“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”
One of the most famous opening lines in literature: ambiguous, mysterious, and dreamy. Rebecca is a Gothic novel by Daphne du Maurier, originally published in 1938. The shy, awkward, and imaginative narrator, who remains unnamed throughout the novel, is a young woman whose life has taken a sudden turn when she encounters, through Maximilian de Winter, an attractive, rich, and well-mannered widower, owner of the famous Manderley house. Less than a month later, the schoolgirl-like narrator is accompanying Maxim de Winter back to Manderley, ornate and shadowy, with traces everywhere of Maxim’s first wife, Rebecca.
Rebecca is told through an anxious voice of a young woman eager to attain the idealistic image of Rebecca: beautiful, spirited, and clever. Yet the more blunders the narrator makes, the more shadows she stumbles upon, until one incident reveals the lies she’s been told. The young woman’s mistakes and struggles with the duties as the mistress of Manderley are raw and piteous, but the haunting shades of something unknown lurks in every corner, drawing the reader further into the story with every sentence. Rebecca is a masterpiece, perfectly balancing its ghostlike dreaminess with real and human qualities: jealousy, love, and evil.
Published through the Teen Review Board of the Hamilton Public Library
Jul 10, 2019
Link: https://hpl.bibliocommons.com/item/ugc/463164125?page=1&ugc_id=1447075768
