How Does Du Maurier Present Rebecca In The Novel

How does du Maurier present Rebecca in the novel?

In 1938, ‘Rebecca’ was written by Daphne du Maurier as a ‘study in jealousy’ as opposed to a love story which was how it was perceived when it was published. Throughout the novel themes of femininity, gender roles and relationships feature predominantly along with the exploration of the boundaries between life and death and how the titular character crosses them freely without being present. Du Maurier’s presentation of Rebecca varies from the conflicting aspects of her personality in terms of femininity and how the sheer memory of her lives on in people and objects.

In the novel, Rebecca is presented as the main antagonist because of her hyper-femininity in comparison to the narrator. For

instance, Rebecca’s slippers are described as ‘quite small and narrow’ by Mrs Danvers. Traditionally, having small feet is a sign of increased femininity in women – in China in the 1800s, girls would be made to bind their feet in order to be seen as more attractive to men. In addition, Mrs Danvers’ accusation of the narrator ‘touching [the nightdress]’ reinforces the theme of the second Mrs de Winter’s inferiority to Rebecca because it implies the potential for guilt in the second Mrs de Winter and therefore emphasises the negative features of her character which gives a position of power to Mrs Danvers who is ultimately trying to convince the narrator of Rebecca’s beauty. Moreover, Maxim says to the second Mrs de Winter that his marriage to Rebecca was due to Rebecca’s ‘beauty, brains, and breeding’. The alliteration in the quote implies that the quote was more than just a fleeting part of an unimportant sentence, it implies that it was a part of a mantra that Maxim had to repeat for himself in order to feign confidence in his first marriage to Rebecca. All of the things in the list are preferred features of the ‘perfect’ woman: beauty to be displayed to the public, brains to run the estate, breeding to ensure their children purity of ancestry. Previously, the narrator had been told that she was ‘not like [Rebecca]’ and that implies that the second Mrs de Winter had neither ‘beauty, brains [nor] breeding’. This affirms the narrator’s suspicions that she will always pale in comparison to Rebecca because Rebecca is seen as the ideal wife.

However, Rebecca is simultaneously shown as the antagonist due to her refusal to abide by her society’s standards for women. We can see this when Mrs Danvers describes a painting in which ‘[Rebecca] was painted on horseback’ but also says that ‘[Mr de Winter] would not have it at Manderley.’ In the 1920s, when this novel is based, horseback riding was understood as an exclusively male activity and to tread the boundaries of perceived femininity was scandalous. Maxim’s refusal to display the picture shows that he was embarrassed and displeased with his wife’s rejection of her societal duty. Furthermore, ‘[Rebecca] could never have a child’ due to a ‘malformation of the uterus’ which gives reason for Rebecca’s apparent suicide. This shows that society viewed women as objects for childbirth and reproduction, and, although the inability to have children wasn’t a conscious choice, it justifies her being written out of society. This makes Rebecca a victim of the patriarchy but because she did not fully conform, we see her as a villain.
Links between ‘Rebecca’ and Grimm’s fairy tales can be made throughout the novel but particularly in chapter 14 when we discover that ‘[Rebecca] cut her hair’ because ‘short hair was much easier for riding and sailing’. The character of Rapunzel in the eponymous story cuts her hair off to escape the witch holding her captive. We can see the similarities between these two stories in how both characters escape captivity: literally for Rapunzel and metaphorically for Rebecca. Rebecca escapes the tight bounds of female gender roles but cutting her hair – which in itself was considered unfeminine – to excel further in extremely masculine hobbies like ‘riding and sailing’ even though ‘everyone was angry at her’. By rebelling against the pressure of looking and acting a certain way, Rebecca rebels against the patriarchal society she lives in and therefore earns herself the role of antagonist.

Since Rebecca had been dead for a year before the novel takes place, her memory survives by using people as vessels.

This is evidenced early in the novel when Mrs Danvers refers to Rebecca as ‘Mrs de Winter’ when the narrator is picking what to eat. The narrator also ends up telling Mrs Danvers to pick ‘whatever [Mrs Danvers thinks] Mrs de Winter would have ordered’ – in this case, ‘Mrs de Winter’ meaning Rebecca. The second Mrs de Winter referring to Rebecca as ‘Mrs de Winter’ shows that she is devaluing her status in comparison to Rebecca’s and succumbs to her suspicion that Mrs Danvers doesn’t acknowledge her as the true ‘Mrs de Winter’. This is triggered by the use of Rebecca’s memory from a source of power within the hierarchy at Manderley. Another example when we can see the memory of Rebecca imbedding itself in other people is when Maxim reveals the truth about Rebecca’s death. He states that ‘[Rebecca’s] shadow between [him and the narrator] all the time. [Rebecca’s] damned shadow keeping us from one another.’ In this quote, it is clear that the ‘shadow’ is a metaphor for the lack of closeness and comfort with each other in their relationship as shadows tend to carry negative connotations due to their state being the absence of light. This shows that even though the second Mrs de Winter was unaware that her husband murdered his late wife, the thought of Rebecca’s death in Maxim’s mind was still enough to drive a wedge between them. That memory of Rebecca infests itself in Maxim to the point where Maxim starts to give it human features and subconsciously gives it power to invade his

life.