An Analysis Of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” (du Maurier 7) In the European classic, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, the author establishes an atmosphere of fear and mystery through its suspenseful plot. Rebecca expanded the genre of modern gothic literature and gained the interest of readers throughout Europe. du Maurier makes the reader want to keep reading and find out how Rebecca de Winter died. This novel’s plot, characterization, and theme are the reasons Rebecca is considered a European classic and taught to students across the world. The novel’s plot is set up in a form of the narrator’s flashback of her and her husband’s, Maxim de Winter lives together. In the exposition, the narrator and Maxim are living elsewhere in Europe because their home was just destroyed in a fire. The narrator, who remains unnamed throughout the novel, describes to the reader how Maxim and her met in Monte Carlo while she was working as a companion for an Mrs. Van Hopper. After Maxim and the narrator fall in love, the two get

Rebecca is entirely based on moving on from the past. Each character has to cope with Rebecca’s death in a way to allow them to move on. “We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still too close to us. The things we have tried to forget and put behind us would stir again, and that sense of fear, of furtive unrest, struggling at length to blind unreasoning panic-now mercifully stilled, thank God-might in some manner unforeseen become a living companion, as it had been before.” (du Maurier 10). Rebecca’s death causes jealousy amongst Mrs. Danvers and the narrator. Mrs. Danvers is jealous that someone replaced Rebecca, and the narrator is jealous that she is not Rebecca since everyone compares the two wives. Also Rebecca’s death is a complete lie. For months everyone believed that Rebecca drowned to death, but it was a lie. Maxim actually murdered his wife,