Rebecca (novel)

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Rebecca is a 1938 novel by the English writer Daphne du Maurier . As soon as it was published, it was, to du Maurier's own surprise, made into a great success and shortly afterwards just as successfully filmed by Alfred Hitchcock . Rebecca is one of du Maurier's best and most popular works. The novel contains elements of a horror novel , a coming-of-age novel , a psychological novel and a crime novel .

The book is about a young woman who gets to know the wealthy, widowed aristocrat Maxim de Winter as the companion of a rich American woman on the Côte d'Azur . They get married and he takes her with him to his country house in Manderley . There the young woman has to deal with the riddle of Maxim's first wife, Rebecca, who allegedly died while sailing.

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prolog

The actual novel plot is preceded by a prologue (chapters 1 + 2) in which the nameless first-person narrator, who is approaching middle age at this point in time, tells of how she and her husband are currently in a modest hotel in a southern country stops. The opening sentence of the novel - "Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again." - is one of the most famous in literary history. The Manderley Manor no longer exists; After a serious crisis in their marriage, the narrator and her husband have found themselves in what appeared to be an undemanding, but livable and fulfilling everyday life.

Main storyline

Chapters 3–15. In a hotel in Monte Carlo , the narrator, who is employed as a partner , meets the much older Maxim de Winter, who is initially aloof, but is increasingly interested in the young woman. The two meet without the knowledge of their employer. After a few weeks, the American lady would like to return to New York . Maxim makes the narrator a marriage proposal , which she accepts. After their honeymoon, the young couple went to Manderley, the property of Maxim de Winters. The strange housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, awaits them there . The narrator tries to settle in with Manderley, but feels increasingly restless inside. She compares herself to Rebecca at every opportunity. Maxim's steward Frank Crawley tells her about Rebecca's death, about which nobody in Manderley wants to speak openly. Rebecca went out to sea on a stormy evening with her sailing boat “Je reviens” and never returned. Some time later, a water corpse was washed ashore, which Maxim identified as Rebecca. The narrator finds a friend in the estate manager Frank Crawley. Maxim's sister Beatrice also approaches her benevolently. Mrs. Danvers, however, is becoming increasingly hostile.

Chapters 16-18. A highlight of the story is the annual masked ball , which is to take place again at the urging of the neighbors - after the one-year break caused by Rebecca's death. The narrator decides to surprise her husband and come up with a special disguise. Mrs. Danvers advises her to copy the dress of one of Maxim's ancestors, whose portrait hangs in the gallery. The narrator secretly has the dress and the matching wig delivered from London. As she goes down the stairs, everyone is horrified by the costume , and Maxim tells her to change immediately. Beatrice explains that Rebecca wore the same dress at the last masquerade ball. During the ball, Maxim does not speak a word to his wife. Even during the night and the next day, he does not show up with her. She assumes that the costume reminded him painfully of Rebecca. In desperation, she seeks Mrs. Danvers to confront her. In a touch of madness , Mrs. Danvers tries to get the protagonist to throw herself out the window in Rebecca's bedroom. The news of a ship in distress in Manderley Bay interrupts Mrs. Danvers and saves the narrator's life.

Chapters 19-21. While recovering the ship, divers find a wreck with a corpse on board. This time the dead person is clearly identified as Rebecca. Maxim now tells his wife the true story of his first marriage. He reports that he never loved Rebecca but hated it. She looked charming and cast a spell on people, but inside she was cruel, callous and depraved, which was revealed to Maxim only a few days after the wedding. To keep up appearances, he made a deal with Rebecca: she would make Manderley shine and give herself the look of a perfect married couple. In fact, however, Rebecca often traveled to London for long periods of time to indulge in her vices and, among other things, had an intimate relationship with her cousin Jack Favell. In time she brought her lovers to the boathouse in Manderley as well. On the evening of her death, Maxim followed her to the boathouse and confronted her. Rebecca indicated that she could be pregnant by another man, that the child would be seen as Maxim, grow up on Manderley and inherit it one day. Maxim shot his wife, brought her body to the cabin of their sailing boat and sank the boat in the bay.

