Characters: The protagonist Don't know her name
Lower middle class --- social class is super important
Shy, quiet
Paid companion of Mrs. Van Hopper//servant vibes (common for young woman to travel with old one)
She will meet and old wealthy man Maxim De Winter in Monte Carlo
Max De Winter
Rebecca
Mrs Danvers
Jack Favel
Rebeccas cousin
Lacks honour/ integrity
not to be trusted
Alcoholic
Rebeccas lover...
Frank Crawly
Max's overseer (manager of Manderley)
Kind
Devoted to Manderley and Max
Immediately likes narrator (not romantic)
Summary
Narrator is dreaming she was a ghost and she is wandering through the ruins of Manderley. when she awakes she is startled and she vows not to tell anybody about the dream except for her husband possibly (husband unknown) her and her husband are travelling through Europe, trying to avoid everyone they know, the only thing we know about the couple is that they have been through a great deal of suffering, its something to do with the ruins of Manderley, we get bits and pieces of information (meals, jasper the dog, what happened to Favle and Danvers) we also learn that danvers was always comparing the narrator to someone named Rebecca and then at some point our protagonist turns her thoughts to her younger self and the real story begins being told in the form of a flashback. it was common in those days for older women to travel with younger women and Davers pays narrator to follow her and travel with her in Europe. during this they see a good looking guy (max) and danvers points at him and says he is goodlooking and she invites him to have tea with them. Vanhopper is uncouth and Max walks off and it really embarasses the narrator while vanhopper is trying to set them up togheter and max is tired of ms vanhopper so he is rude back but he apologizes in a letter. the next day vanhopper is ill so the protagonist has the day off and she runs into Max who invites her to lunch and they get along well and he is very interested in her and they take a drive along the coast later on as they are driving along the coast they get out and max lookes troubled thinking about something and when they keep driving narrator is perplexed and all of a sudden the narrator notices a book of poetry in the car she takes it and she looked through them and she stumbles upon an inscription which says to max from rebecca and she remembers omg vanhopper told me about a rebecca who drowned on a coast and she made the connections in her head and max gives her the book as a gift.
the protagonist is ambivolent about the relationship between her and mr dewinter because he brings her to the place his wife drowned in the sea, vanhopper doesnt suspec anything between them.
dewinter sees the narrator as her being forced to be with vanhopper but she doesnt want to and she nothing like her, hes used to be around people like vanhopper and its refreshing to be around someone like the narrator, shes like his dead wife. he stayed in montecarlo to be with her "you make me feel alive again"
physical vs. emotional ghosts = eerie, supernatural, strange its haunting people mentally (rebecca) d
shes being told she has to leave but shes in love and she has an INTERNAL CONFLICT so she goes to max and shes gonna tell him goodbye
hes excited to see her, he invites her to breakfast they have a wonderful time toghetehr and he asks her to marry him 😱 (spoiler she said yes)
vanhopper is mad lol her companion ditched her
they go to honeymoon and then manderley but he does extensive renovation on the house to change the house of where rebecca and him soent time toghether so she wouldnt feel threatened and its almost brand new and shes overwhelmed, the house is so big and so many servants and shes not used to it because she was the server girl once now the tables have turned.
butler "frith" and cockerspaniels
she feels hes on a distant side emotionally because hes been married before, why is he distant? does he still move rebecca? how do you "kill" someone that exists in your husbands memory, shes thinking hes thinking about rebecca
oedipal complex - the "mother" (rebecca) dies and the "father" (max) and the "daughter" (narrator) and so the narrator feels she needs to fight for max with rebecca even tho shes dead. she takes the framework of this greek tragedy and is making it her own.
book like in 2 parts , 10 chapters = first part
1st part is the joung woman, no name, lack confidence. imagines herself looking into the see and seeing in the horizon a beautiful island. nd theres a bridge to the other side. the bridge is max that brings her into the other world . she trusts in max this part. shes yearning in insecurities, and when max likes her she falls in love with him and its not enough bc he still loves rebecca.
in the second part they get married and she moves to manderley she gets spoiled and she imagines herself in that perfect world as mistress of manderley. but theres a lot of peroblems the first is when they go to manderly and the servers are acting weird to her. she will encounter many peole that cause her problems like frank, beatrice and ben. beatrice is the sister of max and shes really encouraging shes like dont let people take advantage of u stand upto danvers ur the mistress of the house have confidence in urself shes pushing her and one day the narrator ison a walk and she meets frank the neighbour and they talk abt the boats and he starts talking about the boat rebecca used to ride and he reveals how she died. he really trusts her. then she opens up to him about how insicure she is about rebecca and how she cant live up to her and hes really mad because he doesnt say that everyone loves rebecca and when she puts herseldown he gets mad at her and stops the conversation. we dont know how rebecca died in the story yet. she walks into ben who tells her even more lore about rebecca and he says " shesg gone in the sea" "she wont come back no more" and then says "i never said anything did i" suspense :0 all the people she meets really like her and are tryin to protect her from the others who want to bring her down. theres also a couple who rarely visited manderley when rebecca was alive and once rebecca is replaced with te narrator they go over constantly.
