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Our Themed BOTM for June is Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Please discuss the book here. Not everyone starts at the same time or reads at the same pace, so please remember to use spoiler tags so that everyone may participate.



Book Summary
The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives--presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.

I have already read it and listened to it (audiobook) lots of times (I love it, it's one of my favourite books). May I participate (it'll be quite difficult for me, because I even know some parts of the book by heart, but...)?

Absolutely, Catarina! The more the merrier in the discussions. Just make sure to use spoiler tags when needed.

I'm going to really try and get round to this one this month I've been wanting to read it for a few years now.

Thank you, Kristie! :)

This has been on my list to read for a very long time! I've got the audio from the library to pick up on Friday :)

I started this last month and i am still reading it. I look forward to joining in...but not spoiling it for anyone.

Love this book. Love the movie as well.

I decided instead f finishing the book i would start over. I had gotten nearly to the end of the book but this way it will still be a surprise had it turns out.

I like the first person point of view. It really does sound like i am in her head.

Do you think it sounded like that to you? I tend to over analyze things, so really could identify with her. Plus i am an only child...and the narrator sounds like an only child, in her insecurities and the fact that she doesn't have anyone to test her "reality".

Any thoughts on this?

Was the author an only child? I am going to read about her on wiki now.

Edit: i went to the first post on this thread and read she was an orphan. Having felt like an orphan as a child I related to her a lot. I am surprised. Now for those that did not have this experience how foreign was the way she thought to how you might have behaved in a similar situation (view spoiler)[ after she was married and living at M? (hide spoiler)]

Her grandfather wrote Trilby.

I have read this and really liked it.

"His second novel Trilby, was published in 1894. It fitted into the gothic horror genre which was undergoing a revival during the fin de siecle, and the book was hugely popular. The story of the poor artist's model Trilby O'Ferrall, transformed into a diva under the spell of the evil musical genius Svengali, created a sensation. Soap, songs, dances, toothpaste, and even the city of Trilby in Florida, were all named for the heroine, and the variety of soft felt hat with an indented crown that was worn in the London stage dramatization of the novel, is known to this day as a trilby. The plot inspired Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel Phantom of the Opera and the innumerable works derived from it. Du Maurier eventually came to dislike the persistent attention given to his novel."

He wrote illustrations for Punch magazine. I wonder if Daphne had a set of puppets as a child and how thie may have facilitated her story telling process?

Also i would like to read Phantom Of The Opera now.

Excitement! I ended up with a copy of this when my friend brought me a $1 bag full of books from a library sale. Looking forward to a bit of gothic fun.

Took me all day to make it to page 8 but now all I want to do is read this book.

I am on chapter 19 and i don't want to spoil this for anyone so (view spoiler)[

This is what i wrote on my review for the book.

I am not quite through with the book but wanted to note somethings that occured to me. I am always looking for ways to relate this story to other problems. I think this story tells the story of the man's family that loved his ex wife. The mother can't understand what he sees in this immature little girl. The new bride also sees herself at a disadvantage. She is young and doesn't have a lot of history and what she does have doesn't make her feel very remarkable. She sees her inadequacy but she is committed to the relationship. She can't believe that her husband is not still in love with his wife that drowned. Not only this but the wife is made into a heroine all the way through the story, just because she died. We can see this is with an ex wife that acts like the victim and gets the child and all the sympathies of the husband's family. While despising the new wife as an intruder.

Of course this is not the exact story line at all....but I think seeing it in this light helps to add a certain slant that expands its social dynamic. (hide spoiler)]

I am now on chapter 22 (view spoiler)[ i have started thinking about Jon Bennett. How they are treating this family as something special. How if they had less influence they would treat them like the new Mrs. Winters felt in the very beginning. But now this big secret had changed her. Has harden her. And i have read that people are united in hatred and existence.

What do you think about the story? (hide spoiler)]

I'm just starting it ... Hope it's good.

Love this book! It's one of my all-time favorite books.

I finished this the other day...
(view spoiler)[ The ending struck me as abrupt and sensationalist, although I guess in a sense the beginning is really the ending. I went back and read some of the beginning with the events of the book overall in mind. There were a lot of things I was left wondering, though, such as the fate of the servants and Jasper. It's mentioned he died, but was it in the fire? Poor little Furball. It's amazing someone as horrid as Rebecca could have everyone fooled into thinking she was the greatest person in every way. Mrs. Danvers seemed to be the only one not fooled. She mentions that Rebecca cared for nothing and no one, which is a pretty horrible personality trait, but yet, for all her insight into Rebecca, she was feverishly devoted to her. Perhaps it came of having raised her as a child? Of course, beyond that fact, we don't really get any character building for Mrs. Danvers. I loved it when the narrator finally stood up to her, although her victory was short lived. (hide spoiler)]

Cosmic wrote: "I decided instead f finishing the book i would start over. I had gotten nearly to the end of the book but this way it will still be a surprise had it turns out.

