Rebecca Context:
Daphne Du Maurier had an alter ego called Eric Avon.
Du Maurier said that her novel was a “study in jealousy”
She had identity issues, believing she had been born into the wrong body
and possessed masculine energy
Her father was cold, distant, and aloof – he had many intimate affairs and
treated women unfairly, her mother did not show much affection for her
leaving her feel like an “orphan.”
She grew up in a very artistic background, put saw her potential could
have been locked a lot earlier.
She married a man called Boy Browning. Their relationship seemed
perfect and was platonic, but things deteriorated and when he came back
from the war, they were no longer interested with each other. Anger and
resentment had built up between them and Du Maurier had enacted to
experiment with her sexuality by having lesbian affairs with Ellen
Doubleday and Gertrude Lawrence.
When she was having her first child, she painted the room blue. When a
prospective nanny came along to visit the house she said would not it be
a bit awkward if it was a girl and she said, “God forbid!”
Her previous husband had an affair with a black haired societal beauty
called Jan Ricardo, she flung herself in front of a train and committed
suicide just like Rebecca.
It can be said that if Du Maurier was writing this post – modern,
contemporary time she would have unlocked her potential and having
been writing with more freedom and may have expressed her struggle
with identity a lot more easily because it would have been appreciated
more by this environment.
Du Maurier was paradoxical and complex with her thinking, she valued
women over men but strongly believed men should take precedence over
women when it came to all matters.
She initially was going to call Maxim, Henry – thought it sounded more
interesting and exotic.
She was fascinated by imaginary worlds, more of an idealist rather than a
realist.
, She had a home called Menabilly – setting for Manderley, she loved
menabilly more than she loved people, preservation of places, symbolise
themselves.
Quotations:
THE DREAM OF MANDERLEY: “twisting and turning,” “her stealthy,
insidious way,” “long tenacious fingers,” “naked limbs,” “straggled cheek
by jowl”
NARRATOR THE ONE IN CONTROL: “wonderfully patient,” “there is a
certain devil that torments us and rides us, which we must give battle in
the end,” “a mask will form, a sculptured thing,” “we have conquered
ours, or so we believe”
INTRODUCTION OF MAXIM’S CHARACTER: “Gentlemen Unknown,” “Hound
of Heaven,” “shimmering rapier blades, dim dungeons, shadows in
doorsteps,” “he would stare down at us in our new world, a long distance
off”
REBECCA’S HANWRITING: “R... dwarfing the other letters,” “ink bubbled
through the nib...a little too thick” - motif of handwriting
ENTERING MANDERLEY: “crimson faces”, “rhododendrons”, “white lovely
stems”, “slaughterous red”, “monstrous”, “another time, another world”,
“like a child brought to her first school”, “the warm light would come in
intermittent waves to dapple the drive with gold”, “branched nodded and
intermingled”, “blood-red, luscious”, “massed like a battalion”, “too
beautiful, I thought too powerful”,
INTRODUCTION OF MRS DANVERS: “hollow eyes gave her a skull’s face,”
“parchment white,” “heavy, deathly cold,” “lifeless thing,” “voice as cold
and lifeless,” “smile of scorn,” stoops low to give her glove, symbolic of
perseverance to undermine her.
THE DRAWING ROOM: “a woman’s room, graceful, fragile...harmony”, the
rhododendrons form their “theatre” on the lawn and in the room itself,
they are on the writing desk as wells, Rebecca’s unrelentless presence,
motif of handwriting, “great warm faces” - juxtaposition, deception,
manipulation, entice to harm.
Daphne Du Maurier had an alter ego called Eric Avon.
Du Maurier said that her novel was a “study in jealousy”
She had identity issues, believing she had been born into the wrong body
and possessed masculine energy
Her father was cold, distant, and aloof – he had many intimate affairs and
treated women unfairly, her mother did not show much affection for her
leaving her feel like an “orphan.”
She grew up in a very artistic background, put saw her potential could
have been locked a lot earlier.
She married a man called Boy Browning. Their relationship seemed
perfect and was platonic, but things deteriorated and when he came back
from the war, they were no longer interested with each other. Anger and
resentment had built up between them and Du Maurier had enacted to
experiment with her sexuality by having lesbian affairs with Ellen
Doubleday and Gertrude Lawrence.
When she was having her first child, she painted the room blue. When a
prospective nanny came along to visit the house she said would not it be
a bit awkward if it was a girl and she said, “God forbid!”
Her previous husband had an affair with a black haired societal beauty
called Jan Ricardo, she flung herself in front of a train and committed
suicide just like Rebecca.
It can be said that if Du Maurier was writing this post – modern,
contemporary time she would have unlocked her potential and having
been writing with more freedom and may have expressed her struggle
with identity a lot more easily because it would have been appreciated
more by this environment.
Du Maurier was paradoxical and complex with her thinking, she valued
women over men but strongly believed men should take precedence over
women when it came to all matters.
She initially was going to call Maxim, Henry – thought it sounded more
interesting and exotic.
She was fascinated by imaginary worlds, more of an idealist rather than a
realist.
, She had a home called Menabilly – setting for Manderley, she loved
menabilly more than she loved people, preservation of places, symbolise
themselves.
Quotations:
THE DREAM OF MANDERLEY: “twisting and turning,” “her stealthy,
insidious way,” “long tenacious fingers,” “naked limbs,” “straggled cheek
by jowl”
NARRATOR THE ONE IN CONTROL: “wonderfully patient,” “there is a
certain devil that torments us and rides us, which we must give battle in
the end,” “a mask will form, a sculptured thing,” “we have conquered
ours, or so we believe”
INTRODUCTION OF MAXIM’S CHARACTER: “Gentlemen Unknown,” “Hound
of Heaven,” “shimmering rapier blades, dim dungeons, shadows in
doorsteps,” “he would stare down at us in our new world, a long distance
off”
REBECCA’S HANWRITING: “R... dwarfing the other letters,” “ink bubbled
through the nib...a little too thick” - motif of handwriting
ENTERING MANDERLEY: “crimson faces”, “rhododendrons”, “white lovely
stems”, “slaughterous red”, “monstrous”, “another time, another world”,
“like a child brought to her first school”, “the warm light would come in
intermittent waves to dapple the drive with gold”, “branched nodded and
intermingled”, “blood-red, luscious”, “massed like a battalion”, “too
beautiful, I thought too powerful”,
INTRODUCTION OF MRS DANVERS: “hollow eyes gave her a skull’s face,”
“parchment white,” “heavy, deathly cold,” “lifeless thing,” “voice as cold
and lifeless,” “smile of scorn,” stoops low to give her glove, symbolic of
perseverance to undermine her.
THE DRAWING ROOM: “a woman’s room, graceful, fragile...harmony”, the
rhododendrons form their “theatre” on the lawn and in the room itself,
they are on the writing desk as wells, Rebecca’s unrelentless presence,
motif of handwriting, “great warm faces” - juxtaposition, deception,
manipulation, entice to harm.
