Book Review: ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier (1930s romantic Gothic suspense)
I first read Daphne du Maurier’s most beloved novel in the winter of 2015 and I fell head over heels in love with it. The atmosphere, the tension, the shocking reveal and the ending. It’s a spectacular novel and I’ve been trying to convince Sarah to read it for years so I’m very pleased with myself for convincing her that it needed to be our dark academia adjacent title for season nine of The Dark Academicals.
On a trip to the South of France, the shy heroine of Rebecca falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower. Although his proposal comes as a surprise, she happily agrees to marry him. But as they arrive at her husband's home, Manderley, a change comes over Maxim, and the young bride is filled with dread. Friendless in the isolated mansion, she realises that she barely knows him. In every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca, and the new Mrs de Winter walks in her shadow.
Not since Jane Eyre has a heroine faced such difficulty with the other woman. An international bestseller that has never gone out of print, Rebecca is the haunting story of a young girl consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity.
I have to admit that when I started re-reading ‘Rebecca’ I was a little worried that I misremembered the experience of reading this novel, and it does have a slow start and it’s a little hard to catch your bearings at first, but the slightly bumpy start is so very worth it.
Daphne du Maurier is a master of atmosphere and suspense, but in a way that doesn’t make you feel like you’re reading a thriller; in fact, it’s the opposite. This novel is a slow build of tension and clues, misdirection and a suffocating aura of impending doom. Whether it’s the way that our unnamed protagonist is treated by her companion Mrs Van Hopper, how she is tricked by Mrs Danvers, or how she is constantly infantilised by Maxim, there’s a bubbling of something sinister at work underneath all of the pretty pictures of Monte Carlo and Manderley.
There are many villains in ‘Rebecca’ and it would be remiss of me not to talk about Mrs Danvers further. As the housekeeper of Manderley and a confidant of the first Mrs De Winter, the titular Rebecca, the arrival of a new lady of the house causes her to spiral and conspire to make the new Mrs De Winter miserable through her devotion to her tragically departed mistress. It’s both impossible to see how she could treat Mrs De Winter is such a way, but it’s also understandable how disruptive Rebecca’s absence from Manderley is and grief does make itself known in different ways for everybody. In a place where Mrs De Winter is so new and so alone, Mrs Danvers could have had a friendship to rival that of what she held with Rebecca, but instead she was blinded by some misguided loyalty, and jealousy, instead. She’s a wonderful character, and I hate her gleefully.
Not everyone would view Maxim as a villain, and I really can’t decide whether I see him as such either, but it’s very hard to explain why without spoiling the enormous twist that occurs about three quarters of the way into ‘Rebecca’. Maxim does some terrible things, but there’s also a justification behind them, but that’s not the main claim for villainy that sits in my mind: it’s the way he treats his new, young wife.
The new Mrs De Winter is young, innocent, and blindly in love with Maxim, three things which he seems to revel in and almost take advantage of in asking her to marry him and join him in a life at Manderley. He both reveres her youth and innocence, and also uses it as a weapon against her when she is thrust into a lonely society life that she is underprepared for. Watching her being taken advantage of is heartbreaking and her desperation to be loved and feel at home at Manderley is undermined and manipulated at every turn, by Mrs Danvers and by Maxim. Until he needs her support, that is. The shift between them after Maxim’s confession is staggering, but still feels authentic and true to the characters. Du Maurier was not only a master of atmosphere and setting, but of character development too.
While the slower start on this reread made me slightly miss out on the five star rating that I gave the novel when I read read it in 2015, I can still safely say that ‘Rebecca’s is a stunning novel and holds its place on my list of favourites with ease.
Written by Sophie