I like the first person point of v..."

Ah I hadn't thought of her being an only child, but this does make sense. She is a bit of a loner, doesn't seem to connect well with others or have any family. Not that I am saying all single children are like this, but I think she has probably been on her own for a while

Ericka wrote: "I finished this the other day...
[spoilers removed]"

I also (view spoiler)[ found the ending quite abrupt. But on reflection I liked it because it goes to a "rebirth" of sorts for the De Winters. I still wonder why Maxim married Rebecca, and for that matter, the narrator. He was never an easy character to understand or like.
I also loved it when she stood up to Mrs Danvers. Old croak she was!! (hide spoiler)]

My thoughts on the book....

With similarities to Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, this is a story that stands on it's own. I loved the writing style which is at times lyrical, and almost always full of tension. The book is at it's core is exactly what du Marurier herself claimed, "a study of jealousy" and includes some very distinct and unlikeable characters along side the heroine who is naive and taken advantage of.
It has taken me a very long time to finally read this book and I imagine I will do so again in the future. The audio narration is also very good.

The parts that stuck out to me the most were the (view spoiler)[ fancy ball scene. It was just so obvious how she was being manipulated into wearing that costume. Urgh! And also when Maxim tells the narrator the truth about Rebecca and her reaction to that! (hide spoiler)]

I know this is a little out there but i did look for something a little deeper in this story. I kean why was he in Morocco? How did she meet the lady that she was being paid to be a friend. She and her daughter then go back to New York.

If all these were historical figures instead of people what might she be saying.


So I started to look at Morocco and WW1. I haven't decided anything definitive between the story and the history...but there really were a lot of books back then that were trying to tell history without exposing themselves. Given that the author was in the upper echelons perhaps she knew something.

If you know a book that you believe reads like a novel but is an allegory, i am interested! If you would be interested in reading something like this i highly recommend Bambi

I find it fascinating and quite intriguing that the heroine never is given a first name. She refers to herself as Mrs Maxim deWinters. I find her thoughts are always aiming to please Max and when she can't she is all befuddled. Like she is his shadow or that she doesn't exist outside of her husband and married life. I think this is the reason she feels drawn to Daphne and yet hates that she is and feels guilt.

Have not finished the book so am looking forward to a few answers...Maybe.

might look into Morocco during the same time period as I have similar questions as to why they all were there...besides that the author put them there. lol

My favorite book! I named my son from this book.

Any thoughts on the age difference between Maxim and the narrator?

Anecdotally, I know there are cases of happy, well-matched couples with extreme age differences, but I tend to think this is the exception to the general rule that it would be hard to relate to someone as a true partner and spouse if that person is old enough to either be your parent or your child. Of course, that brings up the idea of what is generally considered a happy/good marriage, and to some degree that will be culturally determined. I feel like the narrator is a throwback to the Victorian Angel in the House ideal, which is definitely not what most modern women would consider ideal, and I'm guessing also not what many "modern" women of the author's day would have considered ideal.

Ericka wrote: "Any thoughts on the age difference between Maxim and the narrator?."

I wonder if, on some level, Maxim was drawn to the 2nd Mrs. de Winter because she was so young. Younger = childlike = he has more control. Unlike with Rebecca, who did what she wanted and tormented him.

Ericka wrote: "Any thoughts on the age difference between Maxim and the narrator?

Anecdotally, I know there are cases of happy, well-matched couples with extreme age differences, but I tend to think this is the..."

Well i have heard the French equation is twice the woman's age minus seven, is how old the ideal man is supposed to be.

I am not sure that "modern" women have it right either. If they had why are so many of my kids friends from broken families? I am going to take issue with this and say that what they (women) imagined would work, doesn't consider who a man is but rather what a woman needs to work outside the home. Both husband and wife working created a void and disconnect for children. This creates the generation gap, that was never heard of when peasants children worked along side their parents. The whole modern ideal has come to us with the industrial revolution....good and bad.

If you all were interested in studying this I think Anna Karenina would explore both age and marriage...both modern and traditional. But it is also interesting to note that Tolstoy was not happy even though his wife was younger. So I wonder how he would comment on his two heroines Levin and ?.

The other series The Good Earth. This is a series of three books. I did not know that the first time i read it....but it was Mao that appealed to the women. A very interesting point of view. Also, although her parents were Christian missionaries, she reveals how this brought about the communist revolution.