Chapters 22-27. After the body is found, a judicial investigation should clarify the course of Rebecca's death. The boat builder states that the boat was deliberately made to sink. The court then assumes a suicide . Jack Favell accuses Maxim of murdering Rebecca and tries to blackmail him . It turns out that Rebecca was seeing a doctor in London the day before her death . She had advanced cancer and would have died soon. In addition, she could not have children. The court found the suicide theory confirmed and closed the investigation. Maxim and the narrator want to return to Manderley. They finally feel free of the memory of Rebecca and want to start a new life together on Manderley. From Frank they learn that Mrs. Danvers has disappeared. Thereupon Maxim sneaks a premonition and they leave immediately. Shortly before the country estate, they notice that the sky has turned red. At first the narrator believes it is the dawn, but both have to realize that it is the reflection of a fire that they see: Manderley is burning.

characters

The first-person narrator

The first-person narrator and second Mrs. de Winter is a young Englishwoman. At no point in the novel does the reader find out her name, only that it is unusual and is usually misspelled. Her father was an extraordinary person whom she loved very much; however, he died early. At the start of the plot, the narrator is an orphan. Since she has no special skills other than a certain talent for drawing, she is dependent on the income that she receives as a partner of the wealthy American Mrs. Van Hopper. She is 21 years old, and she describes in great detail how, as an adolescent , she goes through all the torments of shyness , awkwardness and shame - appropriate for her age . As the plot progresses, she realizes that her youthful insecurity has serious consequences for her marriage: instead of realizing what is actually going on with Maxim, she idiosyncratically misinterprets a large part of the signals she receives from her surroundings as confirmation of her supposed inadequacy . As a result, it remains hidden from her, almost to the end, that Rebecca was neither wonderful nor was she loved by Maxim. Only when she learns the truth does she overcome her handicap and quickly mature into a woman who meets her husband on an equal footing.

Maxim de Winter

Maxim de Winter, 45 years old, is the very rich heir to the (fictional) manor Manderley on the English coast. At first glance he is the epitome of an English gentleman . Maxim is cultured, intelligent, and obsessed with the need to keep form and make the right impression in public. Less than a year before he met the narrator, he lost his first wife, Rebecca. Everyone believes that he took this loss tragically and never got over it. Gradually, however, it turns out that behind the public Maxim hides a second, less ideal Maxim, who can also be very angry and quick-tempered. Maxim did not love Rebecca, he hated it; Nor did she die in a sailing accident: Maxim shot her after an argument and covered up the crime. The memories of the years of lying marriage and the terrible night he shot Rebecca haunt Maxim and almost made him a wreck. He smokes a chain and couldn't stand it in Manderley anymore. In Monte Carlo he meets the narrator who attracts him because she is very different from Rebecca: warm-hearted, authentic and morally upright.

Rebecca de Winter

Maxim's first wife was reportedly a paragon of charm, spirit, poise, and beauty. Frank Crawley admits: "she was the most beautiful creature I ever saw in my life." (“She was the most beautiful creature I've seen in my life.”) Just like Maxim, however, she too is deconstructed in the course of the novel: five days after the wedding, she revealed to her new husband what kind of person she really is :

“She was vicious, damnable, rotten through and through. We never loved each other, never had one moment of happiness together. Rebecca was incapable of love, of tenderness, of decency. She was not even normal. "

“She was vicious, hideous, rotten through and through. We never loved each other, never had a moment of happiness together. Rebecca was incapable of love, tenderness, decency. She wasn't even normal. "

- Daphne du Maurier : Rebecca

Rebecca has long since seen through Maxim, for whom maintaining social appearances is paramount, and thus has a firm grip on him. He would never risk divorce scandal. However, she promises to help him make Manderley a sensation in society.

