Thoughts on Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Welcome to Beware of Creepy Houses where I share my thoughts on ghost stories and other creepy tales, recommend spooky yarns, and post writing prompts to help you with your own eerie (or not!) creative writing.
It’s the darkest time of the year, which is the perfect time to wrap up warm with something Gothic and very few houses are creepier than Manderley.
Today we are by the English sea and travelling across Europe, avoiding the past in all its forms. Have a seat. It’s almost time for tea.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
I recently re-read Rebecca for the Best Book Forward Book Club. It’s one of my favourite novels, which I’ve revisited many times, but on this re-reading, Maxim de Winter appeared more sinister than ever, perhaps due to my spending a lot of time recently in the head of Gaslight’s Bella Manningham - unfortunately for health reasons I’m not in the final play, but if you do manage to get along to Formby Little Theatre to see it, you’ll have a great time as it’s a wonderful show!
Rebecca’s opening is iconic.
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.
It’s such a simple line, with none of the complexities of truths universally acknowledged or the best and worst of times, but it still manages to create an atmosphere, even on a first reading.
What follows it the dream itself, which builds up the beautiful imagery of Manderley as it was and as it is, and introduces our narrator and her present life. She then seamlessly takes us back to her younger days as a companion to the unsophisticated and crass Mrs Van Hopper (remember though that this is a first-person narration told through one person’s eyes…) and their trip to Monte Carlo during which she meets the handsome and refined Maxim de Winter, a widower of less than a year whose wife, the Rebecca of the title, drowned in a tragic boating accident.
What follows is a whirlwind romance, the narrator’s marriage to Maxim and actual arrival at Manderley, and her initial meeting with the terrifyingly frosty Mrs Danvers.
Our narrator tries to make the best of her life as “the second Mrs de Winter”, but is socially awkward, clumsy and naive, none of which are great qualities for the wife of a sociable member of the English gentry. This is definitely not helped by her being some “young girl he picked up in Monte”. She’s also terrified of Mrs Danvers, the west wing (where Rebecca’s rooms were), and Maxim not really being in love with her, but pining for his beautiful and polished dead wife.
But, all at Manderley is not what it seems. Rebecca is not a ghost story in the traditional sense, but this house is haunted by her presence which has a particular impact on our narrator. Mrs Danvers also has a lot of phantom-like qualities that up the fear factor and add so many of the Gothic elements I love about the book. And of course…
You might not want to read any further if you haven’t read the book, so jump to “If you like this” for some recommendations
…Maxim de Winter is not a good person - and there’s the underestimation of the century. Fine, no one in this book is great, including our narrator (except maybe Jasper the dog), but Maxim is a literal murderer who marries someone half his age because he wants exactly what she is working as - a “companion”. An obedient, submissive companion who will fade into the background when he doesn’t want her. And he drags her into his web of lies which literally help him get away with murder.
Of course, he loses his (creepy) house in the process and there’s a lot of debate as to who burns it down. Is it Mrs Danvers, destroying Rebecca’s carefully preserved world to release her soul at last? Is it Favell, in a final act of revenge to make him feel better about getting no money? Is Rebecca actually a ghost? Has Frith just had enough?
We will never know, but Maxim and the second Mrs de Winter are left hiding in small hotels reading the cricket scores days after the final wicket falls; a cruel circle of her ending up exactly where she started…
What I love about this book is the complexity of all our characters and the subtle ways they are shaped by the people around them. Our narrator remains unnamed throughout, only receiving a name from her husband and thereafter referred to as “Mrs de Winter” or “Madam”.
I’ve already made the comparison with Gaslight and Maxim does manipulate our narrator a lot throughout the novel, though it’s definitely less subtle than Jack Manningham’s deeds, and perhaps for less sinister reasons.
Manderley and its surrounding areas are beautiful and you can really picture both the house and land around it. The contrast between the west wing and its view of the turbulent sea, and the east wing looking over neat, manicured rose gardens, are a lovely reflection of the differences between the two Mrs de Winters.
Rebecca is a novel which sits in a particular time and place and I know many readers today don’t get on with its dialogue, manners and the societal expectations placed upon the characters. However, I think there is still a lot we can appreciate today from Rebecca, from carefully filtered lives to horrendous amounts of food waste.
Rebecca is a disorienting book and one which you will find something new in every time you venture through Manderley’s doors.
Oh and fun fact: du Maurier’s grandfather George was a cartoonist who coined the term “bedside manner”, which is used in this novel when Dr Baker is recalling his final appointment with Rebecca.
If you like this…
Read… Jane Eyre which has innumerable parallels with Rebecca, including cake!
Read… Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys which is my favourite alternative point of view retelling ever. Inspired by Jane Eyre and telling the “madwoman in the attic’s” side of the story, if you haven’t read Wide Sargasso Sea before, it might just change your mind about one or two people in Rebecca, as well as Jane Eyre itself.
Read… The Color Purple by Alice Walker in which quiet and insecure Celie is forcibly married to an abusive man whose apparent true love, Shug Avery haunts Celie, her marriage and her home, before turning literally everything upside down.
Watch… Gaslight at Formby Little Theatre which is in its final week; you don’t want to miss this if you’re in the area.
Watch… The Great Gatsby (2013) where Nick Carraway is obsessed with Jay Gatsby who is haunted by Daisy Buchanan who is, well, Daisy Buchanan. Green lights, flappers and all that jazz.
Watch… Channel 4’s Britain’s Novel Landscapes which looks at how British writers were inspired by the land around them. Episode 2 specifically covers Daphne du Maurier and the Cornish coast.
Go for… afternoon tea! Butter some hot crumpets, nibble on angel cake and keep an eye out for Mrs Danvers’ icy stare.
My microfiction, She Fell in the Night, shows there are three sides to every story.
Writing prompt
Rebecca is a haunted house story without a ghost in it.
Everything at Manderley has echoes of Rebecca, from the bright red rhododendrons to the perfectly preserved west wing.
Find an object that represents you or a character you’re working on. Think about the life of that object before you or your character owned it (whether it was brand new in a factory or belonging to someone else), its current life, and what will happen to it when it moves on and how yours (or your character’s) ownership might echo in that object.
Tell a short biographical story from the point of view of your chosen object.
I hope you find this prompt interesting and useful, and I’d love to see anything you write from it.
Please also send over any books you'd like me to cover and let me know what you think of Rebecca.
Sending tricks and treats and little cakes,
Donna
PS I recently listened to a special edition of the Folklore Podcast, which features Grady Hendrix talking about his new novel Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, among other things, including an interesting defence of Twilight and an exploration of the meaning of genre.
Haunted house stories are family stories… I gotta have a family in this if it’s gonna be about a haunted house.
Would definitely recommend giving it a listen, and if you like the sound of Witchcraft for Wayward Girls it also gets a mention on the latest episode of the Book Riot All the Books podcast.
Beware of Creepy Houses is free to read, but if you would like to support my work, you can buy me a hot chocolate
Rebecca was my mother's favourite book and I remember reading it after her death and being captivated by the past haunting the second Mrs DeWinter's life. There is no ghost as such but the presence of Rebecca is everywhere and Mrs Danvers does everything to ensure the dead woman is not forgotten. No one can replace her. Manderley as a setting is truly wonderful too. Funnily, one of my favourite books and one of the only books I've read more than once is The Great Gatsby - another book about obsession and being haunted by the past.