Daphne du Maurier and the art of the subtle literary device

A spoiler-free review of REBECCA, in case you haven't read it yet.

Photo by link bekka on Unsplash (cropped)

Daphne du Maurier’s gothic bestseller Rebecca is nearly a hundred years old, and has held an important place in American culture (notably immortalized in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film, as well as the new Netflix adaptation) but despite its ubiquity in literary circles, somehow I managed to be surprised by its twists and turns. I believe in paying it forward, so this review will be spoiler-free! I pledge to not reveal anything to you that you wouldn’t be able to find for yourself on the back cover of your library’s paperback.

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” the novel begins. It’s one of the most famous opening lines in modern literature, perhaps rivaling even, “It is a truth universally acknowledged…” or, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit,” and even more well-known, perhaps, than the iconic “This is George. He was a good little monkey, but he was always curious.”

Rebecca’s opening is deliberately vague. We follow the protagonist through a melancholy dream that hints at lost beauty and crushed happiness. But we never quite learn what it is that she is mourning, why she is no longer at the mystical Manderley, or what Gothic horror is haunting her memory.

Personally? I thought the first chapter dragged a bit.

But as the story moves into action — characters, conversations, conniving curmudgeonly old ladies communicating catty confidences at the breakfast table of a 1930s Monte Carlo hotel — the plot began to sweep me along with the relentless intrigue for which the book is famous.

The young protagonist, bored and ignored as the companion of a middle-aged social climber vacationing in southern France, catches the eye of the handsome and charismatic recent widower, Maximilian de Winter. (What a name!) Though her naïve, almost Mary-Sue-esque demeanor seems unlikely to attract a man of his worldliness, suavity, and twenty-years-beyond-her-age, he proposes marriage after a matter of weeks. (The reader may well raise an eyebrow. I sure did. But it all began to click later on. Just wait for it.)

A brief marriage ceremony, luxurious honeymoon, and increasingly morose trip back to England later, the newlywed de Winters return to Maxim’s beautiful estate, Manderley, but all is not bliss. The shadow of the first Mrs. de Winter hangs ominously over Manderley, and the servants — especially the grim, ghoulish old housekeeper — seem unwilling to accept a usurper of the late Rebecca de Winter’s place as lady of the manor. Rebecca’s ghostly presence seems to haunt the mansion and grounds, and all is not well at Manderley.

I promise, none of this should spoil the story for you. It’s the premise! It’s emblazoned on the back!

I won’t go much further for now. I’ll only say that the Boston Herald’s description of “the relentlessness of a vivid nightmare” (thanks, back cover! again!) is an excellent one.

Daphne du Maurier, called “one of the great shapers of popular culture and the modern imagination” (wow, William Morrow Paperbacks, you’re basically writing this review for me!) is a master of evocative prose. The sinister tone of this novel is unparalleled, and the plot twists that come later are effective largely because of the understated way in which they are communicated to the reader. Du Maurier doesn’t dabble in graphic description or salacious happenings; she lets the reader fill in the gaps with imagination, slowly and subtly, allowing the story to insinuate its way into your subconscious.

I read this book for the first time two years ago. I’m still thinking about it.

But you’re probably reading this review wondering why I’ve buried the lede so deep.

Let’s go back to the well-known opening line. “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” It’s there, in the first sentence: the cunning little twist du Maurier gave to her first-person narrator. “I” tells the whole story of Maxim and Rebecca and Mrs. Danvers and Beatrice and Giles and Mrs. Van Hopper… but she never identifies herself. We never learn her name. She is called “darling” by her new husband, and “Mrs. de Winter” by the servants, and nothing more familiar is ever mentioned.

Perhaps that is a spoiler, but it needn’t be. There is no great reveal of any symbolism behind the narrator’s lack of a first name. Indeed, du Maurier herself wrote in The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories that, “I could not think of one, and it became a challenge in technique, the easier because I was writing in the first person.”

When I thought about other iconic first lines to contrast with Rebecca’s, Moby-Dick by Herman Melville came to mind. “Call me Ishmael,” the storyteller writes, similarly placing himself as the first-person narrator of his whale of a tale. (I’m sorry. I had to.) Yet from the beginning, Moby-Dick’s Ishmael lets us know who he is and how he wishes to be known. The second Mrs. de Winter, in contrast, has no identity in and of herself. She is merely the companion of Mrs. van Hopper, then the wife of Maxim de Winter, and her agency — and character — are halted and hobbled by the foreboding memory of Rebecca, her predecessor.

Daphne du Maurier may have merely been giving herself an exercise in clever technique, but she managed to use that small element to enhance her story of suspense that I will not forget for a long time. I don’t think you will, either.

Photo by Alex Diaz on Unsplash

You might also enjoy my review of Natural Disaster, which employs a similar technique, at The Pomegranate.

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