Sherrill’s Comments: When I was going through my awkward and invisible stage, I became completely sucked in by Rebecca, the story of a wallflower who, once she is able to muster up her dignity and develop a little confidence triumphs over the perfect woman. Now, if you haven’t read Rebecca, the most curious thing about the story is that the narrator, the main character in the book is so insecure, so overshadowed by the powerful person of Rebecca, her husband’s former wife, that she never reveals her name. “The girl” who has no family, no friends, and no life quickly seizes the chance to marry a man with a title, a position, an estate, and selfhood. She spends the first year of her marriage trying desperately to please him and to live up to her notion of how the mistress of Manderley ought to behave. “The girl”, like me, had no one to confide her anxieties and feelings of ineptness. And also like me, she tried her best, but no matter what she did, she always ended up making major social blunders.
When I first read Rebecca, I thought the novel ended happily. However, I overlooked the airless, lifeless marriage the girl ended up with and the fact that we never learn her name. Mrs. Danvers is the omnipresent, omniscient, and omnivorous head servant who floats down the hallway and speaks of Rebecca as if she were Mother Mary. She strictly labels the wives, one good and one bad according to her own perceptions. Perhaps Du Maurier was trying to say to us that society is somewhat like that. When women’s choices are limited to society’s constricted vision of the good and the bad, there are no happy endings. We have to come to terms with our whole selves embracing both the good and the bad. Only then will we find ourselves comfortable occupying the Manderleys of our own lives. Check Status at GPL
When I first read Rebecca, I thought the novel ended happily. However, I overlooked the airless, lifeless marriage the girl ended up with and the fact that we never learn her name. Mrs. Danvers is the omnipresent, omniscient, and omnivorous head servant who floats down the hallway and speaks of Rebecca as if she were Mother Mary. She strictly labels the wives, one good and one bad according to her own perceptions. Perhaps Du Maurier was trying to say to us that society is somewhat like that. When women’s choices are limited to society’s constricted vision of the good and the bad, there are no happy endings. We have to come to terms with our whole selves embracing both the good and the bad. Only then will we find ourselves comfortable occupying the Manderleys of our own lives. Check Status at GPL
