Last Night I Went To Manderley Again

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Rebecca, A Novel With Only One Certainty: Uncertainty.

Since the dawn of time, the ideas of romance and mystery have captivated humans and transcended cultures. We desire the unknown; it’s human nature. The introduction of literature to the masses only amplified this primitive instinct. Extending from Roman theatre, to the Elizabethan Age, to the twenty-first century, the cultural phenomenon makes itself irrefutably present in literary movements and our mundane, everyday lives alike. Many have attempted to write a novel that encapsulates the masses, and many have failed. However, a few have succeeded in publishing works that draw the reader in from start to finish and ultimately change the way society thinks as a whole. Among these …show more content…

Although Manderley is the estate the de Winter’s live on, Manderley is far more than simply a house. Manderley is a feeling. Manderley is a being; Manderley, in gothic literature terms, embodies the looming presence of a castle that Mrs. de Winter has come to reside in. Only a short while ago, Manderley was the famous cover of a “picture postcard in a village shop” (63), and now, Manderley was her home. Still in shock, Mrs. de Winter is forced to command the estate as her own, even though she lacks the self-assurance to do so. Mrs. de Winter controls Manderley, however, it seems as though Manderley actually controls her. The walls mock her, as for she constantly feels “for one desperate moment, I thought that...I was seeing back into Time, and looking upon the room as it used to be, before she died” (165). In Mrs. de Winter’s mind, Manderley is a castle in which Rebecca, Mr. de Winter’s late ex-wife, is the queen of. Consequently, Mrs. de Winter feels like a gauche child, roaming the immense halls of Manderley and endlessly questioning whether or not she truly belongs there. The entire substance of the house, servants and all, looms over her. However, none of the servants antagonize her even a fraction as much as the head housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. “When I looked back at the house...I could only see...the windows in the west wing...someone was standing there...and I knew it was Mrs. Danvers. She had been watching me” …show more content…

Mrs. de Winter’s journey through her thoughts, “loneliness, and very great distress” (5) is the complete central conflict and voice of Rebecca. This simply has gothic written all over it. Subsequently, the crippling and meticulous self-doubt Mrs. de Winter experiences draws to the reader’s emotions and truly lets the reader explore within the self-doubt and childish instincts that they and we all have. “Somewhere at the back of my mind, there was a frightened furtive seed of curiosity that grew slowly and stealthily” (120). Mrs. de Winter is a slave to Rebecca’s memory, and her jealousy of Rebecca festers like an open wound in her mind. Nonetheless, the mere thought of Rebecca transforms throughout the book like a dynamic character of its own. Initially, Mrs. de Winter’s mind celebrated speaking the name “Rebecca” as a “tremendous relief” (123), as almost a form of guilty pleasure, almost. As time goes on, however, rancor forms around even the letters of the word, and a cycle of obsessive self-comparison takes over and destroys Mrs. de Winter’s life at Manderley. The simple thought of Rebecca never lets go of the reigns and dictates Mrs. de Winter’s every move as if Rebecca is a puppeteer, and Mrs. de Winter is a pathetic marionette. Mrs. de Winter continues to battle this war against Rebecca’s memory and her own cycle of silent suffering, “but the sky on the horizon was not dark at all”

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