I am a traditionalist in my views of women. I think the best thing a woman can do is "people making". I think the country is worst off for the state that her home has been in. And what is interesting is to look at Anna and V... childhood and to see that they reflect the modern family....where the father is absent and the parents farm their responsibilities (albeit her parents died) to someone else.

meghann wrote: "Ericka wrote: "Any thoughts on the age difference between Maxim and the narrator?."

I wonder if, on some level, Maxim was drawn to the 2nd Mrs. de Winter because she was so young. Younger = child..."

I agree. I think that this is case!

I thought of this quote while reading Rebecca:

"The struggle for existence and hatred are the only thing that unites people."

At first it is existence that unites Maxium to 2ND wife. But then it becomes hatred and then existence again.

I don't like Rebecca as a wife. I admire her abilities but she is not married....she is just using Max. She is or was a trophie wife. The family loved her.....reminds me of another book very similar but also very different

The Age of Innocence

I hope as classic books cross your mind that Rebecca reminds you of you will list them.

This discussion will kee a list of books named. In this way we could make a "string."

meghann wrote: "I wonder if, on some level, Maxim was drawn to the 2nd Mrs. de Winter because she was so young. Younger = child..."

Oh good point. Makes sense. I never really understood how Maxim and the narrator "fell in love" so quickly

Cosmic wrote: "ell i have heard the French equation is twice the woman's age minus seven, is how old the ideal man is supposed to be..."

hmmm... that would make my ideal man in his 70s.... I don't think so.... lol

Karen wrote: "Cosmic wrote: "ell i have heard the French equation is twice the woman's age minus seven, is how old the ideal man is supposed to be..."

hmmm... that would make my ideal man in his 70s.... I don't..."

Wanted to look that up and found this on wiki

I am always interested in patterns. I think we look for them in relationships and we are trying to "understand" the patterns that we observe; which is why we read fiction and why authors i believe write fiction. Our ability to discover those patterns is often limited by experience. I am amazed that Daphne du Maurier was so young when she wrote this book.

So I was reading a review about Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility and thinking about how i might grade each scene in the book...and learn more about finite and infinite relationship.

"Professor Carse writes in the first chapter, "There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play." From that beginning he broadly defines "game" in a way that includes, defines, and lays an analytical foundation for all relationships. The book's subtitle is "A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility," and it is a profound work, practically a unified-field theory of human relationships.
For example, the book contains an interesting theory about sexuality, as being either a finite game (§§ 54-59) or an infinite game (§§ 60-62). The contrast between perceiving sexual relationships as finite or infinite is startling. On a broader (yet surprisingly even more personal) level, in his chapter titled "A Finite Game Occurs Within a World" (ch. 4), Carse explores the individual's struggle with defining, regarding, and regulating the world around oneself in a way that includes everyone around one, or just oneself alone.
The first step in appreciating this book is understanding that any relationship or process can be characterized in "finite" or "infinite" terms. The second step is recognizing that that characterization is almost always a matter of choice and that, by choosing to characterize a relationship as "infinite," one can redefine it in a meaningful and healthy way. After reading this book, you may never look at the world around you, or at any relationship, or at yourself in quite the same way. This book reconfigures thinking about interpersonal reality as deeply as Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" reconfigured thinking about the scientific method."

meghann wrote: "Ericka wrote: "Any thoughts on the age difference between Maxim and the narrator?."

I wonder if, on some level, Maxim was drawn to the 2nd Mrs. de Winter because she was so young. Younger = child..."

She was being paid to be a companion. Something i think Maxim liked. He had character flaws to, of being to busy and not attentive to his wife. To think that three stage he set her in was enough to get her by.

Well this makes me think of how we do this to children. We pursue our own selfish goals like Rebecca and believe that if we put a child in the perfect safe environment she should be happy. Maybe this is why much was made about her (2nd wife) being an only child. Wonder if this is a triad. Wonder if the new Mrs. W is a child? And wonder if it is a biography of sorts? Wonder if her father had created affections for her because he could no longer stand his wife, and he was careless about these ties between his daughter believing that it was deserved. She gave him the daughter his wife the charmed life, the 2nd wife ....has no name, is not identified, that is impersonal. She doesn't exist except that someone recognizes her as Mrs. De Winter's. Even that label has been ripped off someone else.

Strange but when you read a book that is not always when I digest the book. Getting to write about it after a week is helping it become even better.

