What
an engaging, intriguing novel!! Be warned, the first chapter is slow one, and is full of details that are
meaningless to the reader without knowing the back story. There is n incredible
mood set in this chapter though, one of incredible relief infused with
melancholy. If nothing else, this peculiar mod draws the reader in, making one
wonder what incredible events led to it. And if the reader has the heart and
the will to remember that the time of tea is significant, and that the flowers
lining the driveway are hydrangeas, while the garden is full of rhododendrons,
you will learn an important trait of our heroine – moments are meaningful.
Things that we would consider insignificant are the things that touch her. Follow
this theme through the book and you will find that it is both a weakness and an
incredible blessing.
The main character of the novel is almost nameless –
some will tell you she is, but she does speak her own name in the book, just
once. Wikipedia.org, sparknotes.com, and other, usually accurate references
seem not to know her name, which was surprising to me. The fact that Rebecca is
dominant and the heroine subservient coincides well with her supposed lack of a
name. At the costume ball our heroine tells the drummer to announce her
entrance using her full name: Caroline de Winter. I edited the Wikipedia page to
reflect that. Perhaps the reason so many people miss it is because it is
similar to the name of her maid, and at an exciting juncture in the book, it
can be glossed over.
The most famous quote from "Rebecca" comes from our heroine herself: “If only there could be an
invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it
never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked,
and it would be like living the moment all over again.” She is speaking to
Maxim, whose first wife died, and he responds by speaking of demons that might
pop out of his bottles, demons he is trying to forget. The heroine doesn’t know
how to respond, but by the end of "Rebecca"
she has found a few demons of her own, and understands Maxim better.
(Semi-spoiler alert, the following paragraph
only. I’m giving away the occurrence of an event, but no other details. If you
read this paragraph you will still be surprised and shocked when it happens in
the book.)
How is it that I found
myself, a person of strict morals, hoping that someone would get away with
murder? In my mind I begged and pleaded with the author that everything would
work out in this character’s favor, despite its seeming impossibility and despite
the fact that it is morally wrong to commit murder. Why? How did Daphne du Maruier
weave a web of sympathy so strong that I felt I understood this character, and
that they should get out of the consequences of their actions? As I was
reading, in the back of my mind I knew that she/ he should be punished, but
whenever anyone is jailed for life or given the death penalty, it affects many
people beside themselves. Part of me was hoping this character would get off scot-free just for the happiness of those in contact with him/her.
One
moral I gleaned from this novel was that of the negativity and uselessness of
vain imaginations. Caroline spends endless hours imagining that other people
think things they do not, respect people they do not, love people they do not,
want things they do not, and disrespect her when they do not. Some of her
imaginings are accurate, but most are in vain, and do nothing but debilitate
her.
Finally, a fun side note – "Rebecca"
has many similarities with "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte, but most of them are spoilers so
I’ll allow you to discover them on their own.
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