manderley represents the narrator, she gets lost in herself like she gets lost in her own self. the author is saying that you find yourself inside of you.
grounding your ideas in the test explain why our protagonist remains nameless. does her namelessness add or take away from our understanding of her and thestory in any significant way?
in the book, the narrator remains nameless to relate better to manderley, this follows the theory that she and manderley are connected in a philosophical way, it shows how she gets lostv in herself and how she is not herself at manderley and that she is nt comfortable in her own skin and giving her a name would give her a sense of identity and she doesnt have that yet because she is on a journey of self discovery.
maxim agrees for a formal big ball to happen and this is a big deal for the narrator because this means that she will take care of everyone else and ms danvers takes a dress and says to her wouldnt u look good in that and she says she knows someone that can make it for her in london and its hung up in a STAIRWELL (IMPORTANT?) and the narrator gets really excited and she gets a good dress reccomendation of a dress for a big occasion by someone who doesnt like her. and they both promise to keep the costume a secret and the crowd is astonished because shes wearing rebeccas dress :0 maxim got so mad and ordered her upstairs because she was wearing the last dress rebecca was wearing and she got tricked by ms danvers. maxim leaves and the narrator cries all night waiting for him to return but he doesnt and shes lowkey sad and she tells frank that she thinks that max never loved her like he loved rebecca and hes like no dont think that way and ms danvers is dead staring at her from a window and she sees and runs into the house and confronts danvers 😱 no way . and danvers says "all the men in town loved rebecca and she just kinda had fun with that and it was just ah game for her and people dont love u like they loved her and you should just go. he doesnt love you anyways" then they get close to a window and and danvers tell her to jump and die 🤨 (what the hell?) the author will give u the impression that she wants to jump and die but then theres a loud noise and then they found out theres the ship that rebecca died in 😱 its been found and were told that maxim takes her out to the boat, shoots her and the boat sinks and thats how rebecca died but maybe its not true ! THE WEATHER IN GHOTHIC NOVELS TENDS TO REFLECT THE PHSYCHOLOGICAL STATE OF THE CHARACHTERS ( PATHETIC FALLECY)! maxim confesses to the protagonist that his marrige was a shm and she had many lovers in the boathouse and also he kills her there and then shes preggo and says max its not yours lol he also says he wanted to save the marrige but not because not he loved her but because he wanted to save the family rep and name the plot twists are crazy if u symphatize with max u will realize that he never loved rebecca and then u see that the narator loves the narrator much more and at 21 it gets CRAYZAYYY 😱 and then we found out that max was asked by the popo if the girl was rebecca and he said no and now theyr after him because they found rebecca and now hes a suspect because of that. and does he get away with it????? wait, they take the body and they think its rebeccas and their like omg what this is rebecca but theres no bullets in the skeleton and so u cant prove that she was shotted and then theres a trial and the man who made the boat and he was like yo i found 3 holes in the boat and so it was totally sunk on purpose and either she killed herself, he killed her and sunk the boat or he locked her in a room and then sunk the boat (he tots sold him out) the narrator fainted. the bury guy didnt know what to write on cause of death and he puts suicide 🤨 . frank goes to the narrator very very drunk and he has a big boy problem with the story and he knows something is wrong. we dont know if frank slept with rebecca or no and then we dont know what hes talking about and u cant even rpove she was preggo. now we know if she was preggo she sould have seen a doctor to know if she was actually pregnant and he says this while drunk and so they look at her doctor and he says yup i treated her but her name wasnt dewinter but her name was danvers??? 😱 😱 😱 WHATTT AND SHE HAD A MALFORMED UTERUS AND SHE COULDNT HAVE BEEN PREGNAT?? AND SHE HAD A FATAL DISEASE AND ONLY HAD A FEW MONTHS TO LIVE???????????? and it gets better, maxim and the narrator go back to manderley and she falls asleep because she believe maxim loves her and not rebeccabut as shes sleeping she has a dream is that their approaching manderley and its beautiful and in the dream she looks at herself in the mirror and shes startled because shes not herself but REBECCA NO WAY AND MAXIM HAS A ROPE AROUND HIS NECK???? she wakes up and their up to manderley and the scene is beautiful but they see manderley and its burning and frif nforms maxim that danvers has dissappeared. denouement all the different parts of the story are all going in different parts and dont make sense on their own and then they come toghether and make sense , this is like why the narrator makes all the points clear and then burn manderley and this is to show that she earases rebecca from the story and sets both her and rebecca free by taking off rebecca from their life and now they can live their life without rebecca in their conscience but theres other ways to represent the points in this way .
what does the dream at the end of the book symbolize?
the irony is that since shes never seen herself in a mirror the whole novel and she has been trying to escape rebecca but she looks in a mirror and sees herself as rebecca and then they see rebeccas memory be burned down with manderley and maybe wht danvers said about killing herself to the narrator moves into the dream to max witht eh rope around his neck.
the book ands and begins in a dream so she makes a balance and if she does that successfully does she really need to