The sentence “She wasn't even normal” inspired Alfred Hitchcock to suggest in his film adaptation that Rebecca had a lesbian sex appeal. Such references are absent in du Maurier's novel; Although Rebecca also charms women there (such as Maxim's brittle grandmother), it is only men who succumb to her sexually: Jack Favell, Frank Crawley and Maxim's brother-in-law Giles. Mrs. Danvers gives the narrator and thus the reader the most intimate insight into Rebecca's true personality:

“I remember her at sixteen getting up on one of her father's horses, a big brute of an animal too, that the groom said was too hot for her to ride. She stuck to him, all right. I can see her now, with her hair flying out behind her, slashing at him, drawing blood, digging the spurs into his side, and when she got off his back he was trembling all over, full of froth and blood. "That will teach him, won't it, Danny?" she said, and walked off to wash her hands as cool as you please. And that's how she went at life, when she grew up. "

“I remember when she was sixteen she got on one of her father's horses, a big cattle from a stallion that the groom said was too hot-blooded to let her ride him. But she stuck to it, good. I can still see her now, with her hair flowing, beating him until he was bleeding, digging spores into his flanks, and when she got off his back he was trembling all over, covered with foam and blood. "That'll teach him a lesson, won't it, Danny?" she said, and went off to wash her hands, as calmly as one can imagine. And that's how she approached life when she was growing up. "

- Daphne du Maurier : Rebecca

The only character in the plot who sees through Rebecca's sadistic nature from the start is Ben, the “ idiot ”: “'Tall and dark she was,' he said. 'She gave you the feeling of a snake.' ” (“ 'She was tall and dark [hairy]', he said. 'She gave you the feeling of a snake.' ")

Mrs. Danvers

Mrs. Danvers was Rebecca's nanny and when she got married she followed her to Manderley, where, as an aging woman dressed in black, she now runs the household. When Rebecca was still alive, she served them personally because other maids could not satisfy Rebecca. Mrs. Danvers is, in Maxim's words, an “extraordinary character”: extremely efficient, formal and controlled, cool to the point of lifelessness. Apparently there was only one passion in her life: she adored Rebecca, whose strength of will was unparalleled. Her admiration for Rebecca is not only obsessive, but borders on madness : not only does Mrs. Danvers keep Rebecca's bedroom meticulously tidy, as if she were still alive; in chapter 18 she implies that Rebecca is still present at Manderley.

For Mrs. Danvers it is simply inconceivable that Maxim could love a woman again after Rebecca. The narrator is intimidated by her coldness, although Mrs. Danvers is ultimately just an employee. Mrs. Danvers uses this to manipulate her; her intrigue with the ball costume amounts to further unsettling the young woman, who is plagued by feelings of inferiority, and ultimately driving her to suicide. Only when she realizes that Maxim did not love Rebecca does she dare to revolt (Chapter 21). Mrs. Danvers has long been under the illusion that her devotion to Rebecca was fully reciprocated by Rebecca. So she only learns in Chapter 25 that Rebecca went to a doctor without confiding in her.

Mrs. Van Hopper

Mrs. Van Hopper is a wealthy aging American whose daughter and grandchildren live in New York . She spends her summer in a luxury hotel in Monte Carlo; the narrator hired her as a partner. Mrs. Van Hopper is a loveless, thoroughly obnoxious person. B. expresses your cigarettes not in the ashtray, but in cosmetic pots or in the breakfast butter. In her vulgarity she forms a sharp contrast to the thoroughly distinguished Maxim de Winter. But worse, Mrs. Van Hopper also has marked narcissistic traits. The only thing that interests her in Monte Carlo are the VIPs who hang out here, and she doesn't shy away from any trick to get into their company. So the narrator is sent as bait.

