#but it was the ‘30s and maxim was an almost a feudal lord in terms of importance

[cto10121]

Finished re-reading Rebecca and I have Observations(tm)

It’s so obvious upon rereading that Beatrice doesn’t like Rebecca, lol. She never says anything positive about her other than objective facts, forgets that Gran liked Rebecca, and has uncharacteristic patience with the narrator.

Maxim keeping cool while Favell brags about being Rebecca’s lover but losing it when Favell merely insinuates the narrator finding a sympathetic “arm” with Frank is so revealing.

Also, the fact that it took Maxim so long (literally years) to confront Rebecca about her infidelities—practically only doing it when she took lovers at the boathouse in Manderley—says a lot. Maxim really did not give two shits about her.

Mrs. Danvers practically raising Rebecca (per Favell) and being with her from when Rebecca was at least 12-years-old really changed my perspective on their relationship. Less of a flying monkey to a narcissist and more of a mother/companion figure. The way she worried about Rebecca not returning home and staying up was especially mother-like. On the other hand, we don’t quite know how old Danvers is compared to Rebecca. It could be a case of younger servant / older madam, but Danvers does read as older by a lot.

Otoh, you could make a case that Danvers/Rebecca is a parallel to The Narrator/Maxim, both with servant/master overtones. The narrator does liken her love for Maxim as that of a schoolboy over an upper form and that Maxim is “father and brother and everything” to her. Du Maurier may be depicting (eroticized?) class dynamics.

Rebecca’s infidelity is made into such a big deal (‘30s after all) but Du Maurier definitely wrote abusive signs: Rebecca flogging a dead horse with a whip, her threatening to send Ben to an asylum, her mocking the servants behind their back chief among them. She reads as a female Iago—an excellent liar and manipulator expert at masking and mirroring people. It makes all the Rebecca defenders look really obstuse

The narrator believes that Colonel Julyan knows the truth, but I don’t see how he would. Rebecca committing suicide after a cancer diagnosis would be in character—Mrs. Danvers said that Rebecca had a horror of sickness and would have wanted to be quick about it. He may have had his suspicions aroused when Maxim punched Favell, but honestly, who wouldn’t? Either way, Julyan opted to protect Maxim. It also makes that awful Beauman sequel about his knowing and liking Rebecca all the more stupid.

Surprise, surprise, but I felt for Mrs. Danvers and even Favell at parts, particularly Mrs. Danvers crying and Favell shaken after learning about Rebecca’s diagnosis. But it’s clear they are awful people and so of course they’d like her, lol. It’s telegraphed that Mrs. Danvers would have been 100% okay with the narrator if the narrator had been another Rebecca clone and/or wasn’t such a pushover. Curiously enough Favell was still hopeful to get Maxim even after the cancer revelation…but we never learn how.

On Maxim’s love for/not love for the narrator: The narrator really is unreliable in the sense that everything is colored by her insecurity and her crippling shyness. She takes everything personally—every slight lands like a blow to a youth and all that. How much is Maxim truly being coldly callous—and how much is he genuinely panicked and triggered by the memories of Rebecca’s abuse?

I think a good example of the above is the narrator feeling slighted that Maxim set her up in the renovated east wing suite with the rose garden (usually for bachelor guests) when the original marital suite (the “best” and most beautiful rooms per Danvers) were in the west wing with the sea…only for Maxim to come in and cheerfully say he always loved the east wing suite with the rose garden and it was a shame that it was wasted as a guest room. Homeboy wanted his new bride to be in the rooms he loved and not the ones he was forced to share with Rebecca…aw

And then there is Maxim easily confessing the truth to the narrator and admitting he almost confessed earlier. Weirdly enough, I do believe him—but what a horrible risk! What if she turned against him, feared him, ceased to love him? Denounce him? Maxim knew her so little before they married, and yet he didn’t seem to fear any of these things. Curiously enough, he doesn’t even ask the narrator to help him, either directly or indirectly, and even seemed resigned to his fate. Was he that entitled, to take it all for granted, that stupid…that in love?

Usually I dislike typically the (typically) Christian theme of innocence/naïveté>>>>wordliness/just not being a clueless idiot. I think it works better here though as a basic but non-abusive>>>>beautiful but abusive type type of thematic messaging. Both the narrator and Maxim struggle to move on past their trauma, for want of a better word (the narrator as an orphan under that awful degrading Mrs. Van Hopper and Maxim with all the shit Rebecca put him through). To a certain extent they’ve internalized these survival instincts as mere habit. The narrator’s crippling insecurities follow her as a wife and Maxim doesn’t even think to change Manderley from Rebecca’s influence, renovating only the east wing suite. It took Rebecca returning, so to speak, for them to face their hang-ups squarely. The narrator realized just how much her insecurities have blinded her to the truth and made her unhappy and Maxim gained a true ally.