I was thinking about this quote from the bio of Daphne du Maurier

"In some of her novels, however, she went beyond the technique of the formulaic romance to achieve a powerful psychological realism reflecting her intense feelings about her father, and to a lesser degree, her mother. This vision, which underlies Julius, Rebecca and The Parasites, is that of an author overwhelmed by the memory of her father's commanding presence. In Julius and The Parasites, for example, she introduces the image or a domineering but deadly father and the daring subject of incest."

(view spoiler)[

I wonder if Rebecca is Daphne's mother? And she took on the role of the 2nd wife. The fact that she is an only child and her head space is so alienated from everyone.

I had written this post before but it was deleted somehow.

But i was thinking about how Rebecca and her husband had an idyllic setting. The 2nd wife was brought to this idyllic setting as a child wife....much younger than this middle age man. How many marriages are unfulfilling to a man at this mid-life crisis. Divorce was not really a very good option for people of property. So maybe since they saw people as things to possess the child was too. She should be happy after all they had her as a paid companion....a role she was doing for Mrs.....now she could do for him. Everyone is impersonal in this little drama except 2nd wife...and eventually she sees her interest in becoming impersonal and situated in her role.

I think she is the child and this book is about incest. (hide spoiler)]

I just finished this book during my lunch hour today and I have to say I loved the whole thing (after about page 8).

Does anybody play casting director when they're reading? I don't always do it, but I quickly cast a very posh, salt-and-peppered Kyle MacLachlan as Maxim, and Eva Green as Rebecca. I could never find the right face for Mrs. de Winter, though.

Cosmic wrote: I think she is the child and this book is about incest.

I didn't really look into the author's biography at all while reading this, so I couldn't say much about whether I think this book is about incest. It seems plausible, if you were to read it within that framework.

It is curious why Maxim was so interested in such a young wife. I wonder if it was just a knee-jerk reaction to being married to such a calculating woman who dominated him in nearly every way, or if more conscious motives were at play. It certainly seems like his choice was deliberate, based on his words and deeds.

Laurel wrote: "Cosmic wrote: I think she is the child and this book is about incest.

I didn't really look into the author's biography at all while reading this, so I couldn't say much about whether I think this..."

(view spoiler)[

You might even say that Rebecca's hatred of men might also be a symptom of incest done to her. So that this might be two sides, explored, of the same coin. And we see the 2nd wife morphing and Maxim knows that she has been changed through his violence.

Wonder if we are not actually talking about physical incest but emotional. I know this might be stretching it but one of the quotes I like most is when Maxim say he didn't know companions could be bought. How many mothers have used buying things as a connection or a substitute for emotionally bonding? I have seen it over and over. You get kids that no one wants to be around because their cups are so empty they have had to resort to bad behavior (2nd wife started sneaking around on her employer). But what is a child that "paid to be good"....but a paid companion. It sets up the child for an incestuous relationship with the father. If not physically perhaps emotionally ....codependent. If the child doesn't respond correctly or as prescribed "tennis lessons" she becomes scapegoated..."well you will get what you deserve."

Metaphorically
I think all the adults in 2 wife's life may represent a parental role and figure. Rebecca may be the ideal that her parents wanted her to become that was impossible to ever achieve. She is codependent with the house keeper (another mother figure that transfers her love to this ideal Rebecca that is dead and scapegoats the "child" i.e. second wife. Maybe Rebecca is the ideal self that the house keeper i.e. mother sees herself as being and that through this child she had cannot realize and so scapegoats her.

I think i am ready to reread this book because at first i did not see any of this. (hide spoiler)]

I feel the narrator's chief attraction for Maxim is she is everything Rebecca was not. Rebecca was older, suave, urbane, cold, worldly, and as Laurel mentioned, calculating. The narrator is the picture of unspoiled innocence, and her age and position in the world prior to marrying Maxim help solidify those character traits. Both women seem to represent extremes. Rebecca is so selfish and calculating that she literally cares for nothing and no one, as Mrs. Danvers says. In fact, Mrs. Danvers scornfully informs Rebecca's cousin (can't recall the name) that Rebecca didn't care for him either. She was able to manufacture whatever emotions were appropriate for a given person/scenario, but had no genuine feelings for people...this is basically what a sociopath is, right? And/or a narcissist?

The narrator, on the other extreme, is young, naïve, kind to others, and devoted to Maxim. She lacks that worldly guile and affectation. If I recall correctly, there's a place where she's imagining a scenario in her head, some conversation Maxim and Rebecca might have had, and without realizing it, she starts adopting the facial expressions she feels Rebecca might have used...much to Maxim's annoyance as he sees a cunning there he hadn't seen before...something indeed reflective of Rebecca.

I'm just beginning, but already I love all of her descriptions! Everything is described so vividly it's easy to immerse yourself. I think this will be a good one, thanks for making it the BOTM!