Mrs. Van Hopper pays the narrator 90 pounds a year (today's equivalent: around 6,850 euros) and glosses over her bullying as an education, with serious consequences for the narrator's already battered self-esteem. Regardless of all her negative traits, Mrs. Van Hopper is also the first character to foresee with all clarity that the narrator in Manderley will not be in bed on roses.

shape

Rebecca as a horror novel

Although the novel was written many decades after the "classic" female English horror literature ( Ann Radcliffe , Mary Shelley , Charlotte Brontë ), it is also unanimously assigned to this genre in specialist literature on the history of literature. The typical elements of the Gothic Novel that appear in Rebecca include the frightening location of the plot (Manderley), the frightened and distraught characters, the association of ominous events with bad weather, the portrayal of Mrs. Danvers as a kind of nightmare figure and the Characterization of Rebecca's, who is not a real ghost , but in a figurative sense haunts and haunts the characters like a ghost.

intertextuality

Beyond the very obvious references to Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre , Rebecca contains very little explicit intertextuality . An exception is the quote from Francis Thompson's poem "I fled Him, down the nights, and down the days" in Chapter 4 .

History of origin

Daphne du Maurier developed the basis for the novel in 1937 in Alexandria , Egypt, where her husband was stationed as an officer for a summer. By this time she had already published two biographies and four novels, of which Jamaica Inn (1936) had been the most successful. The publisher, Gollancz , had paid an advance of £ 1,000, but du Maurier initially got stuck with the letter and discarded everything she had put on paper up to that point.

It was only after returning to England that du Maurier made rapid progress with writing. Most of the novel was written in Fowey , Cornwall , where her father, Gerald du Maurier , bought a former boathouse in 1926, which the family has since used as a holiday home ("Ferryside").

In April 1938 du Maurier submitted the finished manuscript to its editor, Norman Collins. The first edition was 20,000 copies; already in the first month had to be reprinted.

  • Du Maurier characterizes the book as a study of jealousy and names parallels to her own life. It was Du Maurier's intention to tell the story of a young woman, her older husband, in her beautiful house, which has been in his family for generations.
  • According to du Maurier's information, she processed in the book her memories of the Menabilly manor, her time in Cornwall and the relationship with her father Gerald du Maurier .

Suggestions and Similarities

Menabilly House in Fowey , Cornwall, around 1920

Three kilometers west of Fowey, where you Maurier wrote the novel, is the traditional Menabilly manor; According to the author, Manderley is partly inspired by this model.

The motif of the simple young woman who is chosen as bride by a nobleman, but initially becomes unhappy with him (“Cinderella Gone Wrong”), has also been found in the Griseldis fabric since the Renaissance .

Du Maurier's biographer Margaret Forster has suggested that the character of Rebecca was inspired by Jeannette ("Jan") Louisa Ricardo, a member of London's high society who was briefly engaged in 1929 to du Maurier's later husband, Frederick "Tommy" Browning.

Possible bonds

Critics pointed out early on that the novel had similarities with Jane Eyre , a bestseller from the Victorian era . Both first-person narrators are very young - 19 or 21 years old, they are orphans, penniless, both are shy, consider themselves inconspicuous and try to stay afloat as educators or companions. The male protagonists , in both cases twice as old and very rich, both Byronic Heroes , who have a dark secret in them and who react unexpectedly quick-tempered and hurtful. In both novels there is a mansion with a mysterious, frightening aura: Manderley with the shadows of the first Mrs. de Winter and her former mate, the insane Mrs. Danvers, Thornfield Hall with the hidden resident, the protagonist's first insane wife. Both properties go up in flames in the end. Joan Fontaine , the leading actress in the 1940 film adaptation of Rebecca , also starred in the 1943 film adaptation of Jane Eyre .

There are also many parallels to Hedwig Courths-Mahler's novel Griseldis , published in 1917 , in which a cousin living in the house turns out to be the murderess of the fun-loving first wife who is still present in the house with her scent.

Shortly after the publication of Rebecca in Brazil several similarities with the novel A Sucessora by Carolina Nabuco were found and it was assumed that you Maurier must have read the novel. Du Maurier and her publisher denied that. In Nabuco's novel, too, the young wife suffers from the continued ubiquity of her deceased predecessor, Alice; in the place of Mrs. Danvers there is the governess Juliana, who had also ardently adored the deceased.

