Mrs Danvers tries to get the narrator to commit suicide by encouraging her to jump out of the window. Shortly after the ball, Mrs Danvers reveals her contempt for the narrator, believing she is trying to replace Rebecca, and reveals her deep, unhealthy obsession with the dead woman. When the narrator enters the hall and Maxim sees the dress, he angrily orders her to change. On her suggestion, the narrator wears a replica of the dress shown in a portrait of one of the house's former inhabitants, ignorant of the fact that Rebecca had worn the same costume to much acclaim shortly before her death.

In an attempt to please him, she revives the Manderley costume ball, a custom Rebecca had instated, with the help of Mrs Danvers. The narrator is soon convinced that Maxim regrets his impetuous decision to marry her and is still deeply in love with the seemingly perfect Rebecca. Cowed by Mrs Danvers' imposing manner and the other members of West Country society's unwavering reverence for Rebecca, the narrator becomes isolated. Whenever the narrator attempts to make changes at Manderley, Mrs Danvers describes how Rebecca ran it when she was alive. She continually attempts to undermine the narrator psychologically, subtly suggesting to her that she will never attain the beauty, urbanity, and charm her predecessor possessed. Mrs Danvers, the sinister housekeeper, was profoundly devoted to the first Mrs de Winter, Rebecca, who died in a sailing accident about a year before Maxim and the second Mrs de Winter met. After a fortnight of courtship, she agrees to marry him and, after the wedding and honeymoon, accompanies him to his mansion in Cornwall, the beautiful estate Manderley. While working as the companion to a rich American woman on holiday in Monte Carlo, the unnamed narrator, a naïve young woman in her early 20s, becomes acquainted with a wealthy Englishman, Maxim de Winter, a 42-year-old widower. The novel is remembered especially for the character Mrs Danvers, the West Country estate Manderley, and its opening line: 'Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.' The story is also a successful musical production. It has been adapted numerous times for stage and screen, including a 1939 play by du Maurier herself, the film Rebecca (1940), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and the 2020 remake directed by Ben Wheatley for Netflix. The novel depicts an unnamed young woman who impetuously marries a wealthy widower, before discovering that both he and his household are haunted by the memory of his late first wife, the title character.Ī bestseller which has never gone out of print, Rebecca sold 2.8 million copies between its publication in 19. Rebecca is a 1938 Gothic novel written by English author Daphne du Maurier.

Rebecca by daphne du maurier