Ericka wrote: "I feel the narrator's chief attraction for Maxim is she is everything Rebecca was not. Rebecca was older, suave, urbane, cold, worldly, and as Laurel mentioned, calculating. The narrator is the pic..."

I like your description of the two women. (view spoiler)[I really appreciate that you labeled Rebecca a sociopath. I don't know when that trait was first recognized,but Here is a page on how to recognize a sociopath: . Narcissism was recognized by the Greeks, but when did they start using the term sociopath?
Rebecca had charm, which is one of the traits of a sociopaths. But at one point Rebecca was a young innocent little girl. What made her not care for men? What created that emotional disconnect to use men and people like she used a pen. I think this is the thread that Daphne du Maurier is exploring.

I am not sure that I have all the different layers of meaning that are given in the Morning Room. I listened to the book and could see a homonym, Mourning Room. We see the art books that narrator gets a a wedding gift is something that breaks the cupid figurine. The narrator, although she lives in a place of beauty does not create any works of art other than a drawing for a costume, which breaks cupid and makes her question herself and how she could have been so misled by Mrs. Danvers. If you change the spelling by one letter of Mrs. Danvers you get DANGER. She is protecting Rebecca. She is the sociopath part of Rebecca, the one that ultimately destroys the house. She took care of her since she was a child.

If we were to think about a sociopath, in order to survive they had to protect themselves. They had to have a Mrs. Danvers, in their personality that also keeps them from being able to get help. Rebecca is right, according to Mrs. Danvers. Her attitudes towards men is correct and she is to be worshipped.

I still think that the second wife is the innocent child...that every child is. Rebecca is the damaged child. The one that was either physically or emotionally abused by her parents. Her parents are mirrored in Maxim sever and then charming personality and Mrs. Danvers helpful and cunning mother type. (hide spoiler)]

I have rethinking this book and wonder if (view spoiler)[
all the main characters are sociopaths? I read a review about the narator in that she did not act with the emotion that you would expect when someone tells you that they killed their first wife in cold blood and felt self righteous for it. Well in reading what a sociopath was one of the traits is not reacting to something emotionally the way a normal person would.


Does anyone want to comment on this aspect?

Also Maxim is a sociopath. The way he takes the narrator to a precipice and she comments that she didn't think he was quite right. Let me find the quote.

“He had the face of one who walks in his sleep, and for a wild moment the idea came to me that perhaps he was not normal, not altogether sane. There were people who had trances, I had surely heard of them, and they followed strange laws of which we could know nothing, they obeyed the tangled orders of their own sub-conscious minds. Perhaps he was one of them, and here we were within six feet of death.�
� Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

By the way Morocco means "Land of God". This is where she met Maxim. He gave her an ultimatum either Mrs ...or me.

"Either you go to America with Mrs. Van Hopper or you come home to Manderley with me."
"Do you mean you want a secretary or something?"
"No, I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool.�
� Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

Was marriage a paid companion? (hide spoiler)]

The more i think about this book the more layers of meaning I get. I started rereading this book and (view spoiler)[ and have decided that this book is an allegory. Rebecca is Maxim's mother. He killed her at "bay" but she has come back to haunt him. Man-der-ly is a family estate and everything there is his family's memories. She doesn't belong to this family. Of course because she is a wife from outside. When he tells her that he killed Rebecca, she can get behind that because she wante him to lover her not always be codependent with this mother. Mrs. Danvers is the exiled mother. She feels abandoned and takes her revenge...a scorched earth. But back to Rebecca, she didn't like men and she tried to be too familiar and to make him too much her little man. Max's father figuratively is the cousin. The scene of them riding the wild horses and she wanted the reins and threw him off. She hated men. (hide spoiler)]

Now the costume makes more sense (view spoiler)[ because she had the white wig on she looked like his mother Rebecca.

It could also possibly be an old order and new order story but i haven't thought about that angle long enough. (hide spoiler)]

I reread the book after ages and found so much more meaning and was able to appreciate the writing. Well developed characters and the differences well brought out, kept the reader thinking. Now I understand why it was a classic

Radhika wrote: "I reread the book after ages and found so much more meaning and was able to appreciate the writing. Well developed characters and the differences well brought out, kept the reader thinking. Now I u..."

I certainly agree with you. Daphne Du Maurier deserved piles of ribbons and trophies. I'd never read it before, but I'm glad I did. I loved how the minor characters had such distinct characterizations. Self-important Frith and bumbling Robert were an amusing pair. I also loved Beatrice and Frank so much. Beatrice is so direct and fierce and Frank is so...English.

I finished Rebecca at last ... It was good. Very well written.