In 1944 Edwina L. MacDonald's attempt to prove that du Maurier copied her novel Blind Windows (1927) failed .

reception

  • The first edition had a circulation of 20,000 copies and was one of the three best-selling books of 1938. The critics could not share the enthusiasm of the audience.
  • The book has been published continuously for over 80 years and has been translated into 16 languages ​​so far [2015].
  • In psychosociology, the Rebecca myth is known, the name of which is derived from this novel. It describes the retrospective exaggeration of one of the predecessor in a love relationship, a previous superior or the like and the associated lack of recognition and appreciation of the immediate successor.
  • The protagonist Rebecca reads in Danielle Steel's novel Vanished . There are also other parallels in the book.
  • In contrast to numerous other writers, only the British crime writer PD James thought Rebecca was the author's worst work.
  • In his 1998 novel Sara, Stephen King pays homage to the introduction Rebecca , who in her dream transports the narrator back to an abandoned and wild Manderley.
  • Rebecca was the inspiration for Paige Harbison's 2012 novel New Girl .

Rebecca as a code book

The novel was supposed to be used as a code book in Operation Salaam and Kondor in World War II, but was not used because the Wehrmacht headquarters suspected that the code had been discovered.

However, this motif has been taken up repeatedly in the literature. For example, in Ken Follett's novel The Key to Rebecca, the German spy Alex Wolff uses a copy of Rebecca as a code. In Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient , it is said that the German spy Eppler has a copy of Rebecca with him as a code book.

Adaptations

Movies

The novel was filmed several times for cinema and television.

  • 1940: Directed by Alfred Hitchcock , the best-known and most successful adaptation was created in 1940 with the original title Rebecca , which won two Academy Awards, including in the Best Picture category .
  • 1964: Indian film adaptation with the title Kohra .
  • 1980: British film adaptation for television (miniseries) by the BBC with Joanna David as second Mrs. de Winter, Jeremy Brett as Maxim de Winter and Anna Massey as Mrs. Danvers.
  • 1997: British film adaptation for television with Emilia Fox as second Mrs. de Winter, Charles Dance as Maxim de Winter and Diana Rigg as Mrs. Danvers.
  • 2008: Indian film adaptation with the title Anamika with Minissha Lamba .
  • 2008: Italian film adaptation with the title Rebecca, la prima moglie , with Cristina Capotondi, Alessio Boni and Mariangela Melato , directed by Riccardo Milani

Radio plays

Four radio plays were also produced in Germany under the original title Rebecca :

Theater and musical

  • In 1939 du Maurier wrote the play of the same name, which had over 350 performances in London
  • In 1947 the Berlin Renaissance Theater performed a dramatized version of the novel under the title Rebekka, directed by Ernst Stahl-Nachbaur .
  • 1983: Rebecca , opera by Wilfred Josephs , premiered at Opera North in Leeds
  • 2006: Rebecca , musical by Sylvester Levay (text: Michael Kunze), world premiere by the United Bühnen Wien on September 28, 2006; German premiere on December 8, 2011 in the Palladium Theater Stuttgart , further performances in Korea, Hungary and Switzerland, among others

Sequels

  • A continuation of the novel - Rebecca's legacy - by Susan Hill , authorized by du Maurier's heirs, was not a success worth mentioning in 1993, despite extensive advertising efforts.
  • Even so, another authorized sequel was released in 2001. In Rebecca's Tale by Sally Beauman , four characters tell how they experienced Rebecca from their point of view.
  • The Other Rebecca from 1996 by Maureen Freely is a modernized version of the story.

