The Rebecca Sparknotes

A. Summary

The novel begins with a nameless couple traveling throughout Europe and living hotel to hotel, constantly reminiscing on their previous residence, the Manderley, which was burnt to the ground. The story then features a flashback about a young girl traveling with an older woman named Mrs. Van Hopper. They are staying in Monte Carlo when her employers came across an old friend, Maxim de Winters, and they have tea. After treating the narrator rudely, he makes up for it by insisting to have lunch with her. Meeting in secret for only a few weeks, Maxim insists she marry him. Once the news was broken to Mrs. Van Hopper, who insisted it was a big mistake, the two get married. Shortly after, they return to his mansion, The Manderley. She

With Mrs. Danvers, Rebecca’s servant, still runs the house and maintains it as Rebecca would have wanted, intimidating the narrator in the process. Maxim’s sister, Beatrice, and the overseer of the house, Frank Crawley, encourage the heroine to continue trying to make the home hers and to not be intimidated. Still, the heroine never felt like she was able to hold herself to the same standards that Rebecca did. All everyone ever tells her is how beautiful, smart, funny, elegant, and perfect she was and how well she took on social gatherings and duties of the house. Her mind became clouded with the idea that her husband was still in love with his first wife and that she would never be able to compare. To try and prove herself, the heroine takes on the task of putting together a huge costume ball that was thrown every year at The Manderley. Finally feeling appreciated, she takes costume advice from Mrs. Danvers, which leads the ball to end in disaster. Mrs. Danvers put the heroine in Rebecca’s costume from the previous year causing Maxim to go into a fit of rage. The next day, as Mrs. Danvers is talking the heroine into suicide, the wreckage of Rebecca’s ship is found

Confused, the narrator confronts her husband who reveals the truth of Rebecca’s death. Rebecca was a selfish, evil, adulterer who used to take her lovers out to the boat house. When Maxim confronted her, she told him she was pregnant with her lover’s child and that child would become the heir to The Manderley. Maxim shot her, locked her in the cabin of her boat, poked holes in the bottom, and set the ship off to sink. The confession prompts the narrator to realize that her husband did love her and that the burden of outshining Rebecca was removed. As the two are finally happy, the discovery of the body in the boat casted a large spot light on Maxim. The local magistrate, Colonel Julyan, discovers that Rebecca went to see a doctor on the day of her death. Doctor Baker reveals that Rebecca had cancer and was infertile. Colonel Julyan takes the news as her motive and rules that Rebecca’s death was a suicide. The heroine and her husband, finally free of the Rebecca’s ghost, drive together to the Manderley. Stopping only once, the couple discover that Mrs. Danvers has disappeared. Confused, the couple continues driving until they reach the smoldering mansion. The home they were finally able to enjoy together had been destroyed in an