purifying him and emphasizing his voice. Du Maurier’s modernism enables her to choose a path that shows a degradation of this patriarch who forever haunted by the memory of a powerful woman and unable to break her force declare that he has “lost the little chance of happiness”.