Awards

  • In 1938 the novel won the National Book Award for most popular publication of the year.
  • In 2000, you received Maurier's novel as part of the Millennium celebrations the US Anthony Award for Best Mystery Novel and sat down opposite Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep ( The Big Sleep , 1939), Agatha Christie's Alibi ( The Murder of Roger Ackroyd , 1926 ), Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon ( The Maltese Falcon , 1930) and Dorothy L. Sayers riots in Oxford ( Gaudy Night , 1935) by.
  • On the list The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time by the British Crime Writers' Association is Rebecca 8th place on the list The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time of the Mystery Writers of America , Place 9. According to one of the BBC the 2003 survey About the most popular novel of all time, Rebecca ranked 12th on a list of 200 titles.

expenditure

  • Rebecca . London, Gollancz 1938.
  • Rebekah. Translated by Karin von Schaub. German first edition 1940.
  • Rebecca. Fretz & Wasmuth, Zurich 1940, a. a.
Then numerous German license issues
  • Rebecca . Novel. New complete translation from English by Brigitte Heinrich and Christel Dormagen. Suhrkamp Insel-Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-458-36134-3 .

literature

  • Avril Horner, Sue Zlosnik: The secrets of Manderley: Rebecca. In: Daphne du Maurier: writing, identity and the gothic imagination. Palgrave Macmillan, 1998, ISBN 0-312-21146-5 , pp. 99-127.
  • Matthew Dennison: How Daphne du Maurier wrote Rebecca. In: The Telegraph . April 19, 2008. (telegraph.co.uk)
  • Christian House: Daphne du Maurier always said her novel Rebecca was a study in jealousy. In: The Telegraph. August 17, 2013. (telegraph.co.uk)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The misterious Mrs. Danvers: Queer subtext in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca. Retrieved May 14, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Mrs. Van Hopper. Retrieved May 17, 2019 . Rebecca Character List. Retrieved May 17, 2019 .
  3. ^ The Qualification of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca as a Gothic Novel. Retrieved May 19, 2019 . Greg Buzwell: Daphne du Maurier and the Gothic tradition. Retrieved May 19, 2019 . Barbara C. Morden: Nightmares, mirrors and possession in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. Retrieved May 19, 2019 .
  4. ^ Marlene Iona Sort: The Silenced Voice of the Madwoman in the Attic. An Intertextual Analysis of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. 2016.
  5. ↑ Sex, jealousy and gender: Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca 80 years on. Retrieved May 19, 2019 .
  6. ^ A b Matthew Dennison: How Daphne du Maurier wrote Rebecca. In: The Telegraph. April 19, 2008, accessed May 11, 2019.
  7. ↑ Daphne du Maurier always said her novel Rebecca was a study in jealousy. Retrieved May 19, 2019 . A Cornish romance following in the footsteps of Daphne du Maurier. Retrieved May 19, 2019 .
  8. ↑ telegraph.co.uk
  9. ^ Time February 2, 1942, accessed May 11, 2019.
  10. ↑ a b Kate Kellaway: Daphne's unruly passions. Retrieved May 19, 2019 .
  11. ^ Rebecca de Winter and Jan Ricardo: Parallel Lives. Retrieved May 19, 2019 .
  12. ^ Stephanie S. Haddad: Echoes in Gothic Romance: Stylistic Similarities Between Jane Eyre and Rebecca. Retrieved July 16, 2015.
  13. ↑ time.com
  14. ↑ Carmen Posadas: What did she have that I don't have? Rebecca Syndrome or When the Ex-Wife Becomes a Nightmare. Heyne, 1995, ISBN 3-453-08147-1 .
  15. ↑ Pamela Andriotakis: The Real Spy's Story Reads Like Fiction and 40 Years Later Inspires a Best-Seller. In: People. Vol. 14, No. 24, December 15, 1980.
  16. ↑ Theater program
  17. ^ The Crown Crime Companion, "The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time Selected by the Mystery Writers of America". Annotated by Otto Penzler and compiled by Mickey Friedman New York. 1995, ISBN 0-517-88115-2 .
  18. ^ The Big Read ; Retrieved July 18, 2015.