What are we if not haunted by the past? This idea is central to the plot of Daphne du Marier’s classic, Rebecca. It is the story of a young, shy and nameless girl — we will call her the narrator — who meets a charming man named Max de Winter while in Monte Carlo. They fall in love, and soon after, they marry and move back to his large estate where the memories of Max’s mysterious first wife, Rebecca, haunt the narrator. Rebecca drowned the year before, but she is far from forgotten. According to everyone who knew her, Rebecca was a perfect woman and her death was a great tragedy.
Du Marier’s enthralling novel is the type of book that makes one regret finishing it for fear of never finding another as good. It forces the reader to keep reading as each chapter ends with a cliffhanger. Her writing style is extremely high-quality, as evident in the fact that even the smallest details bear great significance.
One example of this high-quality style is the fact that the narrator is never given a name, while the title of the book bears the name of Max’s late first wife. In addition, Rebecca is so rich with detail that the reader can vividly picture each character and scene.
The true beauty behind Rebecca, however, lies in that everyone can relate to the nameless narrator at some point, which may be the reason she is nameless. Everybody is haunted by something they don’t understand, or as our narrator says, “all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end.” Just as the second Mrs. de Winter is haunted by the memories of her predecessor, so are we all haunted by people we see as superior. It’s human nature to compare ourselves to those who came before us, and often, we see ourselves as the losers. However, Daphne du Maurier reminds us that in the case of seemingly-perfect people, there’s more than meets the eye.
